Chandni Chowk to China (DVD)
APPROX. 150 MINS. - PROD. YEAR: 2009 - MPA RATING: PG-13
" ...a Bollywood martial-arts movie sounds promising on paper. However, none of the filmmaking elements in CCTC create any lasting impression.
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As a teenager growing up in India in the 1980s, I watched many martial-arts movies ("36 Chamber of Shaolin," "Snake in the Monkey Shadow," "Enter the Dragon") that had found their way into the underground video circuit. With the advent of Bollywood actors such as Akshay Kumar ("Welcome", "Namaste London") and Suneil Shetty ("Main Hoo Naa," "Border," "Cash") in the 1990s, a new genre of action-packed thrillers emerged in Bollywood. These actors had mastered martial arts before arriving on the Bollywood scene, and both were black belts, which added to the authenticity of their characters greatly. I was always intrigued by the idea of mixing a mainstream Bollywood masala (spice) movie with a martial-arts genre. In August 2004, Akshay Kumar said in an interview, "I owe everything I am to martial arts." So, when Akshay Kumar was announced as the lead actor for "Chandni Chowk to China" ("CCTC"), I thought my hopes of seeing a Bollywood martial-arts movie would come true.
Coming fresh on the heels of the success of "Singh is Kinng" (Singh is King), "CCTC" is another big-budget Bollywood spectacle for Akshay Kumar. The movie had an enormous build-up in the media and the audience had high expectations leading up to its release because of the involvement of Warner Bro Studios, the first Hindi movie they co-produced with an Indian Bollywood film studio, and distributed "CCTC" in the US. More so, the movie's lead actors, Akshay Kumar and Deepika Padukone ("Om Shanti Om") have individually produced a string of hits in the recent past, so it was expected that "CCTC" would fare well at the box office. Instead, this movie failed at the box office with a big thud for reasons that are not hard to understand.
The main protagonist, Sidhu, played by Akshay Kumar, cuts vegetables at a roadside food stall on a street in Chandni Chowk. Chandni Chowk is one of the busiest market places in Central North Delhi, popularly known as Old Delhi. It is home to major historical monuments such as the Friday Mosque or Jama Masjid and Red Fort. Sidhu is shown as a dreamer who keeps fantasizing about becoming rich overnight, finding the perfect girl, and becoming somebody important. He regularly buys lottery tickets thinking that some day his fortune will change for good; however, fiascoes and failures dog him at every step. As a result, his foster father, Dada, played by veteran actor Mithun Chakraborty ("Guru," "Mrigaya"), is frustrated with Sidhu for his gullibility.
Out of the blue, two Chinese travelers appear and claim him to the reincarnation of their heroic warrior. Seeing this as a sign of good fortune, Sidhu along with his conman/ religious guru, Chopstick played by versatile actor Ranvir Shorey ("Mithya," "Bheja Fry"), decides to travel to the exotic land of China. During the course of their journey, Sidhu fortuitously meets Sakhi, played by Deepika Padukone, who also happens to be the supermodel he has been fantasizing about. Sakhi is also traveling to China to visit her birthplace and to find her long lost twin sister, Meow Meow, also played by Deepika Padukone. Upon entering China, Siddhu crosses paths with Meow Meow who as the evil twin sister, works for the villain, Hojho, played by the Chinese actor, Gordon Liu ("Kill Bill," "Drunken Monkey"). Not to give away too much of the story, but through a series of improbable events, Sidhu ends up finding Sakhi's father, ex-cop Chiang, played by the Los Angeles-born actor Roger Yuan ("Shanghai Noon," "Batman Begins"). Chiang takes a shine to Sidhu and offers to train him in Kung Fu so that he can avenge Hojho for his horrific crimes.
It is obvious that the producers were hoping that "CCTC" would be an international cash cow and that it would be able to connect with Indian diasporas as well as with Americans because of its martial-arts theme. "CCTC" has a meandering script, the performances were not convincing, and there is no chemistry between the Kumar and Padukone. In spite of these shortcomings, a Bollywood movie can be a hit if it has good dance sequences. However, the dance numbers in "CCTC" are mediocre for a big-budget movie like this. A weak script translated into overly dramatic stereotypical characterizations that caricaturize the Indian man as a simple "native" and the Chinese men as gibbering, frantic idiots. Of course, we get a taste of Bollywood masala, insipid as the dish may be.
