Bollywood Film ‘Kites’ Is in Top 10 in U.S., Canada

 “Kites,” the adventure film from Reliance Big Pictures, took in approximately $1 million throughout the weekend to become the first Bollywood movie to open in the top 10 in the U.S. and Canada.

The film, introduced in 207 theaters, had sales of $958,673, canvasser Hollywood.com Box-Office said yesterday in an e-mail. Billionaire Anil Ambani’s Reliance said in a statement that no other Indian film has opened in the top 10.

Reliance Big is growing its U.S. presence. Last year, the company agreed to invest $325 million for an equity stake in Steven Spielberg’s DreamWorks Studios. “Kites” follows two immigrants, one from Mexico and the other from India, who go on the run to escape a vengeful Las Vegas casino owner.

At least one other Indian-produced film had a bigger U.S. opening than “Kites.” “My Name is Khan” produced by Mumbai- based Dharma Productions and released by Fox Searchlight, took in $1.94 million in February. The film ranked 13th in a weekend lineup that included “Valentine’s Day,” “The Wolfman” and “Avatar,” according to researcher Box Office Mojo.

Audiences will get a different look at “Kites” on May 28 when Reliance releases “Kites: The Remix,” a shorter version of the film edited by U.S. director Brett Ratner.

The original is “long and has a lot of dancing and extra stuff. It’s Bollywood and it works for that audience,” Ratner said in a telephone interview. “I just streamlined it and stuck with the love story, which works so well.”

Ratner, whose credits include “Rush Hour,” trimmed “Kites” to 90 minutes from 130 and changed some of the background music, Reliance said in a May 11 statement.

source:businessweek.com

Kites: Soars Bollywood

Combine Las Vegas heat and a Bollywood beat and you’ve got a very odd being indeed, a tale of star-crossed lovers, one from the East, the other from the West, a unyielding scoundrel, a horrifying pursue and a film you won’t soon forget.

Kites opens with a unsolved man, near death, toppling out of a train car filled with hay. The bullet that nearly killed him is removed by a kindly elderly man and for the next three months he is nursed back to health.

He is J — that’s it, just J — and he’s determined to return to Las Vegas to find the woman he has unpredictably fallen in love with there.

Three months earlier, J (Bollywood star Hrithik Roshan) was a dissolute Vegas hustler whose main scam, with the help of his pal, Robin, is to marry a chain of Mexican women so they can get Green Card status.

He meets Gina, the daughter of a rich and brutal casino owner, cements their relationship in a dance contest — a wonderfully physical routine suggestive of Bollywood — and is all set to become a pampered house-husband. That is, until he meets his future brother-in-law, Tony and his intended bride, Natasha.

Natasha is actually Linda, one of the 11 women he has beforehand wed and the only one who ever made a dent in his jaded heart. Both of them freely admit they’re in it for the money and the security their paramours offer. But the true course of love never runs smoothly.

Soon they are on the run from a vengeful Tony, who has his father’s money, a team of hired goons and the assistance of local authorities in tracking them down.

At nearly 2 ½ hours — a shorter version will soon be released by American director Brett Ratner (Rush Hour) — director Anurag Basu does an admirable job of keeping it fresh, sustaining the tension of the chase and allowing the love to blossom between a handsome rogue who speaks Hindi and English and a Mexican beauty, played by Bárbara Mori, who speaks neither.

Roshan is a genuine Bollywood star and it’s not difficult to see why. With his yellow-green eyes, sculpted features and chiseled body, he exudes charisma and the camera loves him. Mori is likewise a smoldering onscreen presence and their burgeoning love and their growing desperation feels genuine as they are relentlessly pursued.

Basu does falter in the film’s final leg, giving us an ending that is perhaps unnecessarily confusing. But it detracts little from making Kites an intense, exciting and highly entertaining film.

source:thestar.com