AUG 1 — Indian cinema is big news this Raya holiday season. Just prior to Raya, Tamil superstar Kamal Haasan’s latest vehicle Papanasam (a Tamil remake of the huge Malayalam hit Drishyam, which has also been remade in Kannada as Drishya, in Telugu as Drushyam and now there’s even a Hindi remake also called Drishyam) became a commercial and critical smash, despite the story’s familiarity after being twice remade already. 

Earlier in the year, Bollywood proved itself still relevant and refreshing with the runaway box-office success and critical acclaim lauded upon the Aamir Khan vehicle PK, which now stands as India’s all-time box-office champ.

Slightly minor in terms of box-office, but not in terms of artistic achievement were films like Bombay Velvet, Detective Byomkesh Bakshy and Badlapur, with all three films boldly veering away from the standard Bollywood song and dance formula and going into dark and even violent places. 

In fact, liking Indian films that veer away from the standard Bollywood song and dance formula seems to be a badge of honour these days for those calling themselves serious film fans, or people who’d like to think of themselves as film fans with “good taste.”

Like probably most other non-urbanite Malaysians out there, I practically grew up on all those classic Bollywood song and dance melodramas (often called masala films by film critics) like Sangam, Haathi Mere Saathi and Sholay, mostly watching reruns on TV and of course on VHS. 

It was definitely good training for my future endeavour of watching subtitled films. Maybe it was because I grew up on all those masala films, but I’ve always understood the value of their shameless heartstrings-pulling and appreciated them, when done well.

To me, there’s good shameless manipulation and then there’s bad shameless manipulation. There’s nothing to be ashamed of when it’s good shameless manipulation. There’s a reason why the shamelessly romantic and melodramatic Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge remains the longest-running film in Indian cinema, still playing in some cinemas in India today since it first opened on October 20^th 1995. 

And it’s because it touched a nerve with the movie-going public, and people still loved to go into the cinema to sing along with the songs and be swept away by the romance, a completely earnest opposite to the more ironic pleasures that The Rocky Horror Picture Show gives to its audience.

While I loved and raved about Rowdy Rathore a few years back, that was an affectionate but ironic send-up of masala films, so imagine the great pleasure of finally seeing a new masala film that’s completely earnest, filled with alternately joyous, beautiful, funny and even tear-jerking song and dance sequences, with a huge, huge heart and an irresistible message of love. 

The Indian film industry has been buzzing about the box-office battle that’s going on between the Telugu period epic Baahubali: The Beginning and Salman Khan’s latest Eid vehicle Bajrangi Bhaijaan.

With both films playing in Malaysian cinemas now, it’s a great opportunity for us to sample what’s being called one of the greatest Eid box-office periods in Indian cinema history, with both films scoring really big and Bajrangi Bhaijaan already reaching the No. 3 spot in India’s all-time box-office rankings (after only 12 days!), overtaking the Shah Rukh Khan vehicle Chennai Express and now only behind Aamir Khan’s PK and Dhoom 3.

While Baahubali offers something admirably new and ambitious in Indian cinema, which is 300 and Lord Of The Rings-style epic period battles with action choreography that won’t look out of place in Hollywood period epics, I’d have to say that my heart belongs to the earnest and modest ambitions of Bajrangi Bhaijaan. 

It brings absolutely nothing new to the table. It’s a story about a mute and illiterate six-year-old Muslim girl from Pakistan called Shahida who gets separated from her mum during a train ride in India, and who then meets a not very bright but very earnest, honest and religious Hindu man named Pawan whom people often call Bajrangi (played by Salman Khan), who decides to care for the little girl until her family is found.

Cleverly using the deep-seated hatred and prejudice between not only Hindus and Muslims but also between Indians and Pakistanis to craft out plenty of laugh-out-loud comic moments, especially since precious little information can be extracted from the mute and illiterate Shahida (now called Munni by Pawan), the film then becomes a road trip as it became obvious to Pawan that the only way to get Shahida back to her family is for him to bring her there himself and look for them in Pakistan. 

As you can infer from the story, there’s plenty of opportunities for the film to shamelessly tug at your heartstrings, and the film takes every single one of them.

But what makes this film stand out is that it hits just the right corny note, every single time. And when you hit just the right note every single time, then you know there’s something magical at work here, even in a movie as modest as this one, and the public recognizes it too, judging from its superb box-office performance. 

There’s something heartbreakingly tragic about the partition of India and Pakistan, which has become a rich source of movie-making for decades now. The real achievement of Bajrangi Bhaijaan, its director Kabir Khan, screenwriter Vijayendra Prasad (who also wrote Bahubali), stars Salman Khan and Nawazuddin Siddiqui (surely the most interesting and magnetic actor in all of Indian cinema today) and the cute as a button Harshaali Malthotra who plays Shahida, is to coat it all with simple, irresistible uplifting joy.

A character in the film remarked that it’s easier to sell hate today, not love.

Not with this film it isn’t!

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.