Everything about the new movie “Rato Tika Nidhar Ma” reminds us of the 90s. It is written and directed by an actor who was active in the Nepali movie industry in the 90s—Ashok Sharma. The story is a typical 90s movie-stuff and the screenplay has plenty of skits, scenes and sequences that have been lifted off 90s Kollywood and packaged anew. Even the film’s name takes inspiration from the Rajesh Hamal-Karishma Manandhar starrer “Allare” (1998) with the iconic “Rato Tika Nidhar Ma” song, which probably is one of the most recognized and widely played songs in the history of Nepali cinema.

Now as audiences, a little nostalgia is never bad but, unfortunately, Rato Tika Nidhar Ma represents the 90s in a grim light. For one, the film continues the nepotistic practices of the past with director Sharma’s son Ankit Sharma debuting in the lead role as Akash. Sharma Jr is a terrible misfit for the film, but we’ll come to that later.

Now Sharma Sr—who played a negative character in Allare—was never an impactful actor and his directorial venture doesn’t seem to have evolved from the formulaic screenplay, comedy skits, and melodramatic sequences of the 90s. Seniority and experience get way too much respect in Nepal and it feels like Sharma Sr is trying to exploit his past villainous appearances and cameos to make the audience believe he can write and direct a full-length feature film. Alas, he doesn’t succeed.

The film revolves around two friends—Akash and Drishti (Samragyee RL Shah). Akash who wants to migrate to Australia, and works as an agent to send Nepali migrant workers to the Middle East to collect money for his foreign adventure. Drishti is a young widow who wants to start agricultural entrepreneurship to stop local villagers from migrating abroad. The story revolves around their struggles in the village, and in trying to show gambling and labor migration as social evils.

Like most Nepali filmmakers who want to give a message and spread social awareness through their films, Sharma Sr is too focused on lecturing to be able to make a coherent and bearable movie. The film is ridiculously lengthy for its trite story (1hrs 54mins), the screenplay is lethargic, editing flawed at various points, and continuity breaks apart frequently. (Very 90s Nepali cinema, when the whole industry was primitive and struggling.)

For today’s audiences who are well informed and have been exposed to some of the most creative works in Nepali cinema, this movie is nothing sort of a punishment for their failure to foresee the disaster in the trailer itself. While actress Shah, despite doing almost half a dozen Nepali films, has still not been able to speak our language properly, Sharma Jr makes her look better as he struggles every second the camera points at him. His dialogue delivery is weaker than Shah’s and she outshines him even when it comes to connecting with the audience emotionally—imagine that! Sharma Jr is amateur, unconfident and is evidently a victim of his own name—he gets too much screen time although he could clearly do without it.

The film marketed as “social comedy” does have talented actors like Buddhi Tamang, Rabindra Jha, Neeta Dhungana, Jaya Nanda Lama, and Shiva Hari Poudel for comic relief but again, you can’t invite someone for dinner in a latrine and expect them to enjoy your food.

Who should watch Raato Tika Nidhar Ma?

Seems like Nepali filmmakers are adamant on making the year 2019 memorable as a ‘year of disasters’. Rato Tika Nidhar Ma destroys all fond associations of the audience with the song. Even the cover version of the song in the film is not as melodious as the original. We thought we’d be in for a treat this Dashain, but we just got handed a Rs 5 note as dakshina in an expensive envelope. If you got some money to spare, better spend it on onions for your favorite delicacies this festive season.

Rating: 1 star
Actors: Samragyee RL Shah, Ankit Sharma
Director: Ashok Sharma
Run time: 1hr 54mins

Review: Movie Kabaddi Kabaddi Kabaddi

The Nepali movie industry finally gets out of its ‘financial emergency’, thanks to director Ram Babu Gurung’s “Kabaddi Kabaddi Kabaddi”—which has crossed Rs 50 million in collections at the time this report is being written, and the amount is expected to double shortly.

