Disclaimer: I'm a millennial, and don't often watch movies from the 1980s and earlier. However, I absolutely love snakes and Sridevi, so when I found this on Amazon Prime I had to check it out. Duly, I armed myself with a plate of cake, dialed up my best friend, and hit "Play".
By the end of the 2 hours and 15 minutes, both of us had completely lost the ability to breathe. "The bells," gasped we, our lungs burning with lethal mirth, "the BELLS!"
The movie actually starts off pretty normally, albeit with a healthy dose of campiness. Rajiv (Rishi Kapoor), the heir to a palatial property, has just returned home from his studies in London. While his mother schemes to set him up with the beautiful and wealthy Vijaya, he falls head over heels for a sensuous orphan named Rajni, who seems to have nothing better to do than to frolic around temples and sing about her lovelorn heart. The acting is alright. Sridevi actually lends a lot more than beauty to the role of Rajni. Jagdeep, as the eccentric and loudspoken Mr. Munshi, can be a bit grating, and is altogether too harsh on his plus-size and pretty wife. Neither of us could get over Rishi Kapoor's hillock of pomaded hair, nor his horrendous sartorial sense. Rajni, dear, you may view him as an old soulmate, but a bit of advice from us: if a man wears a sweater printed with a nonsensical mishmash of English words, he is not husband material.
The second half is when it turns into a true riot act. This isn't much of a spoiler, since it's the whole point of the movie, but the lovely sinuous Rajni turns out to be, well, literally sinuous: she is a naga, a snake who has the power to assume a woman's form. Rajni's interest in Rajiv is pure - but a scheming priest poisons her mother-in-law's mind with suspicion, leading to a final confrontation nobody sober could possibly have dreamt up. Highlights include a bizarre dance battle during which Sridevi sways and scoots across the floor in a failed attempt to imitate a woman imitating a snake, and a fight sequence during which the villain does an entire pradakshinam during his death throes, ringing every bell in a temple during the process (and believe me, there are a lot of bells to ring).
Once the credits rolled, my friend and I agreed that this was an excellent watch, although perhaps not in the way the director intended. Sridevi and Rupini are gorgeous even when their cheeks have been slathered with half a tonne of blush, so that's always a plus - and the scene with the bells truly captured an emotional state difficult to describe in mere words.
By the end of the 2 hours and 15 minutes, both of us had completely lost the ability to breathe. "The bells," gasped we, our lungs burning with lethal mirth, "the BELLS!"
The movie actually starts off pretty normally, albeit with a healthy dose of campiness. Rajiv (Rishi Kapoor), the heir to a palatial property, has just returned home from his studies in London. While his mother schemes to set him up with the beautiful and wealthy Vijaya, he falls head over heels for a sensuous orphan named Rajni, who seems to have nothing better to do than to frolic around temples and sing about her lovelorn heart. The acting is alright. Sridevi actually lends a lot more than beauty to the role of Rajni. Jagdeep, as the eccentric and loudspoken Mr. Munshi, can be a bit grating, and is altogether too harsh on his plus-size and pretty wife. Neither of us could get over Rishi Kapoor's hillock of pomaded hair, nor his horrendous sartorial sense. Rajni, dear, you may view him as an old soulmate, but a bit of advice from us: if a man wears a sweater printed with a nonsensical mishmash of English words, he is not husband material.
The second half is when it turns into a true riot act. This isn't much of a spoiler, since it's the whole point of the movie, but the lovely sinuous Rajni turns out to be, well, literally sinuous: she is a naga, a snake who has the power to assume a woman's form. Rajni's interest in Rajiv is pure - but a scheming priest poisons her mother-in-law's mind with suspicion, leading to a final confrontation nobody sober could possibly have dreamt up. Highlights include a bizarre dance battle during which Sridevi sways and scoots across the floor in a failed attempt to imitate a woman imitating a snake, and a fight sequence during which the villain does an entire pradakshinam during his death throes, ringing every bell in a temple during the process (and believe me, there are a lot of bells to ring).
Once the credits rolled, my friend and I agreed that this was an excellent watch, although perhaps not in the way the director intended. Sridevi and Rupini are gorgeous even when their cheeks have been slathered with half a tonne of blush, so that's always a plus - and the scene with the bells truly captured an emotional state difficult to describe in mere words.