Kisna: The Warrior Poet

Some producers like Gowariker (Swades), Bhansali (Black) mature with each film and "Kisna" is a fine example of how a producer the caliber of Subhash Ghai sink with each film to the point of decadence. The Story is a figment of fiction in Ghai's mind. Only in his mind do we see "Lady Catherine" (when did she get knighted? did I miss this Ceremony?) donating enormous amount of money (like zillions of crores) to charity, still she has some loose change left for the child dancers. Only in his mind do we see Kisna, killing his kith and Kin because he promised his mother that he would get Catherine to Delhi-but I missed the part where his mother told him to sing romantic duets on the way. At one point he says he is saving Catherine from the evil Prince-which one is it? or do we care at this point? Ghai, who is credited for the story and direction, makes a mess of both. The direction is disjointed. The Debutante,. Isha Sherwani, is incredibly co-ordinated (if Ghai, has his way, her Career will be on hold meditating at the end of the rope.) She and Hrithik Roshan would make a great dancing couple in a Musical, if only a good producer could take a hint. Antonia Bernath must have graduated from the "Aishwarya Rai School of dramatic acting". She speaks Hindi with a Cockney accent-and this get to be painful and ridiculous after a while. Vivek Oberoi, this guy has no Screen presence for a leading part, he should confine to playing hoodlums in movies like "Company". The music is good-specially the last duet is an absolute melody. The Production values are good as in a Ghai Film, but everything else is atrocious.

Director Subhash Ghai is caught in a time warp. 'Dharam, karam,parampara, riti rivaaz' all sound out dated and boring. This would have been relevant perhaps 10-15 years back, but it's time to move on. The most redeeming factor is Ashok Mehta's photography - like wine, his DOP skills keep getting better with age. There are good individual performances but no chemistry at all between Viveck Oberoi and Antonia Bernath. Isha Sharvani performs well but has very little to do - with an ill-defined character. And she is made to dance at the drop of a hat - the dancing skills are great, but tend to look out of place with the repeated exposure. Perhaps Subhash Ghai should look at getting younger directors to make his films - like Abbas Mastan in Aitraaz

A wonderful tag line, a beautiful crew and a re-owned director - well the combination should have worked but it fails to do so. The story is very new to Hindi cinema although you tend to feel seeing glimpses from Titanic in the beginning. All mistakes that a director can make is been made in this movie. Even Vivekoberoi fails to shine in what i call a mess of a screenplay. Isha Sharvani - should have been in circus, apart from her dangling from ropes shes "made" to do nothing in the movie. A sweet surprise is Antonia Bernath, shes a natural actor-too bad KISNA turned out to be her debut in Indian Cinema.

A word on the stunts and action,I feel Indian cinema lacks a good stunt co-coordinator, the film makes a mockery of tense action scenes. in what is supposed to be a edge of seat experience it makes us to laugh at its silliness. perhaps we need to import stunt so-coordinators from holly hood instead of just heroins.

well to sum it up, The film is average

i disagree with Ali M - having just seen Kisna, it was an absolutely poor and dire movie, one to be definitely missed. Apart from the poor acting and recycled and unoriginal plot line, the movie can only be described as a showpiece for Hindu mythology, with subtle ideological messages as to the religious and cultural identity of historic and contemporary India.

It was indeed, as with many recent Indian movies, painful and boring to watch, wholly unoriginal and unaspiring. I would encourage all movie buffs to give this uneventful and quite pointless film a much needed miss. One to be definitely missed.

Yours sincerely Ravi

Kisna would make the director Subhash Ghai proud. In this movie Ghai has created some remarkable characters. Vivek Oberoi as the lead man and both Isha Shravani and Anotonio Bernart as lead women have performed very well. Kisna is a movie in which morals have been combined with art to convey a message about the essence of the Indian trinity of karma (duty), dharma (religion) and prema (love).

One place Kisna fails is that it gets repetitive in parts. The fight sequences drag and so does the endless number of times Kisna saves Catherine. That apart Kisna portrays art in many forms - in Isha Shravani's dances, in Anotonio Bernart's flawless performance, in A R Rahman's music, in Shiamak Davar's choreography. Each of these by itself is remarkable but Kisna is a movie in which the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Overall, a good movie.