Mini movie review: Kandukondain Kandukondain
Last night we watched Kandukondain Kandukondain (aka I Have Found It), a Bollywood adaptation/modernization of Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility.
Technically KK is a Kollywood film because it was made in South India in the Tamil language (Bollywood being the Mumbai-based, Hindi language films). However, the DVD case identifies it as “Bollywood” no doubt for those of us who aren’t as familiar with the finer distinctions.
The Wikipedia entries linked above provide a nice summary of genre conventions, etc. so I’ll just add that KK is a lively, exotic approach to Austen’s classic story. The lavish song and dance numbers are fun. While the plot has been altered to accommodate Indian culture and a 21st-century setting, KK stays true to the spirit of the original novel. The cast is excellent (and as the Gimlet notes, all the Bollywood actresses are beautiful).
The DVD may be available at a specialty rental store. Blockbuster and Hollywood Video, the two biggies, don’t carry it. Netflix does, but without English subtitles. Scarecrow, of course, has it (gloat). We purchased our copy (distributed by Kino Video) through Amazon. It features optional English subtitles if your Tamil is rusty, song clips and music video montages.
A newer Austen/Bollywood hybrid is Bride and Prejudice, also starring Aishwarya Rai. It’s available at the major rental chains and, with the exception of the opening song/dance number, is entirely in English. This film, considered to be a Bollywood-lite movie targeting Western audiences, is good, frothy fun as well and more exuberant in tone than KK (much as Pride and Prejudice is a livelier, more sparkling read than Sense and Sensibility). Fans of Lost will enjoy seeing Naveen Andrews play a singing, dancing Mr. Bingley — and, as the Gimlet keeps pointing out, the actresses are all very pretty! Pre-blog, I reviewed B&P in detail and highly recommend it.
In short, Kandukondain Kandukondain is worth finding — as the titular song suggests, you’ll be glad you did.
P.S.: Thing One has several summer films on his wish list so he and the Gimlet will share their comments on those. They will see Pixar’s Cars later this afternoon.
June 17th, 2006 13:01
Sounds like another winner. I thought perhaps you would tack this onto the SandS page too but didn’t find it there. (Just in case you are wondering who keeps looking at your Austen pages. Wonder what the Pixie-Bob lady must think since I visit there so often! meow)
June 17th, 2006 15:57
Hmm … the blog is password protected so I wouldn’t want to link into the blog, but I could write up something separately, kind of like the little (and not so little) items I’ve done for NA. A lot of people on Pemberley and AustenBlog have reviewed KK — that’s how I found out that “Bollywood” is applied to several different areas of Indian cinema — so I bet anyone who read my review would know a lot more about it than I do!