“Kabaddi Kabaddi Kabaddi” is the third installment of a film series based on the life and times of Bir Kaji (Dayahang Rai), a village simpleton in Mustang who knows how to love but is never loved back. Bir Kaji is besotted with his cousin Maiya and wants to marry her, but she has other plans. He fails to woo her over tough competition from other men and remains a bachelor without any interest in marrying anyone besides Maiya. The tragedy starts for Bir Kaji from the very first instalment of ‘Kabaddi’ (2013), and is the base of the latest installment in the series as well.

From the very first ‘Kabaddi’ to ‘Kabaddi Kabaddi’ (2015) and now to ‘Kabaddi Kabaddi Kabaddi’, there is nothing drastically new in the plot, besides Bir Kaji trying to find a bride and Birkhe (Bijay Baral), a longtime friend and henchman, going to great extent to help him.

In KKK, our ageing hero Bir Kaji has only gotten more arrogant and bitter with time. Love is no more on his agenda but he still doesn’t seem to have a good aim in life. He just wants to live out the rest of his life with Maiya’s memories. But then a much younger cousin Kashi (Upasna Singh Thakuri) enters the scene, raising the hope for the desolate heart of Bir Kaji. As fate would have it, and as in other Kabaddi movies, love is not his cup of chhyang. He has fierce competition here too and a dangerously strict girl’s mother to win over.

Again, the movie’s strength is not its story or plot. KKK is based in a semi-rural Mustang village and then travels to Ghandruk at some point. Its biggest asset is rather how organically filmmakers are able to place characters in their natural settings. It is a proven forte of director Gurung to showcase the Gandaki region as one of the most beautiful, habitable, and hospitable places in Nepal.

When most Nepali films choose the hills and mountains of the country as just another ‘location’, the setting of this film in the hills makes it unique as it takes us into the villages of the Gandaki region cinematographically. Not just that. We are also invited into the humble homes and the simple lives of the people of the area. So much effort has gone into representational costumes and dialect of the area that they all feels natural. As if we’ve lived in rural hills all our lives, we immediately identify with the people there.

Another commendable fact about KKK is that it is a wholehearted comedy that doesn’t rely on gimmicks like insult and sexualization to elicit humor. The characters are not loud, nor overbearing, and they don’t stoop low to make you laugh. They’re just being themselves and easily dissolve into plots and sequences to create clean humor that families can enjoy together.

Despite a heavy cast, including some of the most talented actors in the industry, Rai and Baral steal the show. As an inseparable pair of friends, the pair is funny, yet philosophical too. Their comic timing is impeccable, individually and as a duo. For someone who’s watched the entire Kabaddi series, you can’t help but fall in love with them.

There’s absolutely no message you can take away from KKK. Nor do the filmmakers want to impart any social lesson. The intent of making an organic, believable film is enough to keep the audience entertained, it seems. Despite some flaws, KKK is an all-out entertainer and also offers a great lesson to Nepali filmmakers—you don’t need to bar foreign films in order for the Nepali films to be successful. Just make good cinema.

Who should watch it?

If you’ve liked the previous editions of ‘Kabaddi’, you’ll love this movie too. No worries if you haven’t either. The film is just as good on its own.

Rating: 3 stars
Director: Ram Babu Gurung
Actors: Dayahang Rai, Upasana Singh Thakuri, Bijay Baral
Genre: Comedy/Drama
Run time: 1hr 55mins

The year’s biggest festivi­ties are approaching, and we’re not talking about Dashain here. For blues musi­cians, listeners and fanatics, the fourth edition of the Kath­mandu Blues n’ Roots festival is all set for September 28 at Tangalwood, Kathmandu. Starting from small stages within the confines of local bars, last year the Kathmandu Blues n’ Roots festival took to a bigger outdoor venue with a massive stage, sound and lights. More musicians, more audience and obviously a lot more fun is in store for the KBR this year as well, the organizers tell us. And this time, along with the best of local musicians, the audience will get to see an international line-up of “Mr No Money Band” from Italy and “Boy and the Bear” from Thailand.

