Film Screening 19th March, 2009

Poster for Chandni Chowk to China

Chandni Chowk to China 

8:00 PM, 19th March, 2009

  • M
  • 153 mins
  • 2009
  • Nikhil Advani
  • Rajat Arora & Shridhar Raghavan
  • Akshay Kumar, Deepika Padukone, Ranvir Shorey, Chia Hui Liu, Roger Yuan

This is apparently the first Bollywood kung-fu movie and includes the first-ever fight scene actually filmed atop the Great Wall. Sidhu (Kumar) is a low ranking cook at a food stall in the Chandni Chowk neighbourhood of Delhi. He wants to move on from this simple existence. His wish is fulfilled when some Chinese visitors arrive telling him that he is the re-incarnation of a long-dead Chinese hero. With the assistance of a con artist named Chopstick (Shorey) he convinces Sidhu to go to China so that he can rid their village of master kung-fu crime lord Hojo (Liu).

As he travels towards China, Sidhu meets Sakhi (Padukone), an Indian-Chinese spokes model, who is travelling to the land of her birth and that of her presumed dead father and twin sister Suzy. Hojo catches up with Sidhu and shows him up for the fake he is. Vowing revenge, Sidhu meets an amnesiac tramp who turns out to be Chiang, father of Sakhi and Suzy. Regaining his memory, Chiang trains Sidhu in Kung-Fu so that he can defeat Hojo, reunite the twins and win Sakhi's heart.

This is a lot of fun but shouldn't be taken too seriously. The storyline is very silly, cheesy and at times absurd, but if you give it a chance there is a lot of enjoyment to be had, especially if you like Bollywood films or films with lots of Kung-Fu fighting.

Richard Rowe