The Indian film industry does not produce a lot of science
fiction. Fantasy films are actually fairly common, especially when
tinged with Hindu theology; snake movies are practically a separate
genre, and more than one film ends with “and then Kali shows up and
kills all the bad guys.” But science fiction . . . the Aamir Khan
production of The Time Machine never made it to theatres, and even Fun2sssh, Bollywood’s answer to Bill and Ted,
features an explicitly magical method of time travel. So if, for
whatever reason, you want Bollywood aliens, your only real choice is Koi . . . Mil Gaya (2003).
Sanjay Mehra (Rakesh Roshan, who is also the producer, director, one of the writers, and father of lead actor Hrithik Roshan) is a scientist living in Canada with his heavily pregnant wife Sonia (Rekha). Sanjay is dedicated to the search for life on other planets, and has added a device to his home computer in order to beam Kraftwerk songs into space as a means of communication. (Onscreen, it doesn’t seem nearly as stupid as it sounds.) It turns out the aliens are really into German technopop as well, since they beam the same song back to earth. An overjoyed Sanjay rushes to the Space Institute to tell his colleagues, but they mock him, accuse him of daydreaming, and send him on his way. (it’s behavior like that that gives Canadians their reputation as a cold, unfriendly people.)
Crestfallen, Sanjay and Sonia start the long drive home. On the way, though, the car’s electronics begin acting up, and then a huge UFO flies overhead. Unfortunately, Sanjay can’t watch the UFO and drive at the same time. He loses control of the car, and it flies off the road, killing him and leaving their unborn son Rohit severely brain-damaged. Sonia returns to India to raise their son alone.
The film never goers into much detail about the nature of Rohit’s condition. Essentially he behaves as, and is treated as, a child in a man’s body. In fact, he’s still in the sixth standard at school, despite the fact that he’s clearly in his early twenties and is played by Bollywood heartthrob Hrithik Roshan. Apparently he has been held back repeatedly over the years; as an educator, this is the part of the film that I had the hardest time suspending my disbelief over, since I don’t think keeping Rohit in the same grade that long would be doing anyone any good at all. Still, it’s a musical about aliens, so I shall accept it and move on.
Life isn’t easy for Rohit. While Sonia is a loving and devoted mother, and he has a close-knit group of friends from class, the school day is filled with a string of small humiliations, and he is constantly harassed by local rich jerk Raj Saxena (Rajat Bedi), son of the local Controller. Things go from bad to worse when Raj’s childhood friend Nisha (Preity Zinta) returns to town; after a series of misunderstandings, she calls upon Raj to teach Rohit a lesson, and Raj and friends are happy to do so, finishing the lesson by demolishing Rohit’s beloved scooter.
Raj hadn’t reckoned with the power of an angry Indian mother, though. Sonia angrily confronts the group, and Nisha is devastated to learn that, rather than punishing a cad, she has publicly hurt and humiliated a severely disabled young man. She tries to make amends, and soon Nisha and Rohit are fast friends. She even offers to help him learn how to use his father’s old computer. Of course, when they hook the computer up, the “beam Kraftwerk into space” program is still running . . .
That night, a huge UFO flies overhead, and nearly everyone in town is a witness. In the aftermath, as everyone else parties, the local government leaders and their families gather to discuss a surprising development; the UFO landed nearby, and if Inspector Khan (Mukesh Rishi) is correct, several aliens disembarked, and one didn’t make it back onto the ship. Everyone at the meeting is sworn to secrecy, and naturally the next morning Nisha runs off and tells Rohit all about it. The pair set out into the jungle just in time to save the alien from feral dogs, and discover that the representative of extra-terrestrial intelligence is a blue fish-faced Muppet with a double thumb, psychic powers, and a crippling fear of elephants.
They hide the alien at Rohit’s place.I t doesn’t take long for the kids to find out, though, and after it telekinetically hits Johny Lever with a cricket ball, they name the alien Jadoo ("Magic"). Cue happy singing and dancing.