Fabio Ioannisci aka Mr No Money, the lead singer and pianist of the band that plays rock 'n' roll, rhythm & blues, boogie woogie and barrel­house piano, is excited about his performance in Kath­mandu, again. The Italian frontman has been to Nepal twice in 2013 and 2014 to per­form. Having travelled across the globe, collaborating with various musicians and per­forming in over 800 concerts since 2005, Mr No Money also released a song in 2015 ded­icated to Kathmandu, called “Namaste Kathmandu.” The boogie blues track in English is based on his experiences and love for Kathmandu.

“I am called Mr No Money as I put my passion over money,” Ioannisci tells APEX in a brief online conversation from Ukraine where the band was performing at the time of the writing of this report. About the band and its ever evolving line-up, the artist says, “I have different kinds of ensembles for different shows. For KBR, we’ll have a trio of piano and lead voice, guitar, and drums.”

Ioannisci likes the cultures, people, and food of Kath­mandu, he tells us. About the local music scene, he is “fasci­nated by the way Nepali musi­cians feel the time of music.” “It’s totally different to how we do it,” he says. “There are so many good musicians in Nepal. I specially love Mukti [Shakya] and Satish [Sthapit],” he says, “I can't wait to spend time with them. I can’t wait to come.” Mr No Money Band will also be trav­eling to Pokhara for a short musical tour following the main event.

Also coming to Nepal for the KBR is the “Boy and the Bear” duo comprising of Boy Blues on guitar and Edward Bear on saxophone. The two musicians are experi­enced artists with decades of experience. Boy Blues is currently based in Chiang Mai and started over 30 years ago playing with his uncle Took, considered as one of the godfathers of the Thai blues scene. Boy went on to open his own place, Boy Blues Bar, in the heart of Chiang Mai's famous Night Bazaar district, which has since become one of the city’s best-known live music venues.

As for Bear, he is a travelling musician and has played all over the world, from Australia to Hong Kong to Turkey to Thailand, in a career span­ning nearly 40 years. “While I play a bit of jazz too, my heart and soul are in the blues,” he says in an email interview with APEX.

Bear also informs that although the lineup for the KBR is slated to be Boy and Bear, his friend Roddy Lorimer will also be joining. “Lorimer is an enormously experienced musician who has toured with the likes of Eric Clapton, The Roll­ing Stones and The Who,” he adds.

For Bear, it is not his first visit to Nepal either. He was here at the end of 2018, he informs, when he spent a month each in Kathmandu and Pokhara, playing with musicians everywhere he went. “The Nepalis were warm and welcoming and the music was of high standard,” he says. “I was keen on com­ing back and when I heard of the blues festival, I man­aged to get in touch with Satish and round up Boy and Roddy. The next thing I know, we had our tickets booked and were on our way.”

Satish Sthapit, the founder of KBR who co-organizes the event with his Newaz band­mate Roshan Kansakar, i n forms that final preparations are underway for one of the big­gest events of the genre in the country. “We’re picking up slowly and anticipation is high this time,” Sthapit informs.

This year the event will feature local acts like Green Blues Black, winners of the Kathmandu Blues n’ Roots online music com­petition ; the Hima­layan Con­nection; Spirit X; TMR Trio; Newaz and Kathmandu Catz; along­side the inter­national acts.

On paper, “Password” has everything that makes for a blockbuster potboiler—romance, action, comedy, suspense, and a raunchy item number. But when it comes to execution, the film falls flats, making it a broth spoiled because of too many ingredients, and a serious lack of intelligence on the part of the filmmakers.

Directed by Samrat Basnet, a national level taekwondo player turned movie director, Password is an entirely unintelligent production that is made with a big budget but bad skills. Everything that can go wrong in a movie goes completely awry in Password, proving the legitimacy of the ‘chaos theory.’

