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Genre: Drama/Musical/Romance
Director: Gurinder Chadha
Starring: Aishwarya
Rai, Martin Henderson, Daniel Gillies, Naveen Andrews, Namrata
Shirodkar
RunTime: 1 hr 52 mins
Released By: Shaw
Rating: PG
Release
Date: 11 Nov 2004
Synopsis
:
From director
Gurinder Chadha and the team that created “Bend It Like
Beckham” comes a classic romance not just retold, but
reinvented in a new globally connected world. BRIDE AND PREJUDICE
puts an entirely different spin on Jane Austen’s story
of spirited courtship - Bollywood-style. Music, dance and spectacle
merge with love, vanity and social pressures, as Chadha transports
the comic tale of a witty young woman trying to find a suitable
husband to a cross-cultural setting that spans 21st century
India, London and America. It all begins in a modest Indian
village when the determined Mrs. Bakshi sets out to find marriage
matches for her four beautiful daughters while there’s
a lavish wedding party in town. Right away, the smart and headstrong
Lalita (Aishwarya Rai) announces she will only marry for love,
giving her mother nightmares. Then Lalita meets the wealthy
American Will Darcy (Martin Henderson) and sparks immediately
fly. But is it love or hate? Darcy comes off to Lalita as an
arrogant California snob. Lalita looks to Darcy like a small-town
Indian beauty who knows nothing of the world. Alternately enchanted
by and suspicious of one another, Lalita and Darcy nearly fall
prey to assumptions, gossip and a comedy of errors . . . until
pride is humbled and prejudice overcome so that love can triumph.
Review:
When it
anything Bollywood, I must confess that the scene of men and
ladies in synchronised dancing, lovers playing hide-and-seek
round the tree always pop up in my mind. Honestly, I never
have the patience to sit through any Bollywood movie shown
on local television, probably tired of the need to catch up
with the lightning speed sub-titles; all thanks to the bullet-fast
speaking actor and actresses, and the incorrect association
that such movies are un-cool and un-hippy.
However,
after watching "Bride and Prejudice", the latest
offering from Director, Gurinder Chadha, who bring us comedy
"Bend it like Beckham", my impression of Bollywood
movie would never be the same again. As
the name had obviously suggested, the movie was inspired by
Jane Austen's, Pride and Prejudice. This time, the well-known
master piece received a total makeover, which results were
an all-spectacular, East-meet-West romance, that is told with
a lively background of vibrant colours, decorated with aural-satisfying
songs and choreographically-perfect dance moves!
What's
commendable about Chandha is that she managed to maintain
the Bollywood touch in spite that the movie was played in
English language back by a Western crews, mainly comprises
of American and British. You do not see a perfect English
speaking Indian in the movie. Instead, Chandha has put most
Anti-Singlish Singaporean to shame by being proud of their
Indian
accents, which makes the movie heart-warming and unpretentious.
In
addition, as in all other Bollywood movies, there were toe-tapping
and head-nodding Indian drum beats that set the tempo of the
perfect dance moves throughout. You will also find a typical
Bollywood style "sound-before-impact" fighting scene
between two western men!
On
the cast list was Aishwarya Rai who play Lalita, a drop-dead
gorgeous lady of intelligence, who bravely believed in "love
to marriage" instead of the traditional culture of "arranged-marriage".
The Prince Charming was the Tom Cruise look-alike, Martin
Henderson as Darcy, a wealthy American-Hotelier, with an initial
snobbishness but was later more tolerance and open-minded
towards others culture when he fallen head over heels for
Latita. Watching this Western rising star playing alongside
with the
Bollywood queen was indeed refreshing. In the movie, their
romance fully
portrayed that love was indeed without boundaries!
Down
the cast's list was Nitin Ganatra as Mr Kholi, an accountant
based in Los Angelus who came home to choose an unfortunate
lady to be his wife. Chanting mottos like:"No life without
Wife!" his performance is definitely thumbs-up hilarious!
The
movie would have been perfect if more hurdles were thrown
in for the screen couple to overcome. The conclusion had failed
to elaborate further on Darcy's parent's opposition on his
romance with Lalita. Instead, the movie abruptly ended with
a spectacular Indian-wedding possession.
Nevertheless,
this is a must-see to all Bollywood enthusiasts and would
definitely convince those who may still be skeptical whenever
the
entertainment headlines touted Bollywood as the emerging leader
of the
industry.
Movie
Rating: B
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