There isn’t much on offer this week, although Realive has some serious potential if they did it right; I missed it when it was on Sci-Fi, so I don’t really know. I am definitely not going to bother to see the remake of the horror flick Flatliners. The one film that looks like it could be a hoot is Judwaa 2, a variation on the classic Twins, except without Arnie.
We get several interesting options this weekend, and while Power Rangers looks pretty campy just like it should, it also looks like they might take a more serious shot at the franchise. Leaning to the Horror side, Life has six astronauts vs. a single celled organism returned from Mars that can out-think them. In the Bollywood fantasy Phillauri, a man must marry a tree to break a curse, but the spirit of that tree has her own agenda.
The winner this week has to be Kung-Fu Yoga, Jackie Chan in a comedic adventure that is a joint venture between Bollywood and Chinese film production companies. And yes, that does mean he gets to sing and dance in this one, as shown in the trailer I just recently posted. It should be playing in large multiplexes in major cities, particularly AMCs. If you are not lucky enough to have it playing near you, in wide release Resident Evil: The Final Chapter may finally close out that story arc. There is also the family fantasy A Dog’s Purpose, about a reincarnating K9.
Another good Jackie Chan film coming out later this year is Kung Fu Yoga, and the trailer looks quite amusing. This Bollywood/Chinese hybrid film should be the second in a series, since Jackie previously played an archeologist running all over the place while hunting a treasure down. That was in The Myth in 2005, with Stanly Tong directing both films. He was also supposed to be an Archeologist in the Jackie Chan Adventures animated series. Bollywood has a serious hand in this release, and it looks like he gets at least one choreographed song-and-dance sequence with his beautiful archeologist costar, Amyra Dastur. Being a big fan of Bollywood films, I am keeping my fingers crossed they get multiple songs in. This will be hitting US theaters on Friday, January 27th, only two weeks from now, and I will be there to see it!
Clive Owens and Morgan Freeman star in Last Knights, an epic fantasy adventure about the fight for freedom and justice against those who seek to oppress. The reviews have not been great, but it could be entertaining. I am a bit more interested in Detective Byomkesh Bakshy!, taking place in 1943 Calcutta, with a full assortment of potential evildoers both military and civilian. This one is based on the fictional detective in Bengali literature created by Sharadindu Bandyopadhyay, and if the movie does well we could have many more, since the original stories were published at a rate of 1 to 3 a year from 1932 to 1970. Interestingly enough, the author also worked in Bollywood writing screenplays, but not of Bakshy. There have been a number of other movies made about Byomkesh Bakshy, and after I see this one in the theater I am probably going to have to start tracking them down.
Oh, yeah, if you thought the two tracks they used in the trailer were the only good songs in the movie, allow me to correct that misconception by including the official Full Song Audio Jukebox. I wish western movies would do this, but since Bollywood movies are so music-centric it makes sense they would have started making these available before anyone else got around to it. Not just on YouTube to stream either, since they always give you a link to go buy the soundtrack on iTunes after you have streamed it and decided which songs you need in your permanent collection.
The entire collection of excellent audio from Kill Dil, the Bollywood variation on Kill Bill, sort of. Except with a different plot, a great collection of music, and you can dance to it! It should only take you about 40 minutes to go through the entire collection, and you can follow that by watching the trailer. It will be hitting the big screen on November 14th, but I have not confirmed in which country. Enjoy!