The Sultan of Bollywood

OK, I get it now.

Bollywood movies really are HUGE productions. They're long. They're loud. There's singing and dancing and fighting and crying. The audience whistles and cheers. The stories are touching and tender and exciting. And I got all of this with a movie that was all in Hindi, with no English subtitles...

Bollywood technically refers to the Hindi language film industry, although it generally is used to describe the Indian film industry as a whole - films made in Telugu, Tamil, and other regional languages. They make more movies than Hollywood each year, and sell way more tickets. Indians loooove their movies.

We've seen this poster EVERYWHERE

Arguably the most famous Bollywood actor today is Salman Khan, and his face is plastered everywhere. From the start of the trip we've seen giant billboards featuring his new wrestling-love story film, Sultan, so of course I wanted to go.

This evening, Mario and I went to a huge American-style mega-mall, struggling with how to get in (security divides men and women to get searched - the guard searching me seemed to know I was harmless (read: clueless) and let me through without fuss). Then we found the theater and bought reserved tickets... did we know the movie was in Hindi? Yes, thanks. With no subtitles? Yes, thanks. So you're sure you want tickets for today? at 6:30? Sultan? YES, GIVE ME MY TICKET!

Entering the theater also requires a security check, and again men and women are separated into different lines. Which we didn't know, and got laughed at by the security guards. We finally found our way into the right theater and settled in for the show.

There are no trailers, but lots of commercials - each one preceded by a photocopy of some official document telling us how long the commercial is and what it will be for. Then, everyone stands for the singing of the Indian National Anthem. And without further ado, the movie starts.

Sultan crashes a wedding, and tries to
sing his way into the girl's heart.

Sultan is a wrestling film, with a love story on the side. Several typical Bollywood musical numbers are thrown in, which seemed a tad ridiculous but well received by the audience.
And when Sultan, before his final title fight for the MMA championships, is asked out by a fan, he sings a love song to (about?) his estranged wife - and the audience went CRAZY. Which again was weird, because the actor was definitely lip-synching, and writhed on the ground doing strange pelvic thrusts. Nonetheless, it was hard not to get totally sucked into the energy and excitement, and I have to admit the music was catchy and fun.

Sultan is about a 3-hour long film, with a 15 minute intermission in the middle. The only other movies that I've seen with intermissions are sweeping epics: Gone with the Wind, 2001, and Gandhi. This one is a boy-meets-girl-boy-loses-girl-boy-gets-girl-back love-story, with a Rocky-esque sports comeback and flashy dance numbers. Yet somehow, with only understanding the handful of English words thrown in the film, and both of us feeling ill with gastrointestinal issues, Mario and I were completely entranced and actually left the theater excited about the movie. I'm so glad to have gotten the full experience, and am thrilled I got to see Sultan.

Nice job, Bollywood. Hats off to you.