Meanwhile, Raj has gotten tired of Nisha spending all her time with Rohit, so he announces his own engagement to her. She finds out and tells Raj off, but Rohit believes the story, and is crushed. Jadoo overhears Rohit asking his mother why he’s different, and Sonia’s explanation about the accident. The next morning, Rohit wakes up with perfect eyesight. Slowly, he also discovers that he’s gained vastly increased physical and mental ability, along with the confidence to go after what he really wants. And what he really wants is Nisha.
Koi . . . Mil Gaya would not work at all without the remarkable performance by Hrithik Roshan. Rohit has to evolve dramatically over the course of the film, and Hrithik carries it off. He’s capable of dancing badly, and five minutes later perform the exact same step and make it seem cool simply because of the character’s added confidence. The performance is so good that it has ruined every other Hrithik performance for me, since I always see him as Rohit first.
Long time Gorilla’s Lament readers will already know that I firmly believe Preity Zinta is a remarkably attractive woman. Koi . . . Mil Gaya’s cinematographers seem to share my conviction, since she’s even more gorgeous here than usual. her performance is fairly typical Preity; she’s funny and spunky and cute when she’s mad. Nothing groundbreaking, but quite nice if you like that sort of thing, and I do.
Rekha, though, does most of the dramatic heavy lifting. she’s very successful, mainly because, legendary actress or no, she clearly doesn’t view the material as beneath her. When the story calls for her to hug the Muppet, she hugs the Muppet, and she does so with the same conviction she brings to her husband’s tragic death scene, or her fiery speech in defense of her son. She plays it straight, and that’s why it works.
And speaking of the Muppet . . . there’s a lot of cgi in this film, and the quality is decidedly mixed. The choice to go withy puppetry (and a little person in a suit, when necessary) for Jadoo was a good one, though. While the facial design is very simple (and fishy), the end result is surprisingly expressive.
While there’s not a lot of violence in the film, I thought the fight choreography was a little better than the Bollywood standard, and included a little wire-fu. The dance numbers with the kids are, well, dance numbers with kids, but some of the other songs are a lot of fun, even if the costumes grow progressively more bizarre.
I have some issues with the pacing of Koi . . . Mil Gaya; I thought the basketball game in particular dragged on a little too long. On the other hand, my nieces loved that scene, and they’re probably closer to the target audience. At heart, it’s a great kid’s movie. If you’ve got some great kids, sit down and watch it with them.
Sanjay Mehra (Rakesh Roshan, who is also the producer, director, one of the writers, and father of lead actor Hrithik Roshan) is a scientist living in Canada with his heavily pregnant wife Sonia (Rekha). Sanjay is dedicated to the search for life on other planets, and has added a device to his home computer in order to beam Kraftwerk songs into space as a means of communication. (Onscreen, it doesn’t seem nearly as stupid as it sounds.) It turns out the aliens are really into German technopop as well, since they beam the same song back to earth. An overjoyed Sanjay rushes to the Space Institute to tell his colleagues, but they mock him, accuse him of daydreaming, and send him on his way. (it’s behavior like that that gives Canadians their reputation as a cold, unfriendly people.)
Crestfallen, Sanjay and Sonia start the long drive home. On the way, though, the car’s electronics begin acting up, and then a huge UFO flies overhead. Unfortunately, Sanjay can’t watch the UFO and drive at the same time. He loses control of the car, and it flies off the road, killing him and leaving their unborn son Rohit severely brain-damaged. Sonia returns to India to raise their son alone.
The film never goers into much detail about the nature of Rohit’s condition. Essentially he behaves as, and is treated as, a child in a man’s body. In fact, he’s still in the sixth standard at school, despite the fact that he’s clearly in his early twenties and is played by Bollywood heartthrob Hrithik Roshan. Apparently he has been held back repeatedly over the years; as an educator, this is the part of the film that I had the hardest time suspending my disbelief over, since I don’t think keeping Rohit in the same grade that long would be doing anyone any good at all. Still, it’s a musical about aliens, so I shall accept it and move on.
