Desi Galaxy

Tashan is one of the most awaited films of 2008. Starring Akshay Kumar, Kareena Kapoor, Saif Ali Khan and Anil Kapoor. This movie is directed by Vijay Krishna Acharya. Mr. Acharya, who wrote screenplay for the Dhoom and Dhoom 2, is debuting his career as a director with this movie. Produced by Aditya Chopra and Yash Chopra under the banner of Yash Raj Films. We don’t know much about the story and plot of Tashan yet. But rumors are that Kareena will be seen wearing a bikini in this movie, Akshay will be playing the main character as Bachchan Panday, and Anil Kapoor is playing the negative role as Bhaiya ji. Music and songs of Tashan are composed by Vishal Shekhar.

Check out Music Review of Tashan

Trailers and Songs of Tashan

Film makers in Bollywood love to cast rivals together. In 1949, Director Mehboob presented Dilip Kumar and Raj Kapoor together in the movie Andaz. Both actors were the top heroes of the industry at that time and the movie created the ‘who is the best’ kind of hype. The film was recieved well by the audiences. But considering Mehboob’s casting options at that time I don’t think that this casting scenario was entirely designed to took advantage of the rivalry. In fact Mehboob didn’t have much choice. he needed a triangle and Raj Kapoor, Dilip Kumar and Nargis were the best actors to do the job.

In 1982 Amitabh was the acclaimed angry young man and he was then signed up to face Dilip Kumar in the movie Shakti. Even though Dilip Kumar was playing the role of his father but fans and media expected the movie like it is a contest between two giants. And it was, Shakti was a story of a broken relationship between a father and his son. There were intense dialogs, emotionally charged scenes, tears and lots of drama just to make sure that audience get what they wanted from the movie. Shakti wasn’t major blockbuster but Dilip Kumar won filmfare for his role in the movie. This was the last time Dilip Kumar and Amitabh Bachchan appeared together in a movie.

In 1991, Rajkumar Santoshi signed Aamir Khan and Salman Khan together for his movie Andaz Apna Apna. Santoshi made a right decission with a hillarious script and wonderful timing. At that time Aamir and Salman were the heartbeat of the youth and the movie created much pre-release press hype. Unfortunately, it took Santoshi three years to complete the movie. By that time the media and the fans lost interest in discussing who is best. Movie didn’t perform well at the box office. But it has its own cult following and is one of the best comedy movies ever (My own opinion).

Even the Shahrukh-Amitabh setting has been tried before. They have worked together in Aditya Chopra’s Mohabbatein (2000) and Karan Johar’s Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham (2001). Both movies did well at the box office. So it seems like Shahrukh Amitabh rivalry is profitable for film-makers.

Shahrukh Khan and Amitabh Bachchan are once again going to appear together in the movie ‘Bhootnaath’. This came out when we have already consumed an over-dose of news about the growing tensions and rivalry between the two stars. The rivalry sparked by media is now going to help with the promotion of the new movie.

While looking at the Mohabbatein page on Wikipedia I found this interesting bit:

On January 9th 2007’s episode of The Colbert Report, during the “We the Mediator” segment. Stephen Colbert mentions the New Year’s feud between Khan and Bachchan. By botching the names of the other stars who arrived at Bachchan’s party, he decided to judge the winner by viewing clips from Mohabbatein (he pronounced as “Mohabah-tee-yahn”)and from Khan’s dancing to Bachachan’s angry look clips, the undisputed winner was Khan. Stephen Colbert described Khan as “Dilip Kumar” to Bachchan’s “Raj Kapoor.”

History repeats itself and Bollywood loves repetition.

The music of Ta Ra Rum Pum is melodious and is definitely not going to disappoint audiences who expect great music with every Yash Raj film. Vishal-Shekhar has composed a fun filled pack of six tracks. However I had this feeling that they haven’t come out of Salam Namaste and the tunes have some similar themes.

The title song, Ta Ra Rum Pum is a happy number. It is on air to promote movie and shows animated characters dancing with the main cast of the movie. Saif Ali Khan opens the song by telling that it is a story of four people Ta Ra Ma and Pa. Ta and Ra are the children and Ma and Pa are the parents. The song is just as sweet and cute as you might expect from a feel good film like this one. Shaan and Mahalakshmi Iyer has performed their vocal magics wonderfully and to add more fun to it Sneha Suresh and Shravan Suresh sing for the two kids in the movie.

Hey Shona is a romantic song with the voices of Shaan and Sunidhi Chohan. The song is light, melodious and has a very romantic tune to it.

It is a movie produced by Yash Raj and there had to be some bhangra filled, family centered, party dance number in its music. So we have ‘Nachle Ve‘. It is a below average number but I expect that the director Siddharth and choreographer Vaibhavi Merchant would put their best efforts on the song to make it look great on screen.

Ab to Forever reminds me of ‘My dil goes mmm” from Salam Namaste. K.K., Shreya Ghoshal, Vishal Dadlani has sung the song. A nice romantic song with the energetic voice of K.K.

I would like to rate the music higher but I feel that these songs are actually tailored for the movie and rating them without watching the movie is not possible. We will have to wait for the movie and check out how the songs fit in the story and how they are presented on screen. Since this is a Yash Raj production I think the picturization of songs will not disappoint the viewers and listeners.

You can listen and download songs of Ta Ra Rum Pum from Yash Raj Music’s website.

Yash Raj films and producer Aditya Chopra come with yet another brilliant idea directed by Siddharth Anand who previously directed Salam Namaste for Yash Raj Films. The story comes from Siddharth himself but unlike Salam Namaste this time he has hired Habib Faisal to write screenplay for Ta Ra Rum Pum. Music composed by Vishal-Shekhar and lyrics by Javed Akhtar.

This is a story of a family and how they struggle together in the time of trouble to overcome the challenges of life. Our hero, Rajveer Singh (played by Saif Ali Khan) is a pit-crew worker in a racing team with a passion for driving. He gets discovered by Harry (Jaaved Jaaferi), a team manager and the same day Rajveer Radhika (Rani Mukerji), a music student who he falls for instantly. His career boosts and he becomes the car race driver for ’speeding saddles’. He marrys Radhika and becomes father of two cute kids. But after a car racing accident Rajveer’s life takes a new turn. He is no more the top car racing driver in the country and he finds him self mentally scarred. He is forced to auction his house and he moves to Bronx style neighborhood. Rajveer and Radhika now decide that they are not going to hide reality their children. Begins a new journey where Rajveer has to fight his inner demons while keeping his family together and happy like they were before the accident.

Some interesting details about the movie:

• Manish Malhotra is not designing the costumes for Rani in this movie. Surily Goel has designed the costumes for Rani Mukerji and Mamta Anand has designed the costumes for Saif Ali Khan. We don’t know for sure but it seems like Rani has abadoned Manish altogether.
• The film is shot in entirely in the United States and only a few scenes were shot in Mumbai studios.
• It is rumored that Abhishek Bachchan would make an special appearance in the movie.
• Hollywood stunt coordinator Steve Kelso was hired to do the stunts for the movie. So I think it is going to have some better stunts something more brilliant than Dhoom?

Official website: Ta Ra Rum Pum