This trailer is so bananas, I feel like I need to share it with as many people as possible:
Apparently, it’s the most expensive movie ever made in India. It’s definitely the most balls-out insane movie trailer I’ve ever seen.
(H/T TK at Pajiba!)
[cross-posted(ish) here at Angry Black Lady Chronicles]
freelancer
Somebody on TRMS’s MaddowBlog posted this a few days ago. It was intriguing enough that I now have it saved on Netflix for when it gets a US DVD/Bluray release.
I <3 parallel processing.
nitpicker
Word of warning. This isn’t the trailer but the finale.
Laura Doty
Oooh! Cool movie. When does the actor run for governor?
hamletta
Indian movies are cool. They’re all about four hours long, and they involve every genre you can think of.
Mark S.
Ah, the ending’s kinda sad. The poor guy just seemed misunderstood to me.
So, what’s the body count for this movie? 900 million?
Yutsano
@Mark S.: India has over 1 billion people. Trust me taking out a few thousand like that most likely wouldn’t even get much notice.
MattR
I love that after the first 10,000 bullets had absolutely no effect they just kept on firing.
freelancer
Ugh, Bollywood learned all the wrong lessons from American development and use of CGI.
This is how you do it in a movie trailer, Smalls. See this too.
Jason In the Peg
That was totally awesome.
ETA: You should also check out “Rare Exports” from Finland: “Tell them we have Santa Clause for ransom.”
MattR
@Jason In the Peg: Did you see this link for Kitty Midnight Madness from some thread earlier today? It was quite cute on its own, but I imagine it is funnier if you are a Winnipeg local.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
Can anyone i.d. the movie this video came from? I know the song has nothing to do with the film- it’s a fan vid. But smoking some Funky Kingston enhances the clip, lemme tell ya…
Toots & The Maytals Funky Kingston
Xantar
A Spinning Indian Robot Death Meatball? I think I’ve truly seen everything.
Extra points for using the Wilhelm Scream.
Ash Can
Terminator meets Bollywood. Far out.
Buffalo Rude
Ash Can: Bollywood pwnd Terminator, IMO.
WarMunchkin
Dude, my parents raised me on those movies. This is easily par for the course. But tbh, it’s no more insane than, say, the Matrix sequels.
Dee Loralei
@Ash Can: That’s exactly what I thought. And I love Anjeli Rou (sp?), she’s so gorgeous.I love Bride and Prejudice. The only Bollywood element missing is they don’t break into song. Is it wrong of me to think of this as a cross between Terminator and Willie Wonka? The roboguy is even kinda orange, either a tribute to Wonka or John Boehner.
This movie must be so totally epicly weird. I think I need to see it.
MikeJ
Yes, that’s the way I feel about Mondays too.
scarshapedstar
Yeah this isn’t the trailer. I’ve seen various clips from this and they’re all completely awesome.
There is a robo-dance number, but I don’t want to spoil it.
I hope there’s an English version on piratebay or something.
Joseph Nobles
Oh, that’s the finale? I was hoping that we’d get a full on Kali incarnation there at the end. Very nice stuff. I’d say that Harryhausen is smiling down from heaven, but the dude appears to be indestructable and is still alive.
JGabriel
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):
Endhiran
I confidently predict that this movie will be to 8 year old boys of this decade as Mothra Vs. Godzilla (aka The One With The Tiny Twins) was to 8 year old boys of 70’s.
.
August J. Pollak
It’s called “Enthiran (Robot)” It’s a three hour Bollywood sci fi action movie. Which means it goes from high paced action sequences to complete musical dance numbers. The two stars are the most popular actor in all of India and a former Miss Universe. It’s sort of a big deal.
I hope there’s an English version on piratebay or something.
Here’s the entire movie, while it’s still up.
Support the American release if/when it arrives.
MikeJ
My favorite thing is that it’s dubbed into Russian.
I hope they never, ever translate it into English.
JGabriel
@Dee Loralei:
Aishwarya Rai.
.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@JGabriel:
Heehee…Sorry, I meant in the video that I linked.
jrg
It’s like Michael Bay raised the spawn of Keanu Reeves and Godzilla on a diet of mescaline and four loco.
Brian S (formerly Incertus)
@jrg: I scan all the way through the comments to see if someone had referenced Michael Bay yet, am hopeful, and then see you at the bottom of the list. Dammit.
