In films like "First Love", the rotund, gravel-voiced Eugene Palette used to do a great turn as a man who watches with detachment whilst his wife and offspring made fools of themselves. Eventually, his bottled up indignation would explode to good comic effect. In "Biwi Ho To Aisi " (roughly, "a wife should be like this") Kader Khan (or Kadar as he is credited here) is cast in the Eugene Palette role. He does a fine job of humouring his ill-tempered wife, whilst consoling her victims and confiding to the audience with direct-to-camera asides. Bindu, playing the domineering wife, roars round the house like a tornado, heaping high volume invective and scorn on all in her path whilst Salman Khan makes an energetic debut as a pop music loving teenager (in a sub-plot involving a deceitful girlfriend).
Farooq Shaikh (here credited as Farouque Sheikh) shows again what a fine actor he is. His role calls for him to be submissive towards his mother, pally with his father, tender towards his adopted sister and romantic with Rekha. Their scene together, as they take refuge from the "battle of the bindis", is particularly sensitive.
Rekha is at her best, playing a sort of Eliza Doolittle character. We see her first, dressed in a gorgeous South Indian costume, routing a village bully in an extended comic scene. Later, transplanted to the Bindhari household we see her circling her foe physically and psychologically; sizing her up during the battle of wills with Bindu. She also gets an opportunity to put her yoga training to good use in another action scene.
The usual, final plot twist is here made all the more enjoyable for being so deliciously implausible. Altogether, very entertaining.
