Haider Trailer
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SATYAMSHOT
July 8, 2014 at 8:18 AM
The trailor is brilliant!! The background song is just Wow. Shahid, tabu and kk menon are going to rock big time.
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July 8, 2014 at 8:38 AM
I just love the settings of the VB movies. Feels like you’re there.
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July 8, 2014 at 9:24 AM
After the last few movies from VB, I was not really looking forward to another one from him. But, the trailer has changed my mind.
Did I see Irfan Khan also ?
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July 8, 2014 at 9:54 AM
Yes, at the 1:30 mark.
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July 8, 2014 at 9:58 AM
Found the trailer to be pretty ordinary all things considered. Firstly Shahid is a total put off in this part. I’m sure he’ll do a good enough job (at least by Bollywood standards) but he’s physically very problematic for the part. Secondly there’s a ‘been-there-done-that’ feel here in terms of Bharadwaj’s previous stuff. It seems like a retread of Maqbool in some ways but even otherwise the gangsterish North Indian milieu (even if rendered a bit more abstract here judging from some of the scenes) is a bit overdone in his work. Now the more charitable way of looking at this (specially in light of a long interview the director gave not too long ago) is that for him Shakespeare is merely the occasion to use a basic storyline or work with a ‘ready-made’ (if you will) script. And so I’m not going to criticize him here for what will assuredly be another inadequate Shakespeare interpretation (even if his protestations to the contrary hardly immunize the director on this score) but still, and leaving aside this point, there is nothing very captivating about this trailer. Admittedly I’ve never been a great Bharadwaj fan to begin with but this looks to be his least interesting major work. Might like the film more ultimately but Bharadwaj has hit a stagnation point and he really needs to re-think where his work is headed.
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July 8, 2014 at 10:19 AM
Satyam: Agreed overall though I will be less harsh on Shahid. The film, unlike Bharadwaj’s previous works, is set in Kashmir BTW
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July 8, 2014 at 10:33 AM
on Kashmir yes that’s the ‘abstraction’ I was referring to though didn’t know it was Kashmir. on Shahid I don’t have a problem with the way he’s performing, just that he looks a schoolboy for the part.
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July 8, 2014 at 10:34 AM
I agree too Satyam — Vishal Bhardwaj is certainly problematic on this terrain, and, if one may “rank”, I think he’s a poorer fit for Hamlet than he was for Othello. The former is an extremely fraught, unsettling, messy play, and Bhardwaj’s style does not lend itself to the sort of nervous energy that would suit it (even leaving aside wider questions of intellectual engagement with the play).
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July 8, 2014 at 10:38 AM
Bharadwaj should have attempted a Lear with Bachchan. I still await a truly ambitious director who will tackle Henry IV (both parts together in a long film) with Abhishek as Hal and Bachchan as the father. It’s a framing I’ve played with for very long in any case. But it would take a truly interesting (dynamic to say the least) director to be able to pull it off. Then again Bollywood doesn’t do anything remotely ambitious in this sense anymore. Lagaan was probably the last such film and there wasn’t one like it for the longest time before it. Perhaps Ghulami. And this is once again the paradoxical truth even about commercial cinema that the fans of disposable films constantly miss (either because they’re too partisan or obtuse or both) — any commercial industry is always minimally about profit and yet important cinema let alone great cinema is always made by forgetting this fact to a great extent (and just finding someone who will invest in such a hazardous enterprise!). Which is also why a lot of great or greatest films on any global list are really those that didn’t work initially and/or were panned by critics. Not all deserving films are reinvented (elsewhere too certain artworks are alway minority affairs) but no unworthy film is every judged important over time (though some might enjoy resurgence as classics of sorts.. say the Shammi Kapoor films).