Warren Terra
The first minute or two – basically, until the soldiers turned up – were a perfectly entertaining update of the Matrix sequel highway scene (and what happened to the pretty girl in the car once not only the soldiers but also the Ahnold were firing hundreds of thousands of bullets?). It was once you had the morphing army of identical invulnerable grinning men that it got truly awful … and then somehow passed through to be hilarious. Unintentionally, I think, but maybe not.
MikeJ
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): Dariya Dil
CaseyL
I loved seeing the Indian spin on action movie trope, with the multibots forming into a huge cobra.
The shapeshifting was very nicely done; much better, IMO, than Transformers. A beautiful fractal flow.
But… just watching ten minutes was exhausting; I can’t imaging sitting through 4 hours of this!
akak
Technically, it’s not a Bollywood movie — ie not from Bombay (which makes Hindi-speaking movies). It’s from Chennai aka Madras and is in Tamil. The Bollywood movies tend to be over the top song and dance melodramas… the Tamil “blockbusters” are just out of this world crazy.
Slate had a great piece on the star of the movie, Rajnikanth. Each year he appears in a crazier movie.
SFAW
FTW
Except you forgot the tanning cream (or whatever it’s called)
SFAW
I’m waiting for someone to make a comment about Chitti Chitti – Bang Bang!
akak
FYI, that actor is 61 years old!
Phoenician in a time of Romans
Higher budget, but is it better than the glory that is… Robo-Geisha?
I mean, there doesn’t seem to be any fried shrimp in that weak-ass Indian effort.
Loneoak
I eagerly await a Tom Friedman column arguing that we are falling behind in ridiculous movie-making because our childrens don’t take enough math tests.
wmd
That was Elvis playing the robot.
C.S.Strowbridge
I must see this movie.
“Higher budget, but is it better than the glory that is… Robo-Geisha?”
I have that one on Blu-ray.
Martin
@JGabriel: Is it wrong to admit that I have every Godzilla movie in my collection? The twins are actually the luminous fairies and I believe are in all of the films that include Mothra including in the reboot of the Godzilla films, though they’re a little different in the latter set of films.
So, having been an 8 year old boy in the 70s, you might be onto something…
Martin
DADT is dead forever.
The GOPers that want to bring it back can DIAF.
Arclite
@freelancer:
Um, pretty much apples and oranges there, comparing Enthiran to Tree of Life and Love.
Compare it to other FX-heavy sci fi action films like The Matrix (to which Enthiran obviously pays homage), where the CGI enhances the story, but doesn’t become the story (like it did with the Matrix sequels).
Yutsano
@Martin: Mon Dieu. I am seriously reconsidering a couple of personal decisions from the last year and a half. They made sense at the time, but now they’re starting to fall by the wayside. Damn.
Pixie
You know, what this movie needs is a little more action.
asiangrrlMN
@Martin: Amen to that.
OT: Don’t read this post I wrote about depression if you are in a really good mood.
@Yutsano: I get to be a bridesmaid!
Yutsano
@asiangrrlMN: There won’t be bridesmaids. Or groomsmen. If this happens (still a big IF but not as big as it was, so to speak) we’ll both have attendants. And half of his will be in Marine uniforms and half will be police dress unis (his old profession). And mine will be in tuxes. Male or female. No questions. And it will be in Stanley Park in Canada. But I’ll make you a deal: you wear a tux to the wedding itself then the Morticia Addams dress to the reception. Deal?
BTW the depression post was fucking amazing. And hard to write I know.
freelancer
@Arclite:
Okay, yeah, fair game, but I just finished watching Tony Scott’s latest popcorn action flick Unstoppable. Damn. What a fun movie! And I’m betting there was a lot of CGI in there that you didn’t even recognize. That said, when Americans go overboard on effects, they do so in pursuit of spectacle (ostensibly, because it’s all about Cash), but the rest of the world does so, without self-awareness or any acknowledgement of camp.
asiangrrlMN
@Yutsano: Deal!
And, thanks. Very hard to write–but necessary.
Yutsano
@asiangrrlMN: I was actually about to bug you to cross-post that. And if you weren’t I was gonna do it for you. Yes I r ebil like that. :)
Origuy
Since I’ve been reading Al-Jazeera, I’ve been looking at some other stuff while waiting for Egypt updates. The Asian Cup (soccer) is being played in Qatar right now. Hundreds of ticket holders for the Australia-Japan game didn’t get in because the gates were locked an hour before kickoff. Apparently people were being let in without tickets until the place filled up.
