Remakes - A Retrograde Step?

It has not been a great year for Bollywood and Kollywood so far. Newyork and Ayan have been the only ones raking in the cash registers at box-office. There was the much hyped Warner Bros Chandni Chowk to China early in January. The fact that WB put an embargo on their Hollywood movies being remade abroad made sure that CC2C got more than its share of limelight. But the movie was a damp squib. Then there was Anurag Kashyap's DevD and Gulaal, the latter being critically acclaimed, but the bottomline was both were flops.Formula based Akki tried something different with Tasveer 9X11, but result was no different. Then there was this 3 month embargo due to distributors-producers trade-off. This is where the title of this post gains significance.

9 out of 10 in Tamil Nadu will agree that Deva is copy cat raised to the power n. But then, Bollywood has Anu malik who is copy cat raised to the power n, where n tends to infinity. After the 3 month break, Bollywood's revival was supposed to be brought about by star studded Kambakht Ishq. Till, the press digs the guy behind the camera's mouth endlessly, no one would ever get to know that this was a remake of Kollywood's Pammal K Sambandham. Kambakht Ishq however was customized to cater to the glitz and glamour associated with a typical Bollywood movie. Disappointment is an understatement. Then you had this movie featuring homely Amrita Rao sporting a bikini. The title of the movie brought about a furore over copyright issues. Again, it needed some googling to find out that this was a remake of Velli Thirai which is a remake in itself. The movie sank without a trace. Ghajini, a remake featuring the same director could not be camouflaged as a genuine Bollywood creation. Same goes for the most recent Wanted which raises some interesting questions in my mind. How will Vijay's same dirty shirt fit Salman Khan? Do they transliterate the dialogues when remaking? Some dialogues in the movie reminded me of a mail forward wherein Chinese ended up making some weird signboards while transliterating into English. So, this film 'Wanted' had same director and hence it wasn't possible to hide the fact that it was remake of a remake. Bollywood has had some successful remakes too, the most recent being 'Bhool Bhulaiya' which arguably catapulted Akshay kumar to stardom. The verdict is much of the remakes in Hindi that we have come to know through the horse's mouth or through our own inquisitive instincts point that they have met with mixed success, atleast for 2009.

Now, let us move to Kollywood. I'm just back from Unnai pol oruvan, a remake of Bollywood's original idea "A Wednesday". The movie has been customized beautifully for tamil audience. The idea has been borrowed, not the dialogues and locations. I believe remakes can still be done some justice if the idea can be taken as core and build the body around it to suit the local audience, bring in extra effects through music, art work, camera or editing. I've not seen that happening in most of Bollywood remakes involving another crew though it is not actually right to generalize completely. Let us say for 2009 movies, this is true for Bollywood. I admit I've still not seen Wednesday, but the remake is well made that until someone else tells me it is a remake I wouldn't have known it. Thankfully, in Kollywood, it easily reaches the audience that the movie is a remake. It doesn't take a investigation to find it out.

I've heard my Northie friends being wonderstruck with the mad fan following Southies have for their reel image heroes. I've seen enough fun being made of Southern heroes. While their taunts are not completely unjustified, there have been a good number of hindi movies which have still bombed due to non-acceptance of audience. Ek Hasina Thi, Gulaal are just a couple that instantly come to my mind. It did surprise me to hear that Singh is Kingg was the biggest grossing movie of all time in Bollywood till Ghajini broke the record. Why is it that still success in Bollywood is defined by those formula based films? Exceptions to these are far and few like Ddil Chahta Hai and Lagaan. Bollywood offers more room for experimentation but the success rate of the varieties that it throws has been pretty poor compared to Kollywood where an unknown entities like Eeram, Chennai-28, Naadodigal are attracting a huge audience across the state. I would not like to conclude that Bollywood's story tellers and directors are lesser mortals. It's just the difference in mind set, the cine divide between North and South, I believe brings in this change in behaviour.