Ki & Ka

"Hello! My name is Kabir and I am a house wife (husband)" is the main theme of this movie. This movie is a negative mask, that converts every right perspectives, traits, norms and ethics into an opposite. Mr Balki has once again come up with an innovative,fresh and yet slightly controversial topic as before. The movie focuses on marriage lives in subcontinent but in a never seen before manner. Ka(Arjun Kapoor) Ki (Kareena Kapoor) is a married couple in which Ki(Kareena) plays the husband and Ka(Arjun) plays the wife. The story emphasize that it is not mandatory for women only to stay at home and perform domestic tasks while assigning the outer duties to the male partner rather the same can be implemented in an entirely opposite way. This situation creates a natural comic angle and curiosity in the movie that is maintained till the end. A husband has been shown supporting his wife while staying at home and doing house keeping so that his wife can fulfill her dreams and becomes a very successful business woman. But at times success and over commitment of one partner becomes indigestible for the other and this marks the commencement of disputes between them leading towards more problems. Kareena and Arjun Kapoor has done a fabulous job by doing complete justice to their roles. Kareena Kapoor has appeared so fresh after a long time since "Jab We Met". A short cameo by "Big B" and "Jiya Bachhan" serves as icing on the cake towards the climax. R. Balki has proved his direction abilities and capabilities once again and deserves applause for bringing an altogether new dimension of thinking towards personal relations. A recommended movie to be watched by couples for sake of understanding the value and importance of each others role in real life!!!!

Director and writer Mr. R. Balki successfully breaks the established norms of gender biased society. He enhances the concept with adding perfect shots and churning out right expressions from actors. Story line is thin but screenplay and dialogues make it lovely. You can witness freshness in approach even from beginning of film. The way they meet and introduced on screen. The way Kia takes to meet Kabeer to her mother is good and the way Kabeer father reacts being introduced Kia by Kabeer and her reply is fantastic. When Kabeer catches maid red handed, the way this scenes handled is appropriate for the premise, even she is not fired but warned in cute way. Kabeer father wishing him Happy birth day is quirky but it shows the equation between father and son and it gets justified and enhances the climax. Perfect example of establishing characters and using it in proper way. Kabeer and Kia heated argue culmination is very good. Even the guest appearance of Mr. Amitabh Bachhan is very entertaining. His expressions are awesome and this plot is also used to realizing Kia's over reactions. Pre climax dialogues by Kia's mother about justification of gender with work is very good. Climax is emotional and impressive. Only drawback in this film is, its 30 minutes of second half which is full of montages and in films ads, promoting lots of brands in non creative and stuffed way. It slow the movie pace up to level of boring. Performance wise Kareena Kapoor is fabulous. Arjun Kapoor is endearing and balanced. Swaroop Sampat as Kia mother is very good. Rajat Kapoor as Kabeer father is good. Music wise "High heel Par Nache" is peppy and foot tapping.

‪#‎Ki‬&Ka: I wanted to give it 7; but my wife demanded little more. We argued, we debated, and then we finally settled for 7.25/5.

And I guess that's the only essence of this brilliant ‪#‎love‬, ‪#‎relationship‬ movie from R.Balki, which is somewhere between traditional and modern, yet loaded with highly practical, anti-age- old advice for those who think that being in a relationship is actually tough (or easy!)

Overall, I would describe the movie as a mixture of several Bollywood movies of this genre; as if R.Baliki is giving an ode to all previous directors: It has the pride and ego of Abhimaan, the wit, intellectuality from Bawarchi; the complexities and subtle emotions from Saathiya as well as the dark, mysterious elements of love from Hum Tum. R Balki has picked up ingredients from these movies, reversed the protagonists and the conflicts and presented via ‪#‎KiKa‬.

If Kareena Kapoor is the burning deity of hardcore feminism in this movie, then Arjun Kapoor is the epitome of gender equality and the evangelist and advocate against running the 'race'. Watch it with a pinch of salt, and get immersed in the awesomeness of food-porn, get bewitched by the portrayal of a successful blogger, and some untraditional, out of the box experiments which A-list stars seldom try out.

