Hot Shot: Secret sharing with Sridevi! Cine Blitz in the 90s
Gautam Rajadhyaksha's last portrait of Sridevi.
The most comprehensive fan blog dedicated to India's most beautiful and greatest actress of all-time (in our humble opine!), Sridevi. Sridevi aka Sreedevi, ruled Indian cinema (with awesome performances in Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Hindi films) in a career spanning 50 incredible years featuring 266 films. Born in Sivakasi on August 13 1963, her untimely and tragic death on February 24, 2018 left a nation in mourning. In our hearts, she'll forever be, the eternal Queen of Bollywood.
Monday, 28 April 2025
Sunday, 27 April 2025
Will Karthik Aryan's Film Compete with Vyjanthimala, Reena Roy and Sridevi's Legacy?
| Movie | Year | Leading Lady |
|---|---|---|
| Nagin | 1954 | Vyjayanthimala |
| Milap Nagin | 1972 1976 | Reena Roy Reena Roy |
| Nagina | 1986 | Sridevi |
| Naache Nagin Gali Gali Nigahen: Nagina Part II | 1989 1989 | Meenakshi Seshadri Sridevi |
| Naag Nagin Doodh ka Karz Tum Mere Ho Sheshnaag | 1990 1990 1990 1990 | Mandakini Neelam Kothari Juhi Chawla Rekha |
| Jaani Dushman: Ek Anokhi Kahani Hisss | 2002 2010 | Manisha Koirala Mallika Sherawat |
Four days ago, the first-look and digital poster of Kartik Aaryan's upcoming film, Naagzilla, was released, and created a buzz online for the unexpected choice of film by the actor. What a twist! As a snake-turned-man-turned-snake entity ie a shape-shifting being on the big-screen, the actor has to balance the fine act of believability, strength and vulnerability in an essential genre of Bollywood filmography, to make the expensive endeavor (special effects are not cheap!) work. One wrong turn and the film coils to a disaster. In fact, Kartik Aaryan's upcoming film joins a long roster of snake based thrillers that have found intermittent success! A retrospective;
Decades later, Reena Roy tried her hand at the genre with a career-defining, wildly successful turn in the homonymous Nagin and the forgettable flop Milap. I'm sure not many of you even remember the Shatrughan Sinha and Reena Roy snake film Milap that came and went in 1972, but the all-star cast led Rajkumar Kohli film Nagin had a stellar role-call that included Sunil Dutt, Feroz Khan, Jeetendra, Sanjay Khan, Rekha, Mumtaz and Kabir Bedi. And yet, it was relative newcomer Reena Roy who stole the show. Despite being the biggest hit of 1976, snake films were on pause yet again for a few more years.
In a film rejected by Jaya Pradha (she was afraid of snakes!), Sridevi (and Saroj Khan's choreography) brought the genre back to the forefront a decade later in 1986--and how! The film wasn't expensive to make--apart from Sridevi's famed unshakable remuneration--and made the most return-on-investment (Karma technically was a bigger hit of '86, but that movie was also ten-times as expensive to make) that firmly entrenched Sridevi in the top slot of pan-Indian cinema. The mid-80s, you couldn't escape the dance routine, the costume, Sridevi's sensuality and her power-house high-gloss performance. Even co-star Rishi Kapoor stated that she was a much bigger star than he himself, even though he had been in the Bollywood belt longer.
The 25+ week run of the thriller meant an onslaught of formulaic snake-films followed, including four dreadful released in 1990 alone; Naag Nagin, Doodh ka Karz, Tum Mere Ho and the comically over-the-top Sheshnaag led by (an otherwise capable-) Rekha and her excessive costume and makeup. With the same musicians and choreographer, Re' couldn't recreate the success of Sridevi at the turn of the decade when Indian cinema was unsheathing itself of predictable films and the 90s were bringing to the big-screen, more believable narratives. The saap-sapere, jantar-mantar did not work and the shoddy special-effects did not provide magic to the jaded audience.
Sridevi herself worked on her only sequel, Nigahein-Nagina Part II, but the film was a modest and moderate hit--nothing compared to the original. Its middling success meant producer/director Harmesh Malhotra had to shelve part III of the film, Nagme, as there were too many films that trampled the genre to death. Internet rumours are that Naagzilla is also planned as a trilogy, but all depends on the success of Kartik Aryan's first attempt in this difficult to toil field.
In a rather tragic and bank-breaking effort to relaunch his (talentless) son Armaan Kohli, producer/director Rajkumar Kohli made the most-memed Hindi film of all-time, Jaani Dushman: Ek Anokhi Kahani, where Manisha Koirala had to pretend to be a snake-lady trying to entice the contact-lense wearing Arman. With a painfully repetitive title song, the worst special effects, script, editing, photography... you name it, 'twas bad... the movie somehow broke-even at the boxoffice courtesy of a heavy roster of cameos that included--take a deep breath--Sunny Deol, Akshay Kumar, Suniel Shetty, Arshad Warsi, Aftab Shivdasani, Sonu Nigam, Aditya Pancholi, Sharad Kapoor, Manisha Koirala, Rambha, Pinky Campbell and Kiran Rathod! On the plus side, it helped ignite Pretentious Movie Reviews - for which we are grateful!
When you look closely at all these films, there's a rather bizarre trend of all the leads wearing lenses (we geddit, its the snake eye attempt; quick q; how many snakes have blue eyes?!). slightly hideous sparkling costumes, and rather predictable dance moves of slithering and palm-bending, back breaking steps to lure the audience.
In an attempt to resurrect her flaying career that neither worked here [Bollywood], nor there [Hollywood], self-proclaimed legend Mallika Sherawat tried to translate the rural snake mythology in the English film Hisss; a film universally panned by every, single, critic. A mega budget compared to the other titles mentioned previously here and with a lot more nudity and body-reveal for the front-benchers, Mallika's powers of persuasion failed miserably and since 2010, there has been no word of a similar themed film.
What cinema couldn't do, Ektaa Kapoor's Naagin on TV has done since 2015; revamped the role of a leading lady with omnipotent agency and metamorphosis. It propelled Mouni Roy's career and provided steam to reawaken the genre in cinema as Dharma Productions sets forth with an expected trilogy-in-the-works.
Fact is, Karthik Aaryan's ambitious upcoming film has to fall somewhere between the high watermark of Nagin/Nagina and the nadir of Jaani Dushman/Hiss.
Do note however, in the serpentine listicle, there's a developing pattern that one can pinpoint easily when you follow the footprint of... flops! Look at the list above and compare with trade figures, the definitive listicle reveals that most movies didn't do well at the boxoffice with just three notable exceptions among the dirty dozen. And yet, here's another attempt to take a bite out of the box-office; will it be manah or poison?! We wait and watch.
Sridevi on the sets of Zameen: The Village Belle look
Sridevi on the sets of Zameen: The village belle look that she had in several movies.
We have quite a few pics of Sridevi from the Ramesh Sippy film in the archive here.
Saturday, 26 April 2025
Roop ki Rani Choron ka Raja: Sunday magazine cover: The Ten Crore Gamble
The Roop ki Rani... pre release publicity was next level. The two stars covered every media outlet in the early 90s be it the usual film magz like G magazine, Filmfare, Stardust etc and Hindi tabloids of Mayapuri magazine and even serious political magazines like Sunday! Obv we have the entire series of shots and features in the archive here.
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