The film stars Bikram Joshi as Bikkie (a nickname from his real life), a most wanted criminal in the list of the Central Investigation Bureau (CIB) Nepal. He is in London to find a ‘password’ to a locker that has a Shiva statue priced a million pounds in the international black market. The password is with Sanju (Pari Rana) who gets it as a text message from her dying father, who is in turn best friends with Bikkie’s murdered father. She’s too naive to be ware of it. Also pursing the password is baddie Jojo (Anoop Bikram Shahi) who wants to get his hands on the invaluable statue.

So the plot is simple and trite, yet perfect for a high-speed action thriller. But the filmmaking is so juvenile that it is barely watchable through its 2hrs 5min runtime. As the film progresses through its very loose screenplay and random sequences, its feels like the movie was made by someone who came across a lot of money and decided to spend it on sheer whimsy.

The cast is its biggest let-down. Joshi—who introduces himself as a certified chartered accountant, actor, writer, and a taekwondo black belt on his personal website—is unconvincing as the lead character. He might have passion for acting and we can’t hold his profession against him, but looks like the accountant’s calculations were all wrong in this movie. His acting lacks the intensity to be convincing. His body language does not fit with his character and the little dancing he does exposes his inability to groove.

The same with Rana, the lead actress. She has the looks for sure, but her acting skills are way below par. She can’t convey emotions and always appears confused. Why she was even cast is a wonder!

Well, the filmmakers seriously seem to have no idea how to make a bearable movie or to properly spend their money. Many Nepali directors would kill to have that kind of budget. But the filmmakers of Password waste their resources on superfluous stuff when they should have been spending on better actors and a better dialogue writer. As it is, the dialogues are cringe-worthy! Really. We won’t try to translate the weak punchlines, but to give you a flavor, in one scene, Jojo screams, “Welcome to THE London!” Wait… what?? Was everyone sleeping through pre and post-production?

The film tries to offer comic relief in the form of Rabindra Jha (Kanhaiya), Bikrant Basnet (Balram) and Prabin Khatiwoda (Chature)—men from the CIB dressed like MIB (Men in Black) but in much cheaper looking suits—who roam the streets of London in search of Bikkie. Then there’s Buddhi Tamang playing Mangal, a London-based cab driver who befriends Bikkie and helps him, and also ups the humor quotient. But it is clear that even these talented actors cannot perform without the support of stronger main characters. Now Bikram Joshi is no Dayahang Rai or Bipin Karki.

Who should watch it?

No one. And looks like no one is watching it because the cinema hall was less than 10 percent occupied on a Monday matinee show. The filmmakers were heavy on promotion, especially with Sunny Leone as the highlight for the item number. But with Sunny’s limited dancing skills and the amateur lyrics, the item number does not help much. In their attempt to cash in on Sunny’s star-power, the filmmaking team ended up giving her the whole spotlight while getting back nothing.

Rating: 1 star 

Traditionally, a bass player has always had the least glamorous role in a band. Even though they are the foundation of the rhythm section of any band with drums and guitars, players of the modern electric bass find themselves hiding in the shadows of the front-men. But the situation has been changing in recent years. Bass players around the world have been getting more and more recognized and with the introduction of ‘Bass Day’—an event where bass players of different genres meet to perform together and share knowledge—the bass community is only getting stronger.

Starting 2016, Nepal has had its own version of the ‘Bass Day,’ which is usually organized in the third week of September. This year, the fourth edition of Bass Day Nepal is happening at Shisha Bar, Thamel on September 21 in association with Sangeet Pathshala. Seventeen bass players—aspiring and professionals from 18 to 50—will be gathering to display their skills as well as learn from each other in this event that celebrates true musicianship.

“There’s a small misconception among local musicians that this is a competition,” shares Deepak Shakya, the man behind the event. “This is not the intent. We just want bass players to collaborate and take this as an opportunity to share their skills.” Shakya is himself a well-recognized bass player who started his career in 1999 and has played with different artists across various genres.

