Showing posts with label Blind. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Blind. Show all posts
Is web now Bollywood's safety blanket?
8:46 AM
A number of star-led projects these days are headed directly to digital platforms, ditching theatrical release. We decode
Sugandha Rawal (HINDUSTAN TIMES; July 29, 2023)
What’s common among Shahid Kapoor-starrer Bloody Daddy, Varun Dhawan and Janhvi Kapoor-starrer Bawaal and Blind, featuring Sonam Kapoor Ahuja? Its makers ditched a big screen release and took the direct-to-OTT route. Amid the supposed resurgence of the box office, looks like makers consider the web a safer bet to release films.
The box-office performance of Indian films has marginally dipped, though Hindi movies have shown improvement, according to Ormax Media’s bi-annual report. Could this be a reason for the increase in the number of web-first releases?
Trade expert Atul Mohan says, “Makers feel going to OTT is a safer bet and streaming platforms also want big names, to get subscribers. When makers sense a film will not work, they strike a deal with a streaming platform and also save money on marketing. If the budget of a film is Rs. 65 crore, they usually spend Rs. 10-15 crore on promotions.”
FROM THE STREAMER’S MOUTH
According to Manish Kalra, chief business officer at ZEE5 India, the trend has a lot to do with the creative freedom the web offers: “From Salman Khan’s Radhe (2021) to recent hits Sirf Ek Bandaa Kaafi Hai (starring Manoj Bajpayee) and Tarla (featuring Huma Qureshi and Sharib Hashmi), the [web] space provides creators a platform to connect with the audience, map preferences and bring stories with more compelling narratives.”
NOT A ONE-SIZE-FITS-ALL CONCEPT
Trade expert Taran Adarsh feels what’s meant for the big screen should head there: “For instance, in the case of Zara Hatke Zara Bachke, a lot of people said it is meant for OTT and that it will not make even Rs. 10 crore at the box office. But, it has made close to Rs. 90 crore, all because the producer took a big risk and released it in theatres. Makers should never underestimate the power of good cinema.”
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Whoever has put in money [in a film] should benefit, irrespective of the medium of release. I’d want all my films to be released on the big screen, but I understand the commercial aspect. So, as long as it is benefiting everybody and reaches viewers, I don’t mind where they (his films) release.
- Sharib Hashmi, actor
Producers are looking at the OTT space as a safer bet over the big screen. And that is fine. As long as a film is released somewhere... Kahin na aaye, usse better kahin toh release ho!
- Anees Bazmee, director
Commercial films and family entertainers have always been my preferred choice-Sonam Kapoor
8:07 AM
Returning to the movies after almost four years with Blind, Sonam says she will do two films every year, with a focus on mainstream offerings
Upala KBR (MID-DAY; July 25, 2023)
Over the past year, Sonam Kapoor Ahuja has been revelling in the new chapter of her life, as husband Anand Ahuja and she became proud parents to son Vayu. But now, the actor in her is calling out to her.
Earlier this month, she was seen in producer Sujoy Ghosh’s thriller Blind, which marked her return to movies four years after The Zoya Factor (2019). Now that she is ready to relive the magic of a movie set, what’s the road ahead?
Family entertainers, she says. “I’ve loved being part of projects that have entertained audiences. As I return to the cinemas post pregnancy, I will endeavour to do just that because it brings me joy to see people forget about their current reality and enjoy the world that cinema creates for us,” she smiles.
Her affinity for mainstream entertainers goes back to her childhood. She says those films made her want to be an actor in the first place. “Since I was a child, I loved films that I could watch with my entire family. I went through a range of emotions while watching them. Those moments [continue to be] some of the most beautiful memories of my life. That’s the kind of cinema I want to be a part of. Commercial films and family entertainers have always been my preferred choice.”
In her 16-year run in the industry so far, the actor has chosen stories that struck a chord with her. So if her filmography had light-hearted fare like I Hate Luv Storys (2010) and Khoobsurat (2014), it also had the underrated Delhi-6 (2009) and the heart-breaking Neerja (2016) that won her a National Award. Going on a signing spree has never been Kapoor’s style, and she wants to continue that.
“I’m looking to do two projects year on year, from here on. I’m finding myself drawn to subjects that appeal to a wider audience segment.” Sources say that she has already signed two films that are slated to roll next year.
