Chandni Chowk to China

Cast: Akshay Kumar, Deepika Padukone, Mithun Chakrovarthy, Ranbir Shorey, Gordon Liu and Chiang

Director: Nikhil Advani

Being screened at theatres near you

Kathmandu:

Chandni Chowk to China begins with the legend of a hero who was killed by Hojo (Gordon Liu) and moves forward to the reincarnation of the hero who has come back to save the people. But this time he is born as Siddhu (Akshay Kumar) in India, who cuts vegetables working for Dada (Mithun Chakro-varthy). Fed up with his life, he visits every other fortune-teller in hopes of a brighter future but without any success. Then one day two Chinese men tell him that he is the reincarnation of the hero slain long ago. But as he doesn’t understand Chinese, Chopstick (Ranbir Shorey), who works as a fortune-teller comes translates lying to Siddhu about his destiny, with the hope of going to China with Siddhu. And so begins their journey to China which is full of surprises and shocks for Siddhu. On the way he meets Sakhi (Deepika), who is in China, to mourn for her lost family, especially her father and twin sister.

The movie starts in a very hilarious way — it moves from one sequence to another with conceivable yet foolish things that take place in everyday life. Things like people’s belief in superstition to TV commercials that people tend to be gullible towards are all presented in a really humorous way. But as the stories get mixed up, that of family separation and bonding, Siddhu’s previous life and present day revenge, the movie takes a very slow and monotonous pace, which unfortunately makes a major portion of the movie. However, towards the end, the movie picks up its pace with fight sequences with comic bits added to it, lightening up the movie in the last few minutes.

Akshay Kumar has given an excellent performance be it the naïve guy with his innocent facial expressions or the smart Alec he turns into later. Deepika has nothing much to offer besides looking good and like the typical saas-bahu casts shedding tears over every little thing, her Chinese twin doing some stunts is a bit interesting. Chakrovarthy is quite good, however, it’s Ranbir Shorey whose talent seems to be completed wasted in this movie. Gordon Liu and Chiang are impressive. The music is enjoyable with oldies coming in between, even the new ones are good. Another interesting part is the cinematography.

Seeing the Warner Bros logo one expects it to be good, however, Nikhil Advani could have made a really funny movie, especially with comic elements even in between songs and fights, with typical Hindi film elements to it. The movie also stretched too much it that it was not able to hold one’s attention throughout.