The idea of organizing a day dedicated to the low-enders had come to Shakya earlier than 2016. But the problem was finding like-minded people to invest their time and resources on a not-for-profit event. Failing to find much support at the time, he ventured out on his own. The first Bass Day Nepal in 2016 saw its humble beginnings at the House of Music, Thamel. The event, although small, was well received by musicians and paved an easier way for future ventures.

“With time, the magnitude of the event has only grown and last year we saw a full house with more audience reaching out to us,” Shakya says. “This year we have participants not only from Kathmandu but also from Pokhara, Dharan, and other cities.” Shakya says he also wanted to get international musicians to perform at the event. “But I was advised otherwise by a few sponsors and well-wishers,” he says. “We want to keep it organic and local for maybe a few more years.”

As a young boy, he recalls his grandfather—the legendary music maestro ‘Master Ratna Das Prakash’—reading out the names of the successful people featured in newspapers and magazines. “One day, I wish to see your name appear in a newspaper as well,” he told the young kid. With that as his inspiration, years later, Anup Prakash would have his name printed almost every month on one of the biggest entertainment magazines in the country—for 19 straight years. And that’s only one of his many achievements that make him among the most recognized names in the Nepali music and fashion industries.

He is neither a musician nor a singer, but Prakash’s contributions to the growth of the Nepali music industry still makes him a well-known figure. Now 48, Prakash has over three decades of experience as one of the most sought after photographers in the country, with his profile growing from an aspiring model to a photojournalist, a publisher, designer, and much more.

In the early 90s, when the seeds of modern forms of music like pop and rock were gradually being sown in Nepal, the music industry was in its embryonic stage. A handful of studios, a few music companies and a bunch of musicians—talented but clueless of the business end—strived to be heard and recognized. A few years later, the idea of locally-produced cassettes and CDs of Nepali musicians had been brewing. That is where Prakash stepped in to conceptualize and photograph for album covers.

“I have worked for the late Phatteman Rajbhandari to Nima Rumba and everyone else you can think of,” says Prakash, also mentioning that most of his works have remained undocumented because of the lack of digital media and the rapid frequency with which he had to churn out his works in the early days of his career.  

Prakash started his career by taking photos from analog cameras with film rolls, and with almost no other photography equipment. “There was no room for a mistake at the time. We had to be perfect,” he recalls. “Especially for indoors or band shoots, the setting was even more difficult. We had no instant reviews to take the perfect shots and no Photoshop to edit out our mistakes later.”

The whole process of taking photos with analog cameras was challenging, and expensive, as Prakash recalls. A Kodak film roll cost him around Rs 120-150 in the early 90s and offered only 36 exposures. A photographer’s main objective at the time was to make the very best of the roll and waste as few shots as possible.

Prakash had learnt photography from a private tutor in Mumbai for six months circa 1988 and he began by applying his skills as a photojournalist for a few publications. He was then drawn into the world of music and glamor. Despite low returns, he started taking professional photos of musicians for album covers and other promotional materials. “Modern music was at its primitive stage at the time and artists did not make much money either,” Prakash says. “Sometimes I even did photoshoots for free to support the musicians.”

Then, in 1994, Prakash along with a few like-minded friends conceptualized “Wave”—an English language entertainment magazine which would later become one of the most influential publications with 25 years (and running) under its belt. With Wave, Prakash as a publisher and photographer turned musicians into celebrities. He gave a touch of glamour to music. He put Nepali musicians on the cover of the magazine, which in turn sold like hot cakes in the late 90s and early 2000s and even started creating posters of Nepali artists which the audience loved. In his 19 years with Wave, a monthly publication, Prakash not only took photographs but also created events and promotional activities to support musicians.

No big musician of the time escaped his lenses. He was the official photographer and guide for Puerto Rican “King of Latin Pop” Ricky Martin’s personal 1999 visit to Nepal and official event photographer for Canadian popstar Bryan Adam’s 2011 concert in Kathmandu.

