{"id":703,"date":"2008-01-07T15:18:00","date_gmt":"2008-01-07T15:18:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/2008\/01\/review-dus-kahaniyan-2.html"},"modified":"2021-06-21T02:24:54","modified_gmt":"2021-06-21T06:24:54","slug":"review-dus-kahaniyan-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/2008\/01\/review-dus-kahaniyan-2.html","title":{"rendered":"Review : Dus kahaniyan"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>\"\"Rating : Below average (2.5\/5)
\nGenre : Drama
\nYear : 2007
\nRunning time : 2 hours
\nDirector : Sanjay Gupta, Meghna Gulzar, Jasmeet Dhodi, Hansal Mehta, Apoorva Lakhia, Rohit Roy
\nCast : Shabana Azmi, Naseeruddin Shah, Amrita Singh, Manoj Bajpai, Diya Mirza, Minissha Lamba, Nana Patekar, Neha Dhupia, Mahesh Manjrekar, Arbaaz Khan, Mandira Bedi, Aftab Shivdasani, Dino Morea, Sanjay Dutt, Suniel Shetty, Tareena Patel, Jimmy Shergill, Masumeh Makhija, Neha Uberoi, Parmeet Sethi<\/strong><\/p>\n

DUS KAHANIYAN : INEPT !<\/em>
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

You can\u2019t get more upfront than this. \u201cDus Kahaniyan\u201d really is just 10 stories stitched up together. No reading deeper meanings into it. Infact no reading any meaning into it. Ten stories, without a theme to tag them together. Pretty patchy, if you ask me. Why wouldn\u2019t I just watch 10 disjointed TV soaps instead ?<\/p>\n

The 10 stories showcased, range from the romantic, to the clich\u00e9d, to the bizarre and the paranormal. They were each of about 10-12 minutes, were given separate names, and directed by a handful of directors, Sanjay Gupta doing the meat of the work. Since I\u2019m an optimist, let\u2019s talk about the good ones first \u2013 there were three :<\/p>\n

– \u201cMatrimony\u201d directed by Sanjay Gupta, starred Mandira Bedi and Arbaaz Khan as a married couple, and was about faith and fidelity in marriage. Nicely done, this came complete with the Gotcha! ending.<\/p>\n

– \u201cZahir\u201d, also directed by Gupta, starred Manoj Bajpai and Dia Mirza, and was about a writer and the girl he falls for. Another surprise ending, although not as believable as \u201cMatrimony\u201d.<\/p>\n

– Thirdly there was \u201cPoornamashi\u201d, directed by Meghna Gulzar. It starred Amrita Singh and Minisha Lamba as the mother-daughter pair on the horns of a dilemma. This one was the best of the lot, and displayed, what I thought was genuine emotion mixed in with life\u2019s reality.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m sitting on the fence on the next one \u2013 it starred Shabana Azmi and Naseeruddin Shah, and even they couldn\u2019t save it. \u201cRice plate\u201d was about a bigoted Tamilian aunty, who sheds her religious prejudices. This one was strictly OK, and just because of the excellent acting.<\/p>\n

Now the remaining six didn\u2019t work for me, and they are :<\/p>\n

– Hansal Mehta directed \u201cHigh on the Highway\u201d starring Jimmy Shergill and Masumeh Makhija. Two stoned out lovers on the highway, doing I\u2019m not sure what. Bizarre.<\/p>\n

– \u201cLovedale\u201d \u2013 Jasmeet Dhosi\u2019s story of love by super-natural intervention. Silly, silly, silly !<\/p>\n

– \u201cSex on the beach\u201d \u2013 Have you met death in a swimsuit, yet ? If not, here\u2019s your chance. A little black humor, lot\u2019s of skin do not a very engrossing story make. This one\u2019s by Apoorva Lakhia.<\/p>\n

– \u201cStrangers in the night\u201d stars Neha Dhupia and Mahesh Manjrekar. This awkwardly contrived story, comes off looking cheap. Or was that just Manjrekar on screen ?<\/p>\n

– \u201cRise and Fall\u201d is Gupta\u2019s tribute to the \u201cGangsta\u201d genre, with the desi mafia represented by Sanjay Dutt and Suniel Shetty. The basic story was about power-play between two \u201cbhais\u201d, but the rest of it was obscured by dramatization, music and a whole lot of gunfire. This one frankly, made little sense to me.<\/p>\n

– Gubbare, also by Sanjay Gupta, is a lesson on being thankful for what you have. It tries a little too hard, and comes off preachy.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve had desi multiple-story based films before, remember \u201cDarna mana hai?\u201d . So I do believe that the concept can work, although it must have a common thread binding it. If not, each story had better be strong. Out of all the 10, the only one that stood strong, the only one that I cared about a smidgen, was \u201cPoornamashi\u201d. I could have done with more of Meghna Gulzar\u2019s work and less of Gupta\u2019s, since his was erratic at best.<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t fault the actors, although some of them were terrible too. I mean, how genius-y do you have to be to see \u201cLovedale\u201d and not be knocked senseless by it\u2019s gobsmacking stupidity ? I approach Sanjay Gupta\u2019s (and White Feather Films) with some trepidation, because he (and they) think they are the bacchas<\/em> of Francis Ford Coppola, and really, it\u2019s not happening.<\/p>\n

The title number comes with the end credits. Apparently the music of this film comes in 2 flavors, so they have like 2 versions of the same songs. Me thinks if they\u2019d paid as much attention to the film, as they did to the music, this movie would have had some potential. As it is, it isn\u2019t worth your time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rating : Below average (2.5\/5) Genre : Drama Year : 2007 Running time : 2 hours Director : Sanjay Gupta, Meghna Gulzar, Jasmeet Dhodi, Hansal Mehta, Apoorva Lakhia, Rohit Roy Cast : Shabana Azmi, Naseeruddin Shah, Amrita Singh, Manoj Bajpai, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"twitter_17000648_17000648":"","facebook_10233691416821117_190635594420624":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[51,76,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-703","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-51","category-bollywood","category-rating-pg13"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":false,"thumbnail":false,"medium":false,"medium_large":false,"large":false,"1536x1536":false,"2048x2048":false,"post-thumbnail":false,"sow-carousel-default":false},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"amodini","author_link":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/author\/admin"},"uagb_comment_info":5,"uagb_excerpt":"Rating : Below average (2.5\/5) Genre : Drama Year : 2007 Running time : 2 hours Director : Sanjay Gupta, Meghna Gulzar, Jasmeet Dhodi, Hansal Mehta, Apoorva Lakhia, Rohit Roy Cast : Shabana Azmi, Naseeruddin Shah, Amrita Singh, Manoj Bajpai, … Continue reading →","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p45CAb-bl","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/703","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=703"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/703\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9572,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/703\/revisions\/9572"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}