Review of Aashiq

Introduction

After the dismal Maan (2000), which was a major let down from Indra Kumar, he seems to have slightly matured with this film in terms of his technical skills. However the director fails to understand the audiences expectations and their intelligence yet again. All of his films Dil (1990), Beta (1991), Raja (1994) & Ishq (1997), had problems of being damn right offensive to those who were in the minority or disabled. While the humour has been thankfully toned down for his present film, it still has unnecessary humour which I found to be insulting. What is more disturbing is that some of the audiences in the cinema thought it to be funny.

Personally I found the humour in the phone calls Pooja makes to Chander during the the first half of the film. These scenes also brings out the characteristics of the two main characters which are depicted as both young & innocent. While Chander has boyish mannerism in a grown man, Pooja lacks confidence in approaching Chander to ask him out, thus troubles him on the phone. Although not the sweetest of scenes seen in an Indian movie it still is the highlight of this film to which many will audiences will smile at and is a decent narrative which helps us establish the characters, and plot.

Here the two actors Bobby Deol and Karishma Kapoor shine. Suprisingly they received a lot of harsh criticisms from film critics about their acting but I feel they did an excellent job, which is suited to them. You only have to compare their performances in this film with their last performances together in the dismal film Hum To Mohaabat Karega (2000) and you know certain improvements have been made - give them credit yaar!

Speaking of humour in the paragraph before I should also mention the two inspectors, played by Murkesh Rishi and Ashok Saraf, which formed humour in the second half of the film through their comic performances.

Showing audiences that Indian `film` families are all not as sweet as portrayals seen in films like Hum Aapke Hain Koun (1994), or Dhaai Akshar Prem Ke (2001) is a breath of fresh air. In this film the character of Pooja comes from a unstable family background with her wealthy mother and alcoholic father. The film has its plus and shows a growing change in the way ordinary Hindi films are changing. Up to this point the film is satisfying and one of Indra Kumar`s best cinematic moments.

When we reach the second half the film falls with the tendencies of `hero saves the day` motif, which is predictable and not as gripping as it was once upon a time. This is in the form of a flesh trader, played excellently by Rahul Dev. While the action scenes are well executed, as is the climax with a decent fight sequence, it does slow the film down with the separated side-tracked comedy scenes of Johnny Lever, the uninspiring songs, poor music score taken from the American classic `Godfather (1973)` & some plot holes concerning Chander`s escape from the police.

Aside from this the film is an entertaining one and if Indra Kumar carries on improving, as he has done since his first film Dil, he could eventually achieve a film which everyone will love.

Video

The DVD is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.85:1 which has been cropped from it`s original aspect ratio of 2.45:1. The cropping is badly affected when viewing as most of the cinemascope frame is missing on this DVD. This becomes apparent in many scenes, particularly in the action scene (in chapter 32) which relies heavily on the wide scope, now cut down to size on this DVD with poor results.

The least EROS could have doe was present the film in its original aspect ratio, or to have pan and scanned the 1.85:1 frame covering the action. The cropping does have an affect and it doesn`t representing the director`s original vision intended for the audience. The transfer is presented in an anamorphic mode but the anamorphic process fails to give the overall picture quality some detail.

The 35mm print negative source used for this DVD appears to be in dismal condition for a recent film like this. The source used was that of a regular cinema 35mm negative as major wear and tear blemishes was to be found on this disc, giving this recently released film an aged look. The small white and black dots/lines are distracting to the eye. Certainly more involvement in getting the interpositive source could have eliminated the blemishes that this DVD has, and would have made the film look rich and expensive (which it was when viewed on the cinema screen).

The DVD had small signs of compression artefacts which didn`t cause evident picture break up to spoilt viewing. Picture break up was still there and can be detected on large television screens (30 inches+). Shimmering and edge enhancement was present and is the most disturbing thing on the overall frame. They showed some effect around certain images within the picture information. The print also looked rather soft at times and had caused blurs to the picture which is irritating as picture detail is missing.

Strangely the colours on this disc are very well handled, with only a few scenes having colour bleeding problems. The film was shot in Mumbai and has that muted brown look, which is captured well on this disc. During the song sequences the colours become bright & bold and this too is neatly represented on this disc. Some colour tweaking has to be made on your DVD/T.V machines but once done it looks okay. If anything makes the colour not perfect it is the problems on the dark detail which seemed an enigma to view when trying to watch darkly lit scenes, or night sequences.

Audio

The 5.1 Dolby Digital sound is also not as good as expected. The surround effect is present but the setting of the soundtrack is too high, hence too harsh, and gives an overdone effect when the score kicks in or in the dialogues track. Also some light hissing, and pops can be heard as the soundtrack was taken from a regular cinema print which has less quality and fidelity then the original sound print in India. Still this track is miles better this then a mono 4.1 mix, which was present in the last Aashiq DVD version released by EROS for the USA rental market.

Features

The menus are average in design while the box cover looks impressive (and makes you actually believe this product is worth something). The English subtitles are a downside in that the songs are not subtitled, so 100% of information is not being received.

The supplements, on a second disc, are very dismal in content as they consist of only promotional features which were made to sell the film. It would have been better if EROS have commissioned a audio commentary, a brand new feature which looks back at the film, or even a talk with cast and crew on the experience of the film`s failure at the box office. But instead we get left overs from the B4U channel of a uninteresting making of, a audio party (why?....don`t ask me?), and a poorly scripted interview with the main actor, Bobby Deol.

Personally it would have been better if EROS had not given this mediocre second disc which doesn`t even amount to more then 45min running time in total. Some may argue it is better then nothing. Maybe I was dissapointed.

Conclusion

EROS have to come up with something much better then this! The front cover box design is better then the actually product! Maybe you should get the person who did the front box desing to do the DVD authoring. At least they know what the word quality means. Only worth renting.