Kisna: The Warrior Poet

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

Just came back after watching Kisna...and it was a bit disappointment..however the overall movie is good.. Story u have known so far...the love story is refreshing...but the movie drags sometimes.. and i was surprised i din saw Subhash Ghai in movie... Ashok Mehta have done brilliant cinematography..its the best thing of the movie...really awesome... music is good as we all know but a English song is in movie... Ghai had tried to make this movie great but he is unable to match up with the expectations... Coming to performances...Isha Sharwani seems to be in gymnastic earlier..her flexible body is flexed more than we expect...not much to do in acting department..but have done good job what she have been offered..

Antonia had surprised with her acting...her tuti futi Hindi is delightful... she is the winner in this movie...absolutely damn good performance and she is the show stellar...

Now Vivek Oberoi:He looks cool...but below average performance..totally forgettable..the movie being named on him and only established star among three he should have come with electrifying performance...but he gives just passable performance and one major drawback of the movie...

And its being 25 crr movie it ud be very tough for KISNA to get successful...

Sorry GHAI sahab u need SRK,AAMIR OR HRITIK in this movie to make it an epic...

Overall its good... 3/5....peace

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.

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.

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.