The worst thing I could do is to try and better the original-Sujoy Ghosh
3:08 PM
Adapting Blind from a Korean film of the same name, creative director Sujoy Ghosh says filmmakers must treat source material with respect when remaking it
Mohar Basu (MID-DAY; July 8, 2023)
We’ve come to expect taut thrillers from Sujoy Ghosh. The latest from his stable is the Sonam Kapoor Ahuja-led Blind. Ghosh serves as the creative director and producer on the movie, which is an adaptation of the 2011 Korean film of the same name. The filmmaker is no stranger to adaptations—only four years ago, he gave us Badla (2019), which was based on the Spanish hit, The Invisible Guest (2016).
So, what’s the cardinal rule of adapting well? “I communicate with my audience through my film, like [I do on] a mobile. For me to speak to you on the phone, the line has to connect first. It’s important that my film connects with you. The world we set our story in and the characters must work,” he says.
Ghosh then highlights a mistake that many make when adapting—of trying to be cleverer than the original. “The toughest part is to be faithful to the source material. I am remaking because I love the original. The worst thing I could do is to try and better it. That is a big no-no for me. What is the point of falling in love with one person and marrying someone else? Do not mess with the source material just because you can. If the film could have been bettered, the original writer would have done it. So when you get something good, treat it with respect,” emphasizes the filmmaker, who has another adaptation in the pipeline with The Devotion Of Suspect X.
Shome Makhija’s directorial venture Blind, which premiered on Jio Cinema yesterday, sees Kapoor as a visually-impaired woman who witnesses a murder by a serial killer, essayed by Purab Kohli. Then on begins a cat-and-mouse chase between the two. With Korean content making waves around the globe since Parasite (2019), one might assume that Ghosh is jumping on the bandwagon. But he refutes it.
“The action quotient in Korean films is mind-boggling, but some of those films are devoid of any emotion, and rightfully so. If you are fighting 100 men with one axe, do you have the time to feel any emotion? But if you added a dollop of emotion in that, it could be a neat Indian film. There is a lot of potential in Korean content to be adapted in Indian films, but one will have to work hard to achieve [the right balance].”
(Crisp) Movie Review: BLIND by FENIL SETA
2:48 PM
Blind, which has released today on Jio Cinema, boasts of a great premise. A few scenes are thrilling and nail-biting. The cinematography is great and so is the use of blue and red lights. The film is also peppered with some funny dialogues in between. On the flipside, its too long. The first 30 minutes are dry. And there are too many cinematic liberties. A city like Glasgow has no CCTV camera, it seems, and the cops are relying on old-school methods of finding witnesses to identify the antagonist. Sonam Kapoor, however, puts up a fine act and is convincing as a blind ex-cop. Purab Kohli is great as the villain and very different from the positive roles he’s known for. Vinay Pathak is adorable. Shubham Saraf (Nikhil) delivers a great performance. Lillette Dubey is dependable. All in all, despite the loopholes, Blind is an average fare thanks to its performances and thrilling moments.
My rating - ** ½ out of 5!
My rating - ** ½ out of 5!
Fenil's Bollywood Talk # 785
9:33 AM
THREE WOMEN-CENTRIC FILMS TO TRY THEIR LUCK THIS FRIDAY
The month of July is here and it’ll be dominated by three major Hollywood films which will be released in the second and third weeks of July. Tomorrow, meanwhile, three Hindi films will be released, all of which are female-centric. My analysis:
NEEYAT: It stars Vidya Balan in the lead along with Ram Kapoor, Rahul Bose, Neeraj Kabi, Niki Walia, Amrita Puri, Shahana Goswami, Dipannita Sharma Atwal, Shashank Arora, Prajakta Koli and Danesh Razvi. This marks Vidya’s first film in cinemas after nearly four years. It is directed by Anu Menon of Shakuntala Devi and Four More Shots Please fame. The film is a murder mystery and from the trailer, it gave a déjà vu of the Hollywood film, Knives Out. The actors, during promotions, have assured that it’s not the case and that both films are as different as chalk and cheese. The awareness is very limited and hence, the opening will be poor, around Rs. 1 crore. If word of mouth is positive, the collections can double or go even more on Saturday.
