Bond obsession sweeps Bollywood
16-Nov-2006 • Bond News
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In the 70s and 80s, 007 films shared a close bond with B-Grade Bollywood movies.
Whether it was Mahendra Sandhu playing Agent Vinod or Mithun Chakraborty as Gunmaster G9 or Jeetendra as Bond 303, they just kept coming one after the other.
These were tacky adaptations, which loosely followed the Bond rulebook with spies, villains and even vamps.
Characters were predictable, linear and exaggerated, hence easy to adapt to in the over-the-top tradition of Bollywood.
"It's not just our filmmakers. Filmmakers worldwide copy Bond. Bond is not really a spy or a detective or a cop. He is a cult. Bond is a genre by itself. Like horror, comedy, Bond is a drama,'' said Sajid Khan, Actor, Director.
The pioneer was Ravi Tandon's 1967 hit Farz. Jeetendra in sparkling white pants, marked the debut of 007 in Bollywood.
''The first proper successful Bond film we made was Suraksha. It had Bond, Bruce Lee and Travolta. That was one of my favourite films. Today when you see those films on DVD, you fall down laughing, but that time those films were hits,'' said Sajid Khan, Actor, Director.
From time to time, the Bond formula would get a big-budget spin, like Krishna Shah's heist thriller Shalimaar, which had all the Bond trademarks - the intrigue, the chase and the escape.
The formula made its way into Bollywood mainstream with Don, the original version.
''I insisted on a title sequence before Don. No Bond movie is complete without it. The hero is cornered so badly that you feel he will never escape. That creates the tension," said Chandra Barot, Director of original Don.
Helen was our desi version of the James Bond girl, an image that she carried for many years later.
''Helen aunty fitted in any role,'' said Kareena Kapoor, Actress
''I was zapped when I was told that Helen was over 40 when she did that song,'' said Chandra Barot, Director of original Don.
Since then, Bond touches everywhere in Bollywood. In films like Shaan, the charismatic Shakaal stole the show as the quirky Bond villain, with an island full of guns, secret rooms, rotating chairs, sharks and even a pet alligator.
And then in the 90s, Akshay Kumar played a Bombay cop called what else - Bond, fighting the nefarious villain, Dragon, an international crime lord with an army of Ninja henchman.
Mr Bond's womanizing is of course within the boundaries of the Censor Board.
Today, as Bollywod goes high tech, its new genre of thrillers have vastly upgraded the B-level filmmaking of the 70s.
Take Sunny Deol's The Hero. And of course, the recent remake of Don where Bond in Bollywood comes a full circle.
Why does Bond work so easy and well in Bollywood? Many say, it is so because a Bond film is very close to a Hindi film. Its storyline is predictable, the hero larger than life, logic thrown to the wind and the end always happy - a rather happy bonding, shall we say.
Thanks to `Brokenclaw` for the alert.
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