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Morten H.
Reviews
Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India (2001)
Boy, was I surprised!
Okay, I am not from India, not even close. I am from Scandinavia. Before Lagaan I had never watched any Hindi movies of any kind. I know about 3 words from the hindi language. And I don't like musicals much. I viewed the movie on a DVD of rather poor quality compared to the state of the art DVDs I am used to. And I was told the movie lasted close to 4(!) hours... I figured this would be a complete waste of time... BOY was I wrong! This movie is completely the opposite! It is just amazing! Mr. Gowariker has selected an incredible cast with Aamir Khan in the lead. He makes an stunning performance as the village rebel, Bhuvan. He tries to unite the village in a struggle for life against the greedy Britons. The Britons exploit the villages by collecting lagaan (tax). This means that most of the harvest surplus is gone and there is just enough left for food for the farmers themselves. It's a classic war between "David", the native villagers of India, and "Goliath", the powerful and greedy Britons. But what makes it really interesting is that this war is fought in a Cricket arena. This is a challenge from the Britons, who are well known with Cricket, against the village, where most people have never laid eyes upon a cricket bat. If the villagers win, there will be no lagaan at all, for three years! And if the Britons win, they will collect triple lagaan, which will mean the end of the village. The stakes could not be higher!!
I can't remember a movie being this thrilling and having so much life in it. And the music has a huge impact thanks to the great voices of Udit Narayan, Lata Mangeshkar etc. And the dancing is a chapter in itself! Few or none will leave this movie not remembering the song "Mitwa, sun Mitwa". It is a must see for everyone, inside and outside of India. And this movies has been totally righteously nominated for an Oscar too, and I wouldn't be surprised if it goes all the way to the top. It has my vote! It gets 10 out of 10 from me. Excellent!
Wo hu cang long (2000)
The definition of perfection
There is no way I can describe how I feel about this movie in words. And I will not even try. There is only one solution. You must see it! If you dont, you will be missing out on maybe the most beautiful movie ever made in the history of film making!
As another fan mentioned here , if you only could watch 5 movies in you entire life time, this is one of them! I second that!
Mission to Mars (2000)
I was still in shock.....
I am what you would call a huge sci-fi enthusiast , mind you, it isnt all a like, but I tend to like and sometimes love everything that can be passed under that label, namely sci-fi. Such names at Star Wars, Star Trek, Babylon 5, Contact, Even Horizon, 2001, 2010 pops into mind when thinking of scifi,though I mostly lean to scifi that is deeper than your regular explosion with effects type of story, the kind where you are left with a deeper sense of existence when the credits starts rolling, a good example of that would be Contact.
I seek the net frequently to check if there will be a new scifi movie release in the near future, and I remember reading the line "Mission to mars" the first time thinking it would be a cool movie to watch. But when the movie reviews started coming in near the premier I got scared since it got all in all slaughtered. Ok I thought, the press is mostly wrong anyways, so I sat that aside. But when I saw that most of the IMDB members voted it down the tubes I though it must surly suck. I didnt therefor attend the movie premier.
5 months after it came out on dvd. I though long and hard, and finaly decided to buy it. Then I watched it 2 days later. When the last credit has rolled past the screen I was still in shock..... I could not believe that SOOOOOO many IMDB members thought it was no good, because I had just had on of the best movie experiences of all time....close to 2001! AND THAT should tell you a thing or TWO! I cannot imagine what does other members where thinking, but they must be out of their minds, or maybe to immature or just not the super scifi fan that I am.
Had it not been for a minor thing or two in the movie it would have gotten a SMASHING 10 OUT OF 10, but I had to drop to 9 OUT OF 10.
The movie is superb, with super mind dazeling camera angels and superb special effects!
If you like scifi, this is more than a MUST SEE!!