After his departure from the Wave team in 2013, Prakash lent his expertise as Managing Director to the Kripa Drishya Foundation—an organization devoted to music. It has a full-fledged record studio called Kripa Drishya Digital and also a television program called Kripa Unplugged where select musicians from different genres are featured.

Now retired from his position as the MD but still a board member at the foundation, Prakash has shifted his focus to business and product photography. He is also designing a reality show based on musicians. “The idea is to let people from all walks of life who have musical abilities but haven’t found a platform yet to spend time and eventually share the stage with their musical idols,” Prakash gives a little teaser of the program without divulging more. “It might air on television or just YouTube. Whatever the case, you will be able to enjoy the music to the fullest.”

Despite its discouraging 2 hrs 25 mins-length, “Chhichhore” at the cinema doesn’t feel long. The coming-of-age story of young college students who turn into responsible adults is told in a parallel narrative, one of which is filled with fun and comedy while the other deals with the serious issue of broken family, pressure to succeed, and suicidal tendencies. The director of the highly successful sports biopic “Dangal” (2016) Nitesh Tiwari dons a different hat for Chhichhore, which has more typical Bollywood features.

The film starts in the present with Raghav (Mohammad Samad), the young son of Anirudh (Sushant Singh Rajput) and Maya (Shraddha Kapoor), attempting suicide by jumping off a roof when he fails to clear his engineering entrance exam. Raghav survives but is severely injured and the old Bollywood formula of ‘miracle over medicine’ ensues. Then Anirudh has the bright idea of encouraging his son’s healing process by narrating to him the story of his college days and his quirky friends from the H4 Hostel—also taunted by the rest of the college as ‘Losers’—and of their encouraging run, even as heavy underdogs, in a sports tournament.

The narrative takes us back to the late 80s/early 90’s (the time horizon is undisclosed except for the name of the 1985 movie “Teri Meherbaniyaan” a character mentions which helps us take a shot at guessing the timeline). Now this is where Chhichhore gets interesting. In this narrative, the audience gets a piece of nostalgia of their college days and if they’ve ever lived in hostels, they’ll find the universal camaraderie and brotherhood of ‘hostel boys’ really intriguing.

Although Rajput and Kapoor are the supposed stars of the film, having done many lead roles in the past, they don’t entirely get the screen and that’s what makes Chhichhore a bit different from the regular ‘hero-heroine’ Bollywood sagas. The screen time is cleverly distributed between an ensemble of supporting cast—Tahir Raj Bhasin as Derek, Tushar Pandey as Mummy, Saharsh Kumar Shukla as Bevda, Varun Sharma as Sexa, and Naveen Polishetty as Acid—who are part of the Anirudh’s ‘Losers’ group.

Director Tiwari smartly introduces the supporting cast with small backstories of their own and gives enough screen time to these talented actors to create a diverse screenplay. This narrative is full of college romance, ‘bromance,’ ragging and rivalry typical of an engineering college. What makes the film better is that the director gets the best out of all supporting actors, even the ones in very small roles. Nobody seems out of place.

But we only wish this was the case of the ‘present’ narrative. Maya and Anirudh, Derek, Tushar, Mummy, Bevda and Sexa appear in their middle-aged versions in this narrative, with the same actors playing these roles, but none of them looks believable. Rajput and Kapoor don’t look old enough and seem too lost, and so do the H4 boys. Despite some balding, grey hairs and a few attempts to dig up some middle-age gravitas, the young actors fail to look convincingly old. Given that most of the film is humorous, even the intense scenes feel like the actors are performing a comedy skit as middle-aged people and they may break out of their characters with a hysterical laugh at any moment. But that does not happen.

Tiwari’s transition from directing the perfectionist Aamir Khan in Dangal to working with a cast of newcomers is not smooth. One can only wonder what made the director of a $300 million+ gross sports biopic, made as realistic as possible, choose to work on a ‘semi-sports’ fiction where an engineering college has an annual sports event that runs for two months! To cut a long story short, Chhichhore attempts a “Jo Jita Wohi Sikander” (1992) but ends up as an improved version of “Student of the Year” (2012).