On the other hand it must be said that Bombay cinema even in a historic sense has never quite had this Hollywood-like epic sensibility. There are only exceptions. Tamil cinema in the same sense has been closer to this model with its (over)reliance on historical epics linked of course to a certain vein of Dravidian militant self-assertion. There is also here the Cinecitta model to which Tamil cinema might be closer in some ways. In all three instances you have these great historical epics. With Hollywood they provide a mirroring of the post-war American imperium. They are ostensibly about Rome or Egypt but they are really about the US. On a related note one might add that this also serves the other ideological goal of avoiding if not effacing the Civil War ‘epic’ that was surely closer at hand and that found its ‘classic’ treatment in the very kitschy Gone with the Wind. The Cinecitta model owing its origins to Mussolini of course was about the restoration of ancient Roman greatness in the Fascist present. A similar move was performed in Tamil cinema. Here too it was about re-imaging and re-triggering the archives of the great Southern dynastic of the second half of the first millennium and then a couple of hundred years into the next. And then in turn offering this valuable Dravidian history as a counterpoint to the ‘Hindi hegemony’ of the post-Independence nation. Notice as an aside how Telugu cinema to avoid even this regional Tamil influence went wholly mythological!
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July 8, 2014 at 10:47 AM
There’s a wider issue too: I find it quite puzzling that, in Bhardwaj’s transposition of Shakespeare’s setting to the contemporary Indian context, he chooses a criminal backdrop just about every time. In doing so, he testifies to the bourgeoisie’s continuing fascination with criminality (an insight I am indebted to Arendt for), but doesn’t illuminate Shakespeare in any way. In fact, it clouds things: to use the old cliche, Shakespeare’s plays offer us the stuff of life; Bhardwaj’s settings seem to implicitly suggest that for the comfortable, office-going class that patronizes these films, only the criminal element — conceptualized as removed from “our” every day reality — can sustain life in all its vividness. Not only do I find this utterly “wrong”, but it points to an imaginative failure: it automatically sets up a screen, a barrier, between the audience and the play (when the whole point of changing the setting to more contemporary or more local settings is presumably to remove such barriers)…
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July 8, 2014 at 10:59 AM
agree completely.. Bharadwaj’s defense again in the same interview was that this is what he knows. Fair enough. He might be most comfortable in that milieu but then he needs to represent it with greater richness and insight. It sometimes comes off as an imaginary world. Which too is not problematic on its own except when the director’s statements seem to be at odds with this.
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July 8, 2014 at 11:00 AM
Re: “Bharadwaj’s defense again in the same interview was that this is what he knows. Fair enough. He might be most comfortable in that milieu…”
This strikes me as disingenuous: it’s one thing to say that his familiarity with “UP’s badlands” is reflected in Omkara, but what about the other settings?! It’s one thing for Scorsese to say “that’s what I know”, we see him return to certain themes and milieus again and again. But Bhardwaj flits about (Kashmir to Bombay to UP etc.) and there’s no one milieu here…
In any event, every artist must necessarily create from experience, but that experience needs transmutation into, since we are on Shakespeare, something rich and strange… Proust is a great example: what novel could be truer to life than his, and yet if In Search of Lost Time were no more than the record of Proust’s life, it would be mind-numbingly boring….
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July 8, 2014 at 11:12 AM
“But Bhardwaj flits about (Kashmir to Bombay to UP etc.) and there’s no one milieu here…”
true but in a way he’s representing the ‘same’ wherever he is. But I do agree with you otherwise.
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July 8, 2014 at 11:00 AM
I should add once more here that I am not a fan of the vast majority of Hollywood treatments of Shakespeare either.
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July 9, 2014 at 12:42 AM
This recurrence of the criminal background is starting to appear not just somewhat contrived but also stale. This precisely is the factor that is diminishing the value of VB’s efforts. I liked the trailer, I will try and see Haider in a theatre, but I will not be shocked if the movie peters out.
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July 8, 2014 at 10:53 AM
Re: “I still await a truly ambitious director who will tackle Henry IV (both parts together in a long film) with Abhishek as Hal and Bachchan as the father. It’s a framing I’ve played with for very long in any case.”
Don’t hold your breath, buddy. The Lagaan and Ghulami examples are themselves instructive: fantastic though the former is, it has traded the epic mode, with all its Homeric vividness and grand dialogue; in favor of a smaller scale fable. Lagaan might still be made, one can imagine something like this, especially because it can come garbed as a prestige project — Ghulami is unimaginable today (it makes its audience uncomfortable, in a way the consumerist approach to cinema cannot stomach)…
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July 8, 2014 at 10:56 AM
extended my comment…
but yes sadly I agree on both counts..
