Hero 2002

Hero is a beautiful movie narration, based on the assassination attempt on the King of Qin. It starts with Nameless, a warrior taken to dine with the emperor as a reward for killing three assassins, who attempted to kill the king three years ago.
Happy with his bravery, he is allowed to sit 10 paces from the king, a privilege not given to many, considering the enemies the king has made over years of war.

Nameless starts with his version of the story of how he exploits the weak points of his enemies, Long Sky, Flying Snow, and Broken Sword. As he  narrates how he manages to use the feeling of jealousy to make snow kill sword, her love, the king begins to grow suspicious and says such a scenario is not possible. He has faced them both, and knows how they think. He knows both snow and sword are above such feelings and would not choose violence for such a petty reason. He begins to contemplate on how nameless has faked the story, and how he must have convinced sky,snow and sword to sacrifice their life, in order to gain King's confidence and get within a striking range, in order to accomplish something which sky, snow and sword couldn't. King's assassination. Nameless is impressed by king's wisdom, as he accepts what the king says, now narrating the original version. But there is something else which the king misses, rather underestimates. And the whole plot again begins to change, as we come to know how three years ago, sword and snow reach close enough to kill the king, but sword spares his life with a greater motive in mind. Ultimately, he teaches 2 words to Nameless, that rattles Nameless's motive to kill the king. 'Our Land'.
China is in a state of chaos, divided into 7 states, all fighting with each other with no peace. The king of Qin has a vision of conquering all those 7 states, and he is the only king who has the army, power and will to win all battles to reign over China.
Sword knew, the only way to stop such a chaos, is for Qin to take over all kingdoms and start a new life for China.For such a life, the king of Qin had to live.For such a dream, Sword gives up his motive to kill the king, requesting snow and Nameless to share his vision.

The movie has some pretty mind boggling scenes, giving the violent scenes a philosophical angle, the way sky and Nameless predict and picture their battle, moments before it is about to happen, in a rainstorm, with music playing in the background. The fighting style of Nameless and sword are commendable. Sword relates his swordsmanship to calligraphy, saying that there is a lot of similarity between the two. The movie transcends the boundaries of Chinese fighting style, turning it into a ballet and a fight between minds, how a mind abandons the feeling of vengeance to think for the greater good. It is a classic example of Roshomon effect, giving contradictory interpretations to the same action.
Worth watching!!

NH10 Reviews

NH10 turned out to be more nail biting than I had presumed. It touches upon a very sensitive topic prevalent in the society today, Honor Killing. While India boasts of providing equal rights to everyone, but when it comes to choosing someone to love, families are ready to cut down throats in the name of so called self-respect.
The story starts with Anushka being at the receiving end of an attack at a crossing on the streets of Delhi, which prompts her to get a revolver for self defense.
Anushka and Neil plan out a trip to celebrate Anushka's bday. They park along an eating joint on NH10 when they come across a couple being dragged by a few people and taken away in an SUV.
Neil tries to help but is snapped back in return and the goons take off. Neil, while getting back at the wheel again, is not able to accept the insult and decided to teach them a lesson, seeing the SUV a few turns away. He follows them, and finds the group beating the couple in the forests. Eventually even Neil and Anushka are caught, but they manage to escape with the revolver, with which Neil shoots down 2 of their group members but gets stabbed on his leg in return. The next part of the movie completely focuses on Anushka being the lead, running around places at night to get help for her injured husband Neil. With goons chasing her, she tries taking help from the cops who, are unfortunately are part of the conspiracy and try to take her down. But she manages to run off to take help from the Sarpanch of the village, an elder woman herself, who takes her in. After finding out that the poor girl being murdered was her daughter, she comes to know of the blunder she made. She is locked down till the goons, Sarpanch's sons, come back and beat her. Lucky girl manages to run off again with their SUV, only to find out her husband lying in mud, dead. She screams and cries with her voice being suppressed by the sound of a running train(ironic). She comes back to the village and avenges her husband's death by crushing down the goons by their own vehicle.

The story showcases a sorry state of affairs in many regions of India including NCR. its not a gender based issue and even women of the family support it without remorse. Freedom to love, to decide one's life partner doesn't reside with oneself anymore. Sadly this issue roots up from much deeper issues of caste and religion. Caste has engulfed this country for so long that inter caste marriages are considered an unforgivable sin. Villages with no proper education are still living under baseless customs. Death is the penalty given to those breaking them, and what one gets to see on their eyes is hatred and anger, raising a serious question on the so called civilized minds. Have we really reached a point, where killing another human being, for the sake of irrelevant rules is such a small task that no one is afraid to do it. Is there still hope for this species, or is it a point of no return ?

Hats off to Anushka's acting.  Specially, when she smokes a cigarette in front of the man she is about to kill , her eyes gleam of liberation and freedom, something that is being taken away from women today !!

The lazarus effect review

The movie revolves around a young lady, who has still not been able to overcome her childhood fears. Lazarus is a chemical discovered by a handful of scientists, which can revive the dead. Its premise lay on a hypothesis that the chemical can stimulate brain cells and passing a few kilo-volts of electricity can make it work again. But their work is being monitored by other agents from the company who have sponsored their experiments. They test their brainchild on a dog, which comes back to life after the protagonist pulls the trigger. They keep the dog under observation for a few days, when suddenly the team lead of the group comes to know that their project is being shutdown. They later figure it out that some other pharmaceutical company has taken over their company and they have information of the this particular project. Having known about the fortune this chemical can generate, they realize that their four years have been a waste and the original credit of invention would be taken away from them. They decide to break into the lab the following night and repeat the experiment again with another dead dog, and record it. But during the replication of the experiment, the protagonist, Olivia Wilde, gets electrocuted while pulling the trigger. Her husband, the lead scientist of the group tries hard but is not able to get her back. Unable to handle her loss, he decides to use lazarus on her wife. The rest of the group do not support him but still help him, in a hope that she would turn out well as the dog has.

The experiment is successful and Olivia comes back to life, only to discover a few hours later that her mind is now capable of doing things that other people can't. A mutant ? yea, pretty much !! More like Jean grey, back to life. But with great power comes great responsibilities, which of course Olivia isn't able to figure out. The dark secret inside her which has been eating her away from inside since her childhood engulfs her more and she traps herself into the infinite empty space with nowhere to go. Her friends try helping her but in vain. She kills them all !! Even the 'back from hell' dog goes back to hell again ! Eventually everyone gets killed, opening the ending scene for a second part.

Overall, the action part of the horror appeals and the rest of the concept however loses its essence as the movie progressed. Being an 83 min movie, there wasn't much scope to create a story. Everything happens quickly. I was expecting a lot more than this lazarus. Just not a dead human turning into a live mutant just to kill others because you were suffering from a post traumatic stress from your childhood !! Waiting for a worthy horror movie.