Rating: 2.5 stars

Who should watch it?

Despite a few flaws in storytelling, Chhichhore is quite enjoyable. If you’re up for college comedy and don’t mind the melodramatic bits, you’re in for a fun ride. PS: Although the film is rated PG, there are many direct and indirect sexual innuendos. But which college doesn’t have lusty, dirty college boys, right?

The subject that director Nawal Nepal’s “Maruni” deals with is strong in itself. The film is a rare Nepali production where people of a different gender other than the conventional ‘male’ or ‘female’ are not heavily stereotyped or given offensive comic cameos. “Maruni” makes a case for a person to be able to choose a gender. With a transgender woman in the lead role, the film has a somewhat unprecedented story, at least in the Nepali film industry.

In “Maruni,” actress Samragyee RL Shah plays Suman—biologically a man who undergoes a sex reassignment surgery to turn into a transgender woman. Suman falls in love with Yash (Puspa Khadka), and her love turns into obsession even as Yash rejects her advances, not because he knows she is transgender but because he is married to Madhu (Rebika Gurung.)

Despite a strong subject, the film does not have a thoughtful story. Marketed as “an obsessive love story”, one can neither feel the love nor the obsession in the two-hour runtime, thanks to a forgettable performance of lead actors.

Nawal Nepal—as a story/screenplay writer, assistant director and director—has been in the industry for almost two decades and yet has gone without a successful film. Unfortunately for him, “Maruni”, despite taking up a strong social issue, won’t give him that success either. And being low budget compared to the multi-million dollar Bollywood flick “Saaho”, a simultaneous release, is no excuse as he has chosen popular faces in the cast at the expense of hiring talented actors who could carry a strong storyline.

In this digital age, content is the king and there have been multitudes of low-budget movies in Bollywood itself, which have given tough competition to big productions. Complaining about getting less screen time in Nepali halls is also out of place when filmmakers can’t even entertain the little audience they get.

Coming back to the film, Shah as Suman is a disaster. Playing a character with so many different layers and who needs to drive the whole film forward, Shah never gets into it. She is unable to grasp the weight of her character and wears a confusing expression in most scenes. Her dialogue delivery is ridiculously anglicized and at times incoherent.

Another lead, Khadka as Yash, does a slightly better job but lacks the intensity his character requires. As someone fighting an obsessive pursuer, Yash isn’t successful in emoting his struggle before the audience. Neither is his chemistry with his wife believable. We don’t even know if he is loyal to his her or is too scared to cheat on her with another woman. Yash is that futile. A prime example for filmmakers that popular faces from social media and music videos cannot necessarily lead their films. For a multi-layer storyline, Shah and Khadka’s acting is amateurish to do justice to the film.

In terms of the script, too, the filmmakers have made juvenile blunders in their attempt to add “masala” to the movie. The song and dance sequences are unwanted and there’s a fight scene where Yash—so drunk that he can’t even stand on his own—immediately gets up and fights off a bunch of goons with high flying kicks and acrobatics. Mr Nepal, if you don’t want Bollywood to compete with you, why do you stick to Bollywood’s masala formula?

The film also attempts a serious twist which we can’t reveal as it would be a big spoiler. So we completely and deliberately neglect one important character.

Who should watch it?

Well, if you love Shah and Khadka for their social media popularity and despite their poor acting. The duo are decent dancers and the songs, although awkwardly placed in the movie, are well choreographed with the two flaunting their skills to the hilt. Deepak Bajracharya’s “Jam Na Maya Jam” is probably the best thing about the movie. His playback singing gives a new sound to Kollywood cinema and Shah and Khadka perform their sequences with flair. Maybe they should stick to music videos.

Rating: 1 star

Cast: Samragyee RL Shah, Puspa Khadka, Rebik Gurung

Director: Nawal Nepal

Run time: 2 hours

Genre: Drama