Too many good things on Kaiju Shakedown ... I shall limit myself to repeating just one ...
I owe my exposure to India's Ram Gopal Varma to the Shakedown's Grady Hendrix who programmed a slate of the man's films at the New York Asian Film Festival in 2006. The word has not been good on his last few features but when he's on his game Varma is simply stunning, a technical virtuoso who perfectly balances gloss with hard edged menace. His latest picture - or one of them, anyway, he's got a number in production - is a risky venture, a remake of Sholay which is one of the most revered films in Bollywood history. Varma has changed things up significantly, enough that he changed the title to include his own name - and he wonders why people call him arrogant - but no matter how close or distant it is to the source material the trailer for this looks amazing. It's brash, swaggering, promises a good deal of blood and things blow up real good.
Do guys really wear bandanas like that in India?
This was overly flashy for my taste but I did enjoy the dance scenes and the grinding of the hips.