Watch it with an open mind, remembering the fact that the director had earlier given us path-breaking cinema like Cheeni Kum, Pa & English Vinglish. Ki&Ka won't change your life; but yes, it will seep an idea about the 'positive' change all right!

7.25/10

Ki & Ka review :

In one of the scene's in R. Balki's 'Ki & Ka', Amitabh and Jaya Bachchan playing themselves, discuss gender role reversals. Jaya asks Amitabh if he would have been happy being a homemaker while allowing her to continue acting after their marriage. While the Big B awkwardly retorts that he would be perfectly fine with that arrangement, his face and body language indicate otherwise. That amusing scene pretty much sums up the basic concept of Balki's fourth feature film.

Balki, whose films are invariably driven by concept rather than a strong screenplay, gives a fine twist to the gender expectation set by our society - It's ladKA who earns the bread and the ladKI who applies the butter on it. In a role reversal, Balki's KA or Kabir (Arjun Kapoor) prefers to be the househusband to his KI or Kia (Kareena Kapoor) who toils it out in corporate boardrooms.

They meet each other aboard a boring flight and despite a 3 year age gap (Kia's older to Kabir), decide to be life partners more out of their individual choice. She aspires to be a CEO while he, inspite being an IIM topper, wants to be like his mom. Expectedly, Kabir's billionaire builder dad (Rajit Kapur) throws a fit while Kia's mom (Swaroop Sampat) inquires about their sexual compatibility. Anyways, marriage happens and with it, comes the problems and misunderstandings.....

The story as such, is minimalistic and Balki plays around with situations rather than going for narrative twists and turns. A few sequences are truly amusing like the pregnancy scare and Kabir proudly displaying his mangalsutra as a bracelet. Having said that, Balki's concept appears stretched for a full length feature film. Being an ad film maker, I believe he is used to executing high level concepts within a short time frame and seems to struggle a bit in the second hour by which time he is finished with what he had to say. The second half of Ki & Ka dips and dithers - a flaw I had observed in his previous outing 'Shamitabh' (2015) as well.

More on the flipside count those irritating product endorsements from Kalpataru Towers to Saffola oil to even a pregnancy test kit...yikes. Also, the way Kia's office colleagues accept Kabir as a househusband looks unconvincing. C'mon guys, if my female colleague were to introduce her spouse to me like that, my face would naturally show some amount of surprise. That scene actually had potential to expose the societal gender role bias which was frittered away. The ending also appears to be a rushed up job.

Of the cast, Kareena Kapoor is completely convincing as the go-getter career minded woman. She looks ravishing and also shares a sizzling chemistry with her co-actor. As for Arjun Kapoor, possibly reliving his teenage fantasy about Kareena :), does a fine job as the hubby who likes to chop vegetables at home rather than present powerpoint decks in board meetings. Swaroop Sampat as the open minded mom brings the nostalgia of her 'Yeh Jo Hai Zindagi' serial (1986) days.

Technically, P. C. Sreeram's cinematography is of the highest order. Music by maestro Illaiya Raja and couple of others fits the mood of the film. Editing by Chandan Arora could have been better.

To sum up, Ki & Ka works more at concept level though not everyone will subscribe to it. Eminently likeable through it's 126 minute duration, this gender blender is recommended to all the Ki's and Ka's who frequent high end multiplexes for their weekend entertainment.

Regards, Sumeet Nadkarni.

A love story about the reversal of gender roles. It was really a new and amazing experience to watch a new story. Thanks the writer of the movie R. Balki for his direction and story.

Kareena Kapoor is really struggling hard to come back in Bollywood. Arjun as always his acting is really nice and clean.

There is so much to be said about changing roles in today's Asia, and films would do well to reflect on this great churn.

The Music lacks the energy that most of people expect from a new-age romance drama. High Heels remains to be the best song from the album while Ji Huzoori and Most Wanted Munda seem average. I am going with a 2.5/5 for the Music album of Ki and Ka.

Overall Nice movie. Watch, Enjoy your weekend