Filmmakers in Bollywood, India's movie industry, are notorious for borrowing liberally from foreign films far and wide, especially Hollywood.

Even when they don't copy an entire film frame by frame, Bollywood directors often borrow from several films at once, melding story lines and adapting them to an Indian setting, complete with song and dance. They do this, of course, without buying the remaking rights. Despite a lot of original cinema coming out of Bollywood, plagiarism is rife.

Hollywood hasn't cared until now, The Washington Post's Emily Wax reports. Twentieth Century Fox recently settled a lawsuit with BR Films -- a well-known banner -- over its remake of the 1992 hit "My Cousin Vinny." Fox accepted $200,000, paving the way for a release of the Hindi version, called "Banda Yeh Bindaas Hai" or "This Guy is Fearless".

The Times of London has reported that a lawyer representing major American studios has recently sent warning letters to producers who he believes are copying Hollywood films. Among the titles are "Ghostbusters", "Jerry Maguire", "The Departed" and "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button", the paper reports.

Will Fox's action finally put a stop to the widespread plagiarism in Bollywood? More likely, Bollywood producers will just have to cough up the money to buy remaking rights, which is how it should be.

Keep an eye on:

• Nokia plans to tackle Apple's iPhone with a bet on Linux software. (Reuters)
• Channel 4 will drop Big Brother as it focuses more on public service broadcasting. (Financial Times)
• Alcatel-Lucent shares jump on rumors of Chinese bid. (Reuters)

Photo: www.moviegoods.com

A feeling of numbness and disbelief is not uncommon after a movie-watching experience. Sometimes you are awed by the sheer vision of the director or the depth of a particular performance. Sometimes, it is a thought expressed, or an expression that stays with you.

But after watching “Kambakkht Ishq”, I was left numb at the thought someone could make such a bad film.

Yes, there is no other word for it. This extremely expensive film, with cameos by Hollywood stars and flashy fight sequences, isn’t quite the entertainer it promised to be.

Akshay Kumar is Viraj Shergill, a stuntman in Hollywood who likes to play the field. Aftab Shivdasani plays his younger brother, Lucky, who falls in love and gets married to Kamini (Amrita Arora).

Kareena Kapoor plays Simrita Rai, Kamini’s best friend and a part-time model and medical student who has a militant hatred of men, believing that they want “only one thing.”

Of course, in the tradition of Bollywood love stories, Viraj and Simrita hate each other at first sight and indulge in some mindless bickering in the first half.

There are also mindless song sequences, some corny double meaning innuendos, and jokes which lack punch and are often offensive — especially to women.

Then, to make matters worse, Viraj meets with an accident on the sets and ruptures his intestines. Guess who gets to operate on him? Yes, you guessed right.

So when Simrita operates on our hero, she mistakenly leaves behind a watch in his body.

Viraj walks out of the hospital with a watch lodged near his intestines and our heroine is left wondering how she can get him back on the operating table and get rid of the offensive object without being sued.

This is the problem the film focuses on in the second half of the film.
Hollywood actors Sylvester Stallone puts in an appearance as himself in two scenes as does Bond girl Denise Richards.

Richards even agrees to marry Viraj, before she is unceremoniously dumped for Kareena in the climax. And don’t miss the scene in which all of Hollywood stands up for “India’s national anthem” in the Kodak theatre. It’s hilarious, especially because it isn’t meant to be.

Of the performances, Jaaved Jaffrey and Boman Irani play some of the most mindless roles in film history. Kirron Kher, (who has perfected the loud, Punjabi mother act by now), hams it up as Kareena’s aunt and Aftab Shivdasani and Amrita Arora look like they would rather be home asleep in bed than on the sets of this film.

Kareena Kapoor is stuck with what is barely a role, and though she tries hard to pull it off, you feel no sympathy for her character. But it is Akshay Kumar who is the real disappointment.

Here is an actor who has managed to pull off some of the most badly written roles of recent times — whether “Welcome” or a “Singh is Kinng” — he manages to look good in a bad film.

In “Kambakkht Ishq”, his magic fails and his famed penchant for humour is nowhere to be seen.

This is a movie that is so bad, you have to see it to believe it. So go buy tickets.

If you are looking for intellectual stimulation at the movies, watch Clint Eastwood’s “Changeling” or wait for “Slumdog Millionaire” — “Chandni Chowk to China” is definitely not what you are looking for.

It’s the first big release of the year, is produced by a big Hollywood studio looking to enter the Indian market and has one of India’s most bankable stars. But it also has a lot of Bollywood “formula”.

Now whether you like this film or not depends on whether you like the “formula”. Do you like the twins separating-at-birth-and-meeting-20-years-later formula? Or perhaps the I-will-avenge-my-father’s-death formula? Take your pick because “Chandni Chowk to China” has taken each and every cliché from Hindi cinema of the 70s and 80s and repackaged it.

Akshay Kumar plays Sidhu, a simpleton cook in Delhi’s famed Chandni Chowk, who fumbles his way through life and is waiting for the stroke of luck that will change his life. Through a chance encounter possible only in Hindi cinema, he meets two natives of China. They are convinced Sidhu is the reincarnation of the ancient warrior Liu Sheng, who will rescue them from the clutches of evil villain Hojo.

Somewhere along the way we also learn of Inspector Chang, whose family was separated because of Hojo. Chang’s twin daughters, Sakhi and Suzie (played by Deepika Padukone) are separated while he loses his memory.

To attempt to explain the story beyond this point is difficult, because the plot gets too convoluted and loses itself at many places. Except for the 20 minutes in the second half, where Chang is training Akshay in the art of kung fu, the rest of the movie is one chaotic scene.

But “Chandni Chowk to China” is unabashed about this chaos. It seems to be saying — this is how we like our movies and this is how we will make them. Who cares about a coherent plot line  when you have Akshay Kumar performing stunts and singing mid-air with Deepika Padukone?

Like it or not, this is Bollywood formula at its best or worst, whichever way you look at it.

His voice is soft over the phone, almost inaudible. He has just done a lot of interviews, and the tiredness in his voice is clear.

There are no niceties, no formal hello; instead he plunges straight into the agenda of the day — that’s a typical A. R. Rahman interview for you. The 43-year-old music composer is as humble as he is talented, as unaffected by success as he is successful.

“Unbelievable,” he said as he stood on the podium with a Golden Globe statuette in his hand. And it was. That an Indian composer could win such a coveted international honour for what is essentially such an Indian soundtrack — and do it all with a minimum of fuss, is a matter of pride for all Indians.

“If I win it, it will be a surprise,” he told the media the day he was leaving for Los Angeles. “But if I do win, I want to win for India.”

He didn’t forget to mention his country in his acceptance speech on Sunday, thanking the “one billion” people of India for the praise.

Those one billion will now be egging him on for even greater heights — don’t forget, the Oscars are just a little over a month away, and to see an Indian composer hold that coveted trophy in hand is something we could only have dreamed of — until now.

Join us in congratulating Rahman and wishing him all the best for the Oscars. Jai Ho!

Will India’s A.R.Rahman win an Oscar for Original Music Score in 2009?