Kisna: The Warrior Poet

While I am a Bollywood aficionado, I do feel Hindu commercial cinema could stand to improve the quality of their output while still maintaining those fundamental elements that make Bollywood so much fun. Such an effort would help to widen the commercial appeal of these films to western audiences while still allowing them to be what they should be first and foremost, that is a national product for Indian audiences. KISNA is prime example of a film that could have followed the example of the brilliant LAGAAN and broken borders, but instead falls into the same "might have been" category as so many other Indian musicals.

There is a lot to like about KISNA. The story is interesting and one that would appeal to audiences not particularly familiar with the Bollywood genre, the characters are intriguing, the songs are above average, and best of all, the movie is shot with an eye for the spectacular. But despite all of this, the director fails at pulling it all together despite having all the elements for a real classic. Apparently the film was written, produced and directed by a single person, but I'm sure a little oversight and collaboration would have helped. I suspect this director was a bit full of himself as evidenced by the final image of the film being of himself sweeping his arm out over a vast valley where the movie was shot as if to say, "this film is all mine!"

KISNA is bound to be compared to LAGAAN and with good reason. Both films are concerned with the British Raj and both depict a love triangle between an Indian man and woman and the British woman who comes between them. Yet whereas LAGAAN had a light fairy-tale feel to it, KISNA is all drama and action. This is not necessarily a problem, except it's executed with a heavy hand from the start. The worst parts, however, are the repetitive action sequences which are basically the same situations played out over and over again. By the third time the young British woman is carried away by a bad guy you sort of hope she doesn't come back. As well, some of the stunts are merely implied by camera work rather than actually shown which feels a bit like a cheat and takes some of the excitement away.

Still, if you want an excuse to see KISNA, the musical numbers certainly fit the bill. The cinematographer and dance choreographer do an exquisite job fueling the numbers with vibrance and excitement and some of the sequences are simply stunningly beautiful. There is, however, one very unfortunate exception. During one number which really should have been a touching song of unexpressed feelings by one character for another quickly devolves into the most absurd display of tasteless pop pandering I've seen in a Bollywood film in quite sometime. Rather than a deserted church in 1947 India, we are transported into something akin to a Mariah Carey music video replete with glowing motion trails and video generated rainbows. I half expected to see a unicorn fly across the screen followed by a VH1 logo.

As for the actors, most do exceedingly well in their roles. Although I was less impressed with the young British woman due to her overly-dramatic takes, I suspect it was the director who pushed for this style. I'm sure the actress had a better performance that remained untapped.

Though nowhere near the pinnacle of LAGAAN, KISNA is worth a trip to the cinema if only to admire the wonderful musical numbers and also to ponder what this film "might have been" if it had been in the hands of a more capable director.

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

This has to be one of the worst Hindi movies I've ever seen and nobody in their sane mind would like this flick. It is very sad to see a crass movie like this marketed with the " this is what India really is" tag.

The camera work is strictly okay and the dialog is oh so predictable. Sub standard acting, unnecessary dance scenes, and a very bad plot line makes Kisna a serious waste of time and money.Amrish Puri ( R.I.P.),sad to say is below par as one of the negative characters. On the flip-side Om Puri and Sushmita Sen are the only good things to happen to the movie albeit for a short time span. bottom line : listen to the audio CD( its a few notches higher )and skip the flick.

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

When we have an Industry in India (bollywood) that produces a handful of useless commercial masala films every year(with only a few being entertaining), here comes something different...There are no actors going around dancing without a shirt on. No wet saree dance and no cliché bollywood junk...Yes, there is song and dance but the story actually has some meaning to it and you need brains to understand something like that. Yes, there are loose ends and plot-holes and that is why I wouldn't call this an EXCELLENT and FANTASTIC film. I respect the director for at least attempting to do something different rather than booking a flight to New Zealand and having a bunch of ladies dancing around in bikinis....Just look at the overall grandeur of this film...The cinematography, the music, the dance sequences, the sets and the theme..All these things are quite impressive..If you know anything about film-making then you would understand.Yes it gets a bit too much at the later portions of the film, but still...I wouldn't call this movie bad when compared to the other films that bollywood produces...