BLIND: It stars Sonam Kapoor and this is also her first film in nearly 4 years. It will release directly on Jio Cinema and has Sujoy Ghosh as one of the producers. It is a remake of the 2011 Korean film of the same name and is about a blind cop in search of a serial killer. The trailer is intriguing. But the buzz is hardly there. The promotions are non-existent. There were reports that Sonam is disheartened with the way it’s being released directly on an OTT platform. Nevertheless, Blind can find an audience if reports are positive since Jio Cinema is available for free.
TARLA: It is the biopic of chef and cookbook author Tarla Dalal. Huma Qureshi plays the lead role and she’s joined by Sharib Hashmi. It marks the directorial debut of Piyush Gupta, who wrote Dangal and Chhichhore. Nitesh Tiwari, who made these two films, is also one of the producers. It’ll release on Zee5 and can grab attention due to its theme and light-hearted feel.
Another release this week is 72 Hoorain. The film is in the news more for the controversy. The makers have tried their best to arouse curiosity, with the hope that it turns out to be the next The Kerala Story. But looking at the hype and ticket sales, it doesn’t seem that it’ll manage to have good innings.
The Hollywood release this week is Insidious: The Red Door. It is the fifth and final part of the Insidious series. The franchise is not big in India. The last part, Insidious: The Last Key had collected around Rs. 11 crores in India. This one might collect in a similar range. In fact, it can open better than Neeyat.
Interestingly, Insidious: The Red Door had paid previews yesterday, that too at 11:55 pm and the occupancy was encouraging. It has a full-fledged release today. The makers decided to come earlier and not on Friday since next week, Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning - Part One, will have a mid-week release, on Wednesday, July 12.
It was a no-brainer for me to do Blind as Sujoy Ghosh is the producer-Sonam Kapoor
8:14 AM
Sonam, who returns to the screen after four years with Blind, on how she jumped at the chance of working on a Ghosh thriller
Mohar Basu (MID-DAY; July 6, 2023)
"I’m glad people have liked the trailer. That’s half the battle won,” says Sonam Kapoor Ahuja, gearing up for this week’s release, Blind. The actor had gone missing from our screens since The Zoya Factor in 2019, barring a cameo in AK vs AK (2020). She knew she wanted a powerful story to mark her return. Her search ended with director Shome Makhija’s Blind. An adaptation of the 2011 Korean film of the same name, the thriller sees Kapoor as a visually-impaired police officer in pursuit of a serial killer, essayed by Purab Kohli.
Kapoor says she gave her nod to the Jio Cinema offering primarily because of producer Sujoy Ghosh. A fan of his whodunit Kahaani (2012), she calls him the master of gritty thrillers in Hindi cinema. “It was a no-brainer for me to do the film because Sujoy Ghosh is the producer. He has a fantastic track record with edgy, gritty thrillers, and I jumped at the idea that he would be the captain of the ship. He has led the film creatively since its conceptualization,” says the actor.
Slipping into the role of a visually-impaired woman wasn’t easy for the leading lady. The film’s director recently told mid-day how the actor was trained by two visually-impaired coaches to ensure authenticity in her performance (She’d do one rehearsal with her eyes closed, July 1). An actor must submit themselves to the role and creators, asserts Kapoor.
“As an actor, I trust my producers and directors completely. I’m glad that I found a producer in Sujoy, who is the master of this genre. It was a tough role, and I have given my all to play Gia with sensitivity and grit.”
For Blind, Sonam Kapoor would do one rehearsal with her eyes closed-Shome Makhija
8:11 AM
With Sonam playing a visually-impaired woman in Blind, director Makhija recounts how she prepped with two differently-abled trainers for the role
Upala KBR (MID-DAY; July 1, 2023)
Shome Makhija knew that he would make his directorial debut with a thriller, given his experience as an associate director on Sujoy Ghosh’s 'Badla' (2019), 'Kahaani 2: Durga Rani Singh' (2016) and 'Typewriter' (2019). What he didn’t know was that Sonam Kapoor Ahuja would instantly be a part of his first feature.
“When we met at Sonam’s house the first time, we spoke for over a couple of hours about the film. At the time, she hadn’t seen the Korean original,” he says, recounting the inception of 'Blind'.
An adaptation of the 2011 Korean thriller of the same name, 'Blind' sees Kapoor as a visually-impaired woman who becomes a key witness in a crime and finds herself confronting a serial killer, played by Purab Kohli. For the prep, she relied on “alternate vision coaches” in Scotland.
