February 16 movie: Qurbani. Another Bollywood movie featuring a deep funk soundtrack by Kalyanji-Anandji. Not quite as good a soundtrack as Don, but then what is?
Here's a clip of the title theme (approx. 2 minutes long).
The movie was hard to follow, and a bit draggy. Which is frankly a problem in all Bollywood movies for me. Difficult to avoid padding in a 3 hour movie. On the plus side, Zeenat Aman stars. She's not a vengeful kung fu chick like in Don; here she's the lead singer of a nightclub act. Basically the Indian Abba. She's still my Bollywood girlfriend even when she's not kicking ass.
I tried for about an hour to rip a clip of her big number to MPG, Never did get it figured out, so I'll have to settle for the screen shot at left. Take it from me, it's a pretty amazing number. The backup singers in ill-fitting white bodysuits and silver gogo boots are what really make it.
[ETA: Thanks to the magic of Youtube, I found the disco dance number! It's flagged as questionable content, which is bizarre considering it has no violence, no nudity, and no subtitles. Just beautiful Zeenat Aman shaking her booty.]
Other nice scenes are a dance number by two the two male leads, wielding swords; an extended set piece in a garage, the point of which is the crash a car as badly as possible; and an extended intro dedication to Indira Ghandi's son, who died in 1980. His name was Sanjay but in the movie he was identified as "The Sleeping Prince."
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