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Welcome to “Amazing Thailand”, and yet another fascinating IIFA!

Arrival of the stars
Bangkok witnessed Bollywood biggies landing into the city to be a part of the most prestigious IIFA Awards 2008. Karan Johar, Riteish Deshmukh, David Dhawan, Katrina Kaif, Viveik Oberoi were among the first ones to put their foot in the city. The Bachchan family along with Kareena Kapoor joined arrived later.

Sarkar Raj Premiere gets overwhelming response
RGV’s Sarkar Raj Premiere kickstarted IIFA this year in Bangkok. The film got an overwhelming response from the audiences. The premiere had a “Green carpet” welcome to show concern towards the issue of Global Warming. A huge crowd packed the venue and the security had a tough time managing them when the Bachchan’s arrived for the Premiere at the Paragon Cineplex. Kareena Kapoor, Viveik Oberoi, Urmila Matondkar and Dia Mirza though present at Bangkok for IIFA, skipped the Premiere.

Music launch of Mission Istaanbul
IIFA awards 2008 became the platform for the music launch Apoorva Lakhia’s Mission Istaanbul. While the queen of soaps, Ekta Kapoor, who is the producer of the film, was missing from the event, her absence was filled in by her father, Jeetendra, who launched the music of Mission Istaanbul. The director along with the film’s star cast Viveik Oberoi, Zayed Khan, Shabbir Ahluwalia and Niketan Madhok interacted with the media. Viveik Oberoi also danced to the tunes of his famous numbers like ‘Aye Ganpat’ from Shootout At Lokhandwala.

Cast: Amitabh Bachchan, Abhishek Bachchan, Aishwarya Rai, Govind Namdeo, Tanisha Mukherjee, Victor Banerjee, Supriya Pathak

Direction: Ram Gopal Varma

Production: Nitin Chandrachud, Abhijit Ghatak, Praveen Nischol

Written by: Prashant Pandey , Ram Gopal Varma

With Sarkar, Ram Gopal Varma had precisely established the central characters, set the ambience, defined the aura and demarcated the genre. So in the follow-up he simply had to take the legend ahead while narrating a new episode. And to a decent degree he succeeds in carrying the legacy forward.

In the second installment, Sarkar aka Subhash Nagre (Amitabh Bachchan) takes a backseat as son Shankar Nagre (Abhishek Bachchan) takes hold of the family empire. An NRI industrialist Anita Ranjan (Aishwarya Rai) approaches the Nagre family with a power plant project to be set in the local lands of Maharashtra under Sarkar’s domain. After initial reluctance, Sarkar gives a go ahead to the venture which soon takes shape of a political conspiracy.

Ramu’s storytelling pattern is such that he initially builds up the drama and subsequently breaks down the politics behind the play. He effectively employs all the original techniques from the predecessor by making use of the same theme for the background score (Amar Mohile), caustic editing pattern (Amit Parmar, Nipun Gupta), sepia tone effect and erratic camera angles (Amit Roy).

But while adhering to the original, he occasionally, also sets up repetitiveness in the screenplay with similar setup and shot execution. For instance he sketches a group of negative forces absolutely analogous like the villain quartet from Sarkar with identical intentions to crumple the Nagre kingdom. Reprehensibly their caricature characterizations do not gel with the solemn temper of the film. Sayaji Shinde hams endlessly while Govind Namdeo and Upendra Limaye are consistently theatrical, appearing more as comic sidekicks.

To an extent, even the screenplay is moulded in the vein of the forerunner film when Shankar wages a political war against his opponents. But the treatment is twisted as Ramu reverses the roleplay of the father-son duo in this film in clear contrast to the format adopted in the earlier episode. While the father takes a backseat in the initial reels giving authority to son, he grabs charge of the proceedings in the concluding portions.

Like in Sarkar, Ramu sharply balances the role runtime of both the father and the son justifying the collective presence of Amitabh Bachchan and Abhishek Bachchan. But he simultaneously swaps their zones of prominence thereby bringing a variation in their contribution. Despite drama being the highlight, the texture is subtle throughout.

From a political war, the film intermittently shifts track to a regular revenge drama till it arrives to a volatile climax that forms a highlight of the enterprise, escalating the entire graph. Sarkar Raj clearly gains major marks for its clever culmination, which was so much lacking from recent RGV products. The considerately and crisply penned dialogues by Prashant Pandey add a lot of insight to the scenes and depth to the characterizations.

From the cast, Aishwarya Rai plays a mere spectator to the scenes than a participant to the politics. She is her usual self and her act doesn’t seem to be sculpted by the RGV touch. The other two Bachchans have exhaustive scope and completely submit to Ramu’s visualization.

Amitabh and Abhishek Bachchan, once again, employ the intensity of their piercing eyes to give sight to Ram Gopal Varma’s distinctive vision.

Verdict: Sarkar Raj was widely heralded as an homage to the Godfather trilogy, though director Ram Gopal Varma refutes comparisons, describing Sarkar Raj as “the new adventures of the Nagare family…. showcasing the aura of power.”

Biography of Shilpa Shetty :

Hot Bollywood bombshell Shilpa Shetty was born on June 8, 1975 to Surendra and Sunanda Shetty in the Southern Indian state of Karnataka. Her mother Sunanda was a famous model during her time. Shilpa’s native language is Tulu and she can also fluently speak Hindi, Marathi, Gujrati, Tamil, French and English. She attended St Anthony Girls’ High School in Chembur and then went to Podar College. She was the captain of the school baseball team and has earned a black belt in Karate. This tall and fit Bollywood actress also actively participates in social activities and is attached to various social organizations like PETA and Anti Aids campaign

Shilpa Shetty – The Beautiful Bollywood Actress :

Shilpa Shetty started off her career as a model and soon this tall dusky beauty caught the eye of the big Bollywood directors. It was not long before she got the big break in movies. Her first movie opposite Rahul Roy ‘Gaata Rahe Mera Dil’ never actually completed and was not released. Shilpa Shetty soon got a role in the movie Baazigar, opposite Shahrukh Khan and Kajol. Baazigar became a super hit and Shilpa earned a Filmfare nomination for Best New Comer of the year. Since then it was no looking back for this gorgeous actress. She can today be rated as one of the top actress in the Bollywood film industry. In 2000 Shilpa won the IIFA (International Indian Film Awards) award for the ‘Best Actress’. In 2004 Shilpa earned lot of praise and received great reviews for the role of an HIV positive victim Tammana’ in the movie ‘Phir Milenge’ opposite Bollywood superstar Salman Khan.