“James Goldsworthy and Nadia Turnbull help people adapt to being visually impaired. Both lost their eyesight at a certain point in their lives. Now, they help people function [on a day-to-day basis],” says the director.
Kapoor was trained by the duo before the Jio Cinema film rolled in December 2020. They had training sessions on Zoom since the pandemic was going on at the time. “We went through every scene with them to make sure that the representation is authentic. We didn’t want to misrepresent differently-abled people. They asked us to tweak certain scenes that weren’t plausible. For instance, in a scene, Sonam was to talk to her guide dog lying on the bed. James and Nadia pointed out that a guide dog’s training doesn’t allow them to climb on any furniture. So, the dog wouldn’t sit on the bed.”
To the leading lady, playing a differently-abled person was both a challenge and a chance to push her boundaries as an artiste. She reported to the location in Scotland three days before the shoot to familiarise herself with the set-up.
“Sonam visited the apartment where her character is shown staying, three days before the shoot began. She learnt where everything is placed in the house. She’d always do one rehearsal with her eyes closed, checking whether she knew the places intimately. Also, we got her hand-painted lenses, and she couldn’t see properly with them. But Sonam wanted to [wear them] as they would help her play the part better.”
As cinemas reopen, Sujoy Ghosh to revisit release plan of Blind that was to mark Sonam Kapoor’s web debut
8:17 AM
With cinema halls opening doors again, Blind director Ghosh says he is rethinking release of film that was to mark Sonam’s web debut
Upala KBR (MID-DAY; October 25, 2021)
While makers of several films like Sardar Udham and Rashmi Rocket decided to go ahead with a scheduled OTT release despite the government having announced the reopening of theatres, Blind director Sujoy Ghosh has decided to revisit his plan. The Sonam Kapoor Ahuja starrer was to initially mark her web debut, but Ghosh admits that the team is now uncertain about their decision.
He tells mid-day, “We will decide [the further course of action] next month. At the end of the day, we all make movies for the big screen, right? That’s a high for a filmmaker. We have been thinking about [going ahead with] a theatrical release, but one doesn’t always get what they want. Suddenly, there is a plethora of films coming in. Shelf space is an issue. There is a list of movies lined up for release. Now, who has the income to watch four films a week? Many have been unemployed in the past year, and watching movies at a multiplex with the family can be an expensive [affair].”
Directed by Shome Makhija, Blind revolves around a visually impaired police cadet (played by Kapoor), who uses her senses to find a killer. The action-thriller, also featuring Vinay Pathak, Purab Kohli and Lillete Dubey, was shot in a start-to-finish schedule from December 2020, in Glasgow, Scotland. It was wrapped up in February this year. Talking about collaborating with Kapoor, Ghosh says, “Sonam is a brilliant actress, and is wonderful to work with.”
For Blind, we were starting at 3 pm and shooting until 4 am-Sonam Kapoor
8:12 AM
Sonam, who plays the central role in Sujoy Ghosh’s 'Blind', on filming the thriller in Scotland during the second wave of Coronavirus pandemic
MID-DAY (July 5, 2021)
From picnicking at Hampstead Heath during the summer to spending nights locked-down in her Notting Hill townhouse, Sonam Kapoor Ahuja has given a peek into her life in London in Vogue India’s July 2021 issue. However, it has not been all play for the actor. Earlier this year, Kapoor shot for director Shome Makhija’s Blind in Scotland. The film is a remake of the 2011 Korean thriller of the same name about an ex-police officer who loses her eyesight and becomes embroiled in a case.
To prepare for the Sujoy Ghosh co-production, she immersed herself in Zoom rehearsals, trained in fight sequences, and walked around the house with a blindfold on. She recalls wearing white lenses during the shoot that blocked her vision. “It was intense. We were starting at 3 pm and shooting until 4 am. You’d wake up and have one hour of daylight.” Still, she’s immensely proud of the film that lets her examine the experience of differently-abled people while playing “an empowered woman.”
Asserting that her craft means a lot to her, Kapoor is increasingly specific about the roles she takes on. While she acknowledges that depiction of women on screen is improving, there’s still a long way to go for an equal industry. “The pay gap is ridiculous. I can stand up to it, but then I don’t get those roles, and I’m okay with that. I can afford to do that. I realised over the past two or three years that I have no right to judge anybody. I’m privileged, so making difficult choices isn’t really f**king difficult.”
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