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July 8, 2014 at 11:05 AM
Fantastic, loved it. I think Shahid is performing superbly here, and I think a young looking Hamlet is completely justified to show a journey from innocence to experience.
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July 8, 2014 at 11:32 AM
Kick Fetches Phenomenal Record Prices All Over
Tuesday 08 July 2014 12.00 IST
Box Office India Trade Network
Kick has fetched record prices all over the country. Jai Ho had fetched the highest prices earlier but Kick has gone much above that. Jai Ho managed decent box office collections but could not cover the huge prices but that has made no difference to the superstardom of Salman Khan as distributors have payed much higher minimum guarantees for Kick.
The prices it has been sold in most circuits is around 10-20% less than the business of Dhoom 3. Some circuits have gone at more than the business generated by Chennai Express.
Rajasthan has gone for 8.50 crore where the share for Dhoom 3 was 9.6 crore and for Chennai Express it was around 7 crore.
West Bengal has fetched 6.11 crore where Dhoom 3 did a share of 6.80 crore and Chennai Express 6.10 crore.
CP Berar is 7.11 crore for Kick and Dhoom 3 share was 8.20 crore while Chennai Express managed 6.30 crore.
Bihar has been acquired for 4.21 crore and the share for Dhoom 3 was 4.70 crore while Chennai Express was 3.60 crore.
Mysore has been acquired for 6.40 crore and the share for Dhoom 3 was 8.80 crore while Chennai Express was 7.5 crore.
Its a similar story for other circuits which have been sold meaning the distributors are expecting at worst blockbuster business as that is what they need to cover the minimum guarantees.
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July 8, 2014 at 11:32 AM
Looks like it needs the business of CE just to reach recovery!!
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July 8, 2014 at 11:48 AM
after release it will just need the business of Dev D for recovery..
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July 8, 2014 at 12:09 PM
LOL this where the stupidity of the indian box office model comes.
So for Kick to breakeven, it needs to do the business of at least Chennai Express if not more, the 2nd biggest grosser.
It’s just a daft price to pay.
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July 8, 2014 at 11:35 AM
On a tangential note, noticed that Transformers 4 has done 175 Mn in US and 220 Mn in China!!. I have never heard of such a thing before where a movie does more in China than US and with those numbers. Whats the English speaking population in China? Any IDea? Or does these numbers involve Chinese versions etc? India has the second largest population after China but Hollywood movies dont do more than 10 Mn here. I wonder if this has to do with China having more English speaking population than us?
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July 8, 2014 at 11:44 AM
These numbers are assuredly for dubbed/subtitled versions as well.
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July 8, 2014 at 11:47 AM
you don’t need to know eng to watch this stuff! and Hollywood specially designs these blockbusters with minimal dialog or the most functional kind to make it acceptable around the world, specially E Asia. of course this isn’t just the eng version. It got horrendous reviews here but still did a lot. If this were India people would say the ‘paying public has spoken’. As if that confers some greater degree of value on the product beyond the obvious.
But consider how S Korea with a population of just 25m has a 21m gross!
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July 8, 2014 at 11:48 AM
I don’t think China has more english speaking population than US, in fact if you look in USA, most Indian speaks much better english than chinese. Most chinese in USA can’t speak english.
Transformer 4 has some scenes which are in China, that could be the reason along with it playing on like 4000 screens in China (largest ever) and maybe chinese are hooked on autobots.
More and more hollywood films are now dependent on foreign collection which ususally account for about 50 to 70 % of total collection.
Pacific Rim was a filure in US based on it’s budget but foreign collection made it a success and they’re making part 2 of it now.
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July 8, 2014 at 11:50 AM
Transformer 4 delivered what it promised so paying public did pay to see it.
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July 8, 2014 at 12:18 PM
yes I guess you can promise porn and deliver on this and the ‘paying public’ will be happy…
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July 8, 2014 at 1:03 PM
put differently the ‘paying public’ might prefer Transformers to Edge of Tomorrow. This doesn’t mean anything. And I am not even getting into other sorts of comparisons here. Of course what is also obfuscated with this banal and utterly meaningless phrase (‘paying public’.. because it relies on an utterly circular logic) is that while there might be greater numbers for one film versus another the audiences in question don’t always coincide.
