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.
Sridevi with her Army: Mohnish Behl, Sudesh Berry, Ronit Roy, Harish and Ravi Kishan.
Released on 28 June 1996, the first appearance of Shahrukh Khan after the runaway success of DDLJ, the movie had a phenomenal opening. The modest budget film, co-produced by Mukul Anand, more than tripled its returns, but the slow-burn film was originally written off.
Sridevi looked and acted well, but the film is... undoubtedly predictable as the familiar tropes of a revenge drama, be it Karma or Sholay, are all lined up.
Though Sridevi won the award and accolades, the 1989 double-role dramedy worked in its entirety because of its stellar cast that propelled Chaalbaaz to box office success; Sunny Deol, Rajinikanth, Anupam Kher, Rohini Hattangadi, Aftab Shivdasani, Annu Kapoor, Aruna Irani.
There's a memorable cameo by Kader Khan, as the not-so-blind beggar, Johnny Lever as Baba and the comedian who played the banker... whose name I always forget!
The film released in Dec 1989 ie 36 years ago!
The movie has aged well - its sort of staggering how great Sridevi is and so incredibly watchable. Clips of it are trending on social media three and a half decades later.
The story is old hat. Well, vintage wine, new bottle. Done before as Ram aur Shyam, Seetha aur Geetha - and later Kishen Kanhayia. There are some lofty ambitions to make the movie again in its later avatar for the modern age but... where are the takers? And where's the talent?!
Above: Ruth Aguilar, Maria Romano, Cory Hibbs, Gauri Shinde, Sridevi and Mehdi Nebbou
Wonder what it was like for the cast to see simple Sabyasachi-sari clad Shashi, transform into the Sridevi we know - esp when she hit the red carpet like the superstar, Queen and icon she was...
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| The team of English Vinglish at TIFF 2012 |
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| The last shooting schedule of Roop Ki Rani back in 1993 |
Funny how most of the current superstars of Bollywood seem to forget that; although they pay lip service to it. Look at the wide chasm of pay scale between film stars and the writers, lyricist, musicians, choreographers, cinematographers.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Let's all collectively pretend she just returned to the heavens, homeward bound as intended...
You know we love Ash -- we have a separate blog dedicated to her - but only Sridevi could have excelled in English Vinglish. It was a rare alchemy of talent being at the right place at the right time in every department, on and off screen.
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