Link
If this had happened during the World Cup, say England vs Germany, it would have been really ugly.
Yutsano
@Origuy: Honestly I’m amazed it didn’t get ugly then. The Japanese aren’t exactly passive wallflowers when it comes to sports. And don’t even get me started on the Aussies. But yeah if it gets that bad for the World Cup there’s gonna be serious problems.
shecky
AFAIK, there isn’t a dubbed English version of Endhiran. However, the subtitled English movie is available. Though I found it a little distracting because the characters seem to cross between spoken English and Tamil(?) continuously, as do the subs. It is pretty entertaining, a sort of romantic action comedy with some musical/dance numbers, even if it’s kinda long (~2hrs 45min).
Triassic Sands
I watched less than a minute and my head hurt too much to continue. It’s not only absurdly silly, it isn’t even remotely realistic. Somehow, I’m sure I won’t see this film (even if someone pulls a gun on me)….
Batocchio
It’s also got Aishwarya Rai and a Wilhelm scream! That’s art.
Qalandar
Can’t resist posting my own review of the film here…
Arclite
Apparently, Britain is making plans to mitigate Global Warming, while we in the USA largely languish. I hate the fucking anti-science Global Warming Deniers with a passion.
bago
G.O.R.A.
A Turkish airplane style send up of western sci fi starring a fast talking carpet dealer. You must watch it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzLv5w8tFOM
Seriously.
daryljfontaine
@Phoenician in a time of Romans: That’s pretty much exactly where my mind went when I saw “balls-out insane” and “movie trailer” in the same sentence.
D
gene108
From the people I know who have seen the film, they have nothing but good things to say about it. They were very impressed with it.
Maybe the trailer doesn’t do the movie justice, but I have yet to hear one bad review of the film.
brighid
I want the video game
Sputnik
@Jason In the Peg: I saw that movie. It was odd. It wasn’t quite sure if it wanted to be scary or campy.
Sputnik
Since it is Bollywood, there are musical numbers, right? Please tell me that the robots sing.
kdaug
@bago: That was frakin’ awesome.
G.O.R.A.
F.T.W.
Emma
Meh. I once saw a Bollywood dance shot on top of moving trains on tracks that made my stomach churn just by keeping my eyes on the screen…. this is one of the tamer sequences. And no special effects, according to my Indian friends.
Chris Wolf
Is this an IMAX 3D movie? Lots of stuff coming at the camera.
Sean Paul Kelley
So, how many dance scenes are there?
Fe E
Well, does anybody know what is better than “less?”
That’s right, “MORE!!!!!”
I know he’s been mentioned in this thread, but does Michael Bay want to high five this movie team, or kick his own dog out of jealousy?
Elvis Elvisberg
Weird. Who gave an eight-year-old boy all that money?
Hawes
I’m trying to come up with all the influences. Michael Bay is obvious, but it seemed like a Michael Bay production of a Tim Burton film starring a swarthy Arnold Schwarzenegger from a script by Isaac Azimov.
Hawes
@Loneoak: You win! That post wins the internets!
Scott P.
Isaac Asimov?? He’s famous as having the least action-oriented sci-fi stories in human history. That’s an odd combo.
gene108
@akak:
I’ve met fanatical Rajni fans who’d probably punch someone in the face for calling him crazy. The man has a following, like no other actor I’ve seen.
Arclite
@freelancer: Yeah, I heard that was a pretty good Tony Scott movie, better than Pelham 123. And, yeah, the CG helps tell the story without becoming it, perfect.
Still, that Enthiran trailer is so over the top, you just gotta love the spectacle…
Jason In the Peg
@MattR: I did see that and it was hilarious. The # 1 Son is good but no where near as charming as his old man.
“We left the kitty making machine on…”
Right from the start you know you’re going to laugh.
goatchowder
I LOL’ed when the robot magnetically grabbed all the army’s machine guns and arrayed them in front of him in a semicircle like Ravana’s many arms and swords from the Ramayana, then snickered to himself, probably at this reference.
roseyv
I heard it cost over four thousand dollars!
(Sorry. I’ll go now.)
Thomas Beck
1) Why was it dubbed into Russian?
2) Nice to know Hollywood isn’t the only place apparently exempt from the laws of physics.
3) Some of the time, that reminded me of bad Doctor Who!
Haruhi Suzumiya
@goatchowder:
It’s so ironic you mentioned that. If not for the crappy Russian dubbing, the robot actually said “Happy Deepavali, folks !” before he went on to gun them down.