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July 8, 2014 at 1:04 PM
only that it’s not that easy to promise and deliver, look at abhis movies…
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July 8, 2014 at 1:44 PM
yes not all porn works..
on Abhishek’s movies you might as well give it up since whatever fantasy history you’re referring to in this sense I don’t really subscribe to. You’re lucky I don’t quite have the energy these days the way I once did to put up longer responses on all of this stuff! However we can at least agree on the porn! And of course nothing is easy in life. Whether everything that is difficult at one level or the other is worthwhile is another matter but if you’re into porn this might be a distinction without a difference. So you got and count the Transformers numbers. Leave the quality stuff that requires a certain sensibility and thought to the rest of us! On the other hand you can carry on as before and say ‘Abhishek’ every time someone says ‘SRK’ and make my case for me! In more ways than one.
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July 8, 2014 at 12:43 PM
The part is clearly too big for Shahid’s britches, (and that’s not a shot at his age or even his physicality although the latter is definitely an issue – it’s more that he lacks any trace of natural gravitas) but even leaving that obvious point aside I’m not seeing much here that looks captivating beyond what makes Bhardwaj’s movies otherwise unique – the spaces, the cast. Having said that, so few Hindi films look remotely compelling to me these days that I’ll catch this on the big screen without a doubt.
All the criticism on Bhardwaj is well-mapped out here, (and made for a compelling read) and while I’ve championed Maqbool elsewhere, I’ll admit that there are certainly richer, more thoughtful adaptations of Shakespeare on the block. But really and to restate what I just said differently, I’m not sure what modern Bollywood offers as a consolation if Bhardwaj is a great disappointment.
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July 8, 2014 at 1:01 PM
fair point in your last sentence here..
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July 8, 2014 at 3:28 PM
You’re right that he should have done Lear with Bachchan. If his idea was to cap off a trilogy, there couldn’t have been a better or bigger way to do so than this. Certainly Omkara operated on a larger scale than Maqbool, and the way forward could have (in my opinion should have) been to make the next one even more ambitious, more grand. But here it’s like he’s taken a step back.
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October 6, 2014 at 7:16 AM
Well, I’ve had to eat some humble pie here.
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July 8, 2014 at 3:26 PM
I think Shahid is the choice here for the reason that Hamlet was not a true avenger. Hamlet is a confused soft yet angry person which Shahid’s personality easily relates to. An actor with a very strong personality wouldnt have done justice to Hamlet’s insecurities .
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July 8, 2014 at 6:10 PM
Trailer is good…Shahid is not bad but not very good choice either…Ranbir or Ranveer or Saif should have been here.
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July 9, 2014 at 1:38 AM
Movie looks relatively good compared to so much trash the year has offered already. And VB is a talented man. I havent read the play but this seems like a self indulgent effort from the director’s part like what Matru ki Bijlee was like. Not that im complaining. I thought that was an interesting effort. But I dont smell a success here. What I am actually looking forward to is watch Kay Kay and Tabu perform after long.
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July 9, 2014 at 3:52 AM
Tabu + KK + Irfaan + pankaj – woah!
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July 9, 2014 at 6:02 AM
http://www.india-forums.com/bollywood/hot-n-happening/44670-haider-made-me-feel-inadequate-as-an-actor-shahid-kapoor.htm
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July 11, 2014 at 10:51 AM
Rangan on the Haider trailer:
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July 11, 2014 at 4:13 PM
This is like Ra.one’s trailer of its genre.
Expecting a lot of over acting from this one.
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July 12, 2014 at 12:14 PM
This looks good! I thought that Vishal Baradwaj got an amazing performance out of Shahid in Kaminey (which I loved), so I am excited to see them working together again!
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August 26, 2014 at 11:54 PM
I like it!
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September 23, 2014 at 10:32 AM
Terrific soundtrack here (especially love Aao Na, Khul Kabhi Toh, Jhelum)
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September 23, 2014 at 10:33 AM
The entire soundtrack here-
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