Review of Kahin Pyaar Na Ho Jaaye

Introduction

Prem (Salman Khan), working a wedding singer, is about to marry the love of his love Nisha (Raveena Tandon), but is jilted on his weeding day. Depressed and saddened by this he learns that Nisha has a sick younger kid brother and to cure him she has to take him to America. Being unable to finance this she decides the only way to help her brother get his treatment is to marry a rich NRI called Rahul (Inder Kumar). Prem is left heart broken and begins to become an alcoholic.

His best friend and next door neighbour Priya (Rani Mukerhjee), begins to comfort him but ends up falling in love with him as does Prem with Priya. But yet another twist is made in Prem`s life which complicates matters for him.......What happens to Prem and Priya forms the conclusion of this film.......

EROS now brings this film into the DVD format with worrying questions. Firstly the DVD covers states that this is an anamorphic DVD, yet when I played it was quite the opposite. Low expectations was made for the rest of the disc which I will now dwell into.....

Video

The DVD is presented in a widescreen aspect ratio of 1:85.1, which is heavily cropped from its original theatrical aspect ratio of 2.35:1. This affects overall viewing as sides of the frame are missing, and it does become rather apparent during many scenes.

It would have been nice if the DVD retained the image that the director had originally shot the film in. But to make things worse this is the first EROS newly release film title in four months which is not anamorphic despite the box stating it to be. This was rather upsetting as I had expected so much from this DVD.

The print shows small signs of wear and tear in the form of small dust particles, and black lines appearing on the print. The print could have certainly been a lot more better if all of these particles were cleaned off. It would have been better if Adlabs transferred the film from its original or intermediate 35mm negative print rather then a secondary cinema run print, as they do have access to it. Still the wear and tear was not that bad as other picture quality factors on this DVD was showing major concerns.

The DVD shows major signs of compression artefacts breaking up picture constantly in the background, and are easily detected. Also film grain can be seen which is odd considering the age of the film and the time it was transferred in. These negative elements affected picture information making it unclear and distorted. Even shimmering, edge enhancement and moiré patterns cause disturbing patters which were last seen on EROS DVD titles like Mela (1999) and Baddshah (1999).

Colour fidelity is incorrectly coded and gives off very unbalance results leaving us with colour bleeding, saturation problems and distortion. The scene which the first song takes place is very colourful and transfulent on the big screen. Yet on this DVD they look very mundane and lack the glossiness intended. Also the lack of colour definitions in the forms of shades make the picture seem one dimensional. The same can be said for the dark details and contrast which have its own problems of lacking depth and quality seen on other DVD titles.

Audio

The Hindi Dolby Digital 5.1 mix is rather poor. There are no activity in any of the channels, making the whole sound experience rather mono. Dialogues were heard in all the channels adding more frustration as to how the sound ended up like this!

What surprised me on this disc was the light noise hissing that could be detected throughout the movie, and really put this soundtrack into perspective. One consolation could be that the dialogues and music was clear and understandable. But one would have loved a real and crisp dynamic 5.1 mix which was heard during its theatrical run.

Features

Menus are well animated and are easy to navigate, while the overall packaging of the product was rather nice and added value. English Subtitles are good, but they are not 16:9 friendly.

Conclusion

In the words of Bart Simpson `I never knew that something could suck and blow at the same time` - a comment that suits this film to a tee. I had just reviewed `Beti No 1 (2000)` on my site at IDN, calling it the turkey of the year...But I was wrong...something else is much worse, and is called Kahin Pyaar Na Ho Jaaye (KPNHJ) which is definitely the most awful film I have ever come across this past year.

After the successful film `Bandhan (1998)`, both the director K. Murali Mohan Rao and the producer Narendra Bajaj, with the two main actors Salman Khan and Jackie Shroff, team up for a ambitious venture which should have improved upon Bandhan in terms of screenplay, acting and technical values. But it fails to do so, and Bandhan remains a better film despite its disadvantages as a work of celluloid art.

The problem with KPNHJ, apart from its long unmemorable title, is the poor written screenplay which could have been something else if much attention and finance was paid attention to it. Also the characterization of the characters, lacked the audiences interests towards them thus giving this film a short memory life span, which is a pity considering the excellent star cast. Also do all NRI have to to be portrayed as rich, oversexed zelusus that only have bad intentions? The film obviously shows the overly ridden cliché and stereotyped characters we have come across in much better films.

The romance is lacking, the comedy is overkilled, situations seem repetitive and songs/music are uninspiring. Definitely one to avoid on the big screen. If there was one positive about this film then it is Karishma Shah (Jungle, Yes Boss, Hera Pehri) and Monish Behl (Hum Appke Hain Koun, Hum Saat Saat Hain & Astitva) performances, who prove their talents worth in this
fickle film.

The DVD also proves to be rather dismal and should be avoided. There are rumours that EROS will redo this title in anamorphic/original aspect ratio at a later date with much better picture quality and sound mix. I would advise you to wait for that DVD edition to release.