Life isn’t easy for Rohit. While Sonia is a loving and devoted mother, and he has a close-knit group of friends from class, the school day is filled with a string of small humiliations, and he is constantly harassed by local rich jerk Raj Saxena (Rajat Bedi), son of the local Controller. Things go from bad to worse when Raj’s childhood friend Nisha (Preity Zinta) returns to town; after a series of misunderstandings, she calls upon Raj to teach Rohit a lesson, and Raj and friends are happy to do so, finishing the lesson by demolishing Rohit’s beloved scooter.
Raj hadn’t reckoned with the power of an angry Indian mother, though. Sonia angrily confronts the group, and Nisha is devastated to learn that, rather than punishing a cad, she has publicly hurt and humiliated a severely disabled young man. She tries to make amends, and soon Nisha and Rohit are fast friends. She even offers to help him learn how to use his father’s old computer. Of course, when they hook the computer up, the “beam Kraftwerk into space” program is still running . . .
That night, a huge UFO flies overhead, and nearly everyone in town is a witness. In the aftermath, as everyone else parties, the local government leaders and their families gather to discuss a surprising development; the UFO landed nearby, and if Inspector Khan (Mukesh Rishi) is correct, several aliens disembarked, and one didn’t make it back onto the ship. Everyone at the meeting is sworn to secrecy, and naturally the next morning Nisha runs off and tells Rohit all about it. The pair set out into the jungle just in time to save the alien from feral dogs, and discover that the representative of extra-terrestrial intelligence is a blue fish-faced Muppet with a double thumb, psychic powers, and a crippling fear of elephants.
They hide the alien at Rohit’s place.I t doesn’t take long for the kids to find out, though, and after it telekinetically hits Johny Lever with a cricket ball, they name the alien Jadoo ("Magic"). Cue happy singing and dancing.
Meanwhile, Raj has gotten tired of Nisha spending all her time with Rohit, so he announces his own engagement to her. She finds out and tells Raj off, but Rohit believes the story, and is crushed. Jadoo overhears Rohit asking his mother why he’s different, and Sonia’s explanation about the accident. The next morning, Rohit wakes up with perfect eyesight. Slowly, he also discovers that he’s gained vastly increased physical and mental ability, along with the confidence to go after what he really wants. And what he really wants is Nisha.
Koi . . . Mil Gaya would not work at all without the remarkable performance by Hrithik Roshan. Rohit has to evolve dramatically over the course of the film, and Hrithik carries it off. He’s capable of dancing badly, and five minutes later perform the exact same step and make it seem cool simply because of the character’s added confidence. The performance is so good that it has ruined every other Hrithik performance for me, since I always see him as Rohit first.
Long time Gorilla’s Lament readers will already know that I firmly believe Preity Zinta is a remarkably attractive woman. Koi . . . Mil Gaya’s cinematographers seem to share my conviction, since she’s even more gorgeous here than usual. her performance is fairly typical Preity; she’s funny and spunky and cute when she’s mad. Nothing groundbreaking, but quite nice if you like that sort of thing, and I do.
Rekha, though, does most of the dramatic heavy lifting. she’s very successful, mainly because, legendary actress or no, she clearly doesn’t view the material as beneath her. When the story calls for her to hug the Muppet, she hugs the Muppet, and she does so with the same conviction she brings to her husband’s tragic death scene, or her fiery speech in defense of her son. She plays it straight, and that’s why it works.
And speaking of the Muppet . . . there’s a lot of cgi in this film, and the quality is decidedly mixed. The choice to go withy puppetry (and a little person in a suit, when necessary) for Jadoo was a good one, though. While the facial design is very simple (and fishy), the end result is surprisingly expressive.
While there’s not a lot of violence in the film, I thought the fight choreography was a little better than the Bollywood standard, and included a little wire-fu. The dance numbers with the kids are, well, dance numbers with kids, but some of the other songs are a lot of fun, even if the costumes grow progressively more bizarre.
I have some issues with the pacing of Koi . . . Mil Gaya; I thought the basketball game in particular dragged on a little too long. On the other hand, my nieces loved that scene, and they’re probably closer to the target audience. At heart, it’s a great kid’s movie. If you’ve got some great kids, sit down and watch it with them.
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