Prem power: Will it drive 'em crazy?
Source: TIMES NEWS NETWORK
Date : THURSDAY, JUNE 26, 2003
She’s minty fresh and a bundle of talent, even though destiny has delivered success to her in meagre portions. He’s the film-maker who can beat Midas at the gold touch game. So, now that Kareena Kapoor and Sooraj Barjatya have got together for ‘Main Prem ki Diwani Hoon’ box offices are expected to ring overtime and then some! And this big venture of theirs was premiered at Rave 3 in Kanpur yesterday, with the actress-director duo along with the unformidable Anu Malik, music director of the movie present on the occasion, to check out audience reactions in the city.
Kanpur Times caught up with this first-time combination just before ‘Main Prem...’ drove the public deewana here. This is what the star-trio had to say.
Sooraj Barjatya, the Rajshri Productions’ man who has given Indian cinema some of it’s most successful movies, confessed, "I have no plans as such to shoot a movie in UP but then someday in the future if I find a script based around this area then who knows..."
As of now, he’s only full of his latest venture and on why he finalised Kareena for MPKDH’s Sanjana, he says, "I saw Kareena after the premiere of her first film Refugee and her simple, innocent look struck me. I knew I had found my Sanjana then."
And Sanjana...err Kareena, dressed in a pretty peach Chikan-mukaish work salwar kameez gushes, "I have become Sanjana for life. Despite working with the biggest directors, Sooraj according to me is the best director ever." Interestingly, the modest Sooraj blushes a beet-root red to that compliment. Ask Mr Modest what is the story of ‘Main Prem Ki diwani Hoon’ and there’s no stopping him, "Indian values are what this film revolves around. A girl who is introduced to an eligible bachelor by her parents is then re-introduced to other boys and that’s when she realises what love is. Hrithik Roshan and Abhishek bachchan are the two Prem’s which Kareena meets as Sanjana."
Hey, hold it there, isn’t that a modern-day version of Chitchor, a seventies film made by the Rajshris themselves.
Sooraj admits, "The basic idea is taken from Chitchor but we have moulded it in an urban set-up."
Anu Malik, the music director jumps to his friend’s defence, "I don’t think MPKDH is a remake of Chitchor. In fact where Chitchor ends, MPDKH takes off. It has a beautiful storyline and some fresh music. I have composed nine songs for the movie and they are all doing very well. I could compose such different music because Sooraj here approached me with a full-bound script and I got the vision down pat right from the onset."
A first in many ways for Sooraj, this film doesn’t have the mainstay of Rajshri’s Salman Khan in it. Did Khan’s wild image put him off? "When I cast Hrithik and Abhishek they suited their roles to the T. Since all my heroes are called Prem and till this movie happened that Prem was played by Salman all along, so somewhere even Salman is there in the movie."
This film also has it’s share of animals (remember the kabootar of Maine Pyar Kiya and Tuffy the cut pom of Hum Aapke Hain Koun) with an animated parrot who is a TV addict! Been shot in New Zealand and Mauritius MPKDH cashes in on the adventure sports wave with Kareena and Hrithik doing some dare-devil bungee-jumping and under-water snorkelling.
But isn’t Sanjana supposed to be an anti-thesis of Kareena’s Pooh from K3G?
"Sanjana is a regular girl who wears hep clothes but has inherent Indian values in her."
Ask Kareena about competition on the heroine-front and how new-comers like Priyanka Chopra could be a threat and she goes, "There’s room for everyone in Bollywood. We can all survive together."
Whatever!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The opinions expressed herein are those of the Author and HrithikRules.com does not subscribe to the same, either in whole or in part.