The shapeshifting snakes of Bollywood are surprisingly versatile. They can be vengeful killers, doomed lovers, mystical guardians, or, as in Prem Shakti (1994), fairy godparents.
The film doesn't start with the snake, though, it starts with Gangwa (Govinda) and Gauri (Karisma Kapoor), literal star-crossed lovers. The families aren't feuding or anything, and Gauri's father actually likes Gangwa, but he is an astrologer and their star charts say that they cannot be together in this lifetime. In fact, even trying to be together will lead to disaster. He sends his daughter to stay with her uncle during the upcoming full moon, a time which will be particularly dangerous for her.
Naturally, Gangwa comes to rescue her. They flee into the night, and discover a secret and spooky cavern underneath the village well. Entering the cavern, they stumble into a snake movie already in progress, as a wicked sage (Puneet Issar) tries to force Nagraj (Nitish Bharadwaj) to give up his Naag Mani as part of an overly complicated bid for immortality. Gangwa intervenes, causing the sage to miss the chance for immortality for another twenty five years, and the angry sage curses them, turning Gauri into stone and killing Gangwa. Nagraj vows to protect the petrified maiden, and time passes.
Twenty five years later, Gauri is . . . well, she's a statue, so she hasn't moved. Gangwa has been reincarnated as Krishna, adopted son of an idol maker (Sulabha Deshpande). Krishna is an artist, haunted by the half-remembered image of a beautiful woman he's only ever seen in his dreams, and tormented by his failure to recreate her image. Encouraged by his mother and his childhood friend/half-hearted love interest Pinky (Neela) he stops dreaming long enough to get a job making mannequins. his first assignment is to make a male figure, but working late into the night Krishna falls asleep, and Nagraj appears and transfers Gauri's spirit into the new mannequin, transforming it into a perfect likeness of her.
Krishna is fired, naturally. He tries to buy the mannequin form his former boss, but before he can borrow the money it's sold to someone else. Krishna wanders the streets on a rainy night only to see his creation in a department store window. he's chased off by the security guard (Shakti Kapoor) but the next day he saves the life of the store owner and is given a job working with the flamboyant window dresser Romeo (Kader Khan). That night, when Krishna is alone with the mannequin, she comes to life, introducing herself as a miracle, as "Krishna's Karishma."
And nothing's gonna stop them now, because from this point on the movie is a pretty straight adaptation of the Kim Catrall movie Mannequin, interspersed with scenes of the evil sage trying to kill Krishna again and Nagraj protecting the young lovers from the shadows. Krishna and Karishma frolic through the store after hours every night, and her creative outfits are a huge hit, reviving the store's fortunes and foiling a takeover attempt by the owner's wicked uncle. People start to notice that Krishna has an unhealthy fixation on a mannequin, but Romeo isn't particularly worried.
And then things go a bit off the rails. Krishna tries to introduce his mother to Karishma, but she doesn't answer because she is a mannequin. He's furious, and vows to quit the store and never speak to her again. Karishma is heartbroken, but Nagraj assures her that they can make it if they're heart to heart. Before that happens, though, they'll have to deal with corporate espionage, mannequin-napping, evil magic, entirely too many comic relief characters, and an abrupt ending that doesn't explain a thing.
Despite the bonkers premise, Prem Shakti may just make more sense than Mannequin does; having a clear cosmology helps. That doesn't mean it makes very much sense, though. There's a lot to nitpick here, starting with the fact that the evil sage could have won if he'd focused on finding Nagraj rather than taking his revenge on the young couple he already took his revenge on twenty five years ago.
Prem Shakti is nonsense, but it doesn't pretend to be anything else, and it is at least reasonably entertaining nonsense. Govinda and Karisma can dance, the plot moves along briskly, and the costumes really have to be seen to be believed.
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