Asoka

Rating:
Summary: Me
Review: This movie though not completely accurate is one of the most substantial films I have ever seen. Every bit of the the film from the dialogue, the scenery, the soundtrack, actors, film presence, absolutely everything breathed life into the story. The movie will make even the most stone hearted cry or at least spend a great deal of time reflecting on the film. See it once for the story then see it again to feel it and reflect upon how its context flows meaning, religous values and ethics into your life.

Rating:
Summary: Entertaining epic from India
Review: I really enjoyed the epic story of this ancient Indian prince who became emperor by killing everyone who stood between him and the throne, then late in life renounced violence and helped spread Buddhism in India and surrounding areas (this last part is just summarized in the last minute of the movie). The story is not supposed to be completely factual. A disclaimer at the beginning says the movie will just give an idea of what kind of journey Asoka took in life. Although the movie was long, the scenery was beautifully shot, and the acting was believable enough. The breakouts into musical segments was a little different for me, and did not always flow into the plot very well, but the music videos were sensual and entertaining in their own right. I got used to them quickly. My wife on the other hand was irritated by them, and gave up on the movie early on. So, it's not for everyone, but if you're open-minded to try something different and not at all offensive, I highly recommend this DVD.

Rating:
Summary: SRK: The world's greatest living actor
Review: This is a wonderful film, with fun upbeat chreography, a love story and a fairy tale that will introduce you to the the amazing talents of the one and only SRK! Shahrukh Khan is hands down the most famous and loved man in the world. I relaize that if you live in the USA, you sadly may have never heard of him, but untold millions adore him.

If you combined Mel Gibson, Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, a rockin' Gene Kelly, and an occasional pinch of the young Jerry Lewis - you might get somewhat close to describing Shahrukh Khan, or SRK as they call him in India.

I first saw SRK in ASOKA, and then discovered DIL SE. After that I was captured. I found this man so appealing that I started watching any and all of his movies. The cultural gap made some almost incomprehensible to me; but with time & patience, the films broadened my awareness of a world where 60% of the marriages are still arranged - and my love for SRK grew

It took me awhile to get comfortable with Hindi popmusic and Bollywood dance numbers, but that really didn't matter because I could not take my eyes off Shahrukh Khan. He has that kind of star quality - when he's in the frame, you don't see anyone else. His energy and joie de vivre fill up the screen, and your heart.

I had never ever been one of those who fell for movies stars and I wondered what it was that drew me into his magic. One fine morning it hit me like a ray of light - SRK is holding the Love Frequency on the planet.

What is it that everyone dreams of, longs for, works for, lives and dies for? Love. We all want to be loved by our families, friends, lovers, and by God.

Shahrukh is living Love - it's in his eyes, in every gesture from his hands and body. Love radiates from the treasury of subtle expressions on his sometimes handsome, sometimes ordinary, always wonderful face. He is what every woman wants - the passionate man every guy knows he could be. Brave, crazy, hilarious, tender, vicious, vulnerable, SRK can express multiple layers of human emotion in one smile.

For me, Shahrukh Khan is the greatest living actor in the world today. No one can hold a candle to him, because he is not a manufactured product of tyranny. He is its antithesis - he is all feeling, Love.

No one can portray all the phases of Love better than SRK. Shahrukh, a Muslim, is happily married to a gorgeous Hindu lady in Mumbai (Bombay). They have two children and SRK, a man who gets up close to the most beautiful women in the world, is infamous for being an absolutely faithful, loving husband. He believes in love. He courted his wife for seven years before her parents would allow the marriage.

In film love scenes, SRK is somehow tantalizingly chaste, and thus all the more erotic. The powerful energies of a tender fire are always building, and never quite come to completion to find release. Even his kisses - which are mostly bestowed upon lovely shoulders, arms, and necks - are holding something back, some mystery that makes you want him to reveal more.

Introduce yourself to Shahrukh with Asoka and then move on. The list of his some 50+ films is naturally varied. Because of cultural differences and traditions, some may not be easily appreciated by the western mind.

If Shahrukh Khan never becomes well known here in the USA, it will be our enormous loss. He is the genius of joy and living imagination, the finest living actor in the world, and more importantly, a light in our dark unraveling times. This self-described (his words) "short man with dark skin" is a veritable giant among men - and happily for us, currently holds the Love frequency on the planet.

V.Susan Ferguson

Rating:
Summary: sorry, not as all the others' controversial praises
Review: the whole movie seems to be sectionalized poorly. besides killing some of the opponents, this guy's main purpose is to seek out that not so loveable female. there is nothing special about this movie only cliched stuff. i don't know where's the breathtaking material in it, all i've found were too many boring moments and there's nothing profoundly and meaningfully presented from the very beginning to the end. the guy is not a great person in the least. there's nothing to be developed into any significant story except killings, cryings, love seeking, singing and dancing. this film is so cliched that i really don't know where the fussy praises based upon. maybe my tv's angle is completely different from other reviewers, hehehe.

Rating:
Summary: asoka
Review: I,M NOT FROM INDIA,SO I HAVE TO REED IT ,I LOVED IT!!!!!

Rating:
Summary: ASOKA ~ K-K-K-KAURWAKI
Review: CINEMATOGRAPHY: exquisitely evocative
COSTUMES: glorious colours, elegant simplicity. Loved those shawl-scarf things Shah Rukh wore - do you still call it a dupatta if a man wears it??
MUSIC: one of the highlights for me. In spite of having the CD, and seeing clips on MTV ~I was unprepared for the lush, sumptuous sound, and exciting picturisation.
I would have loved MORE of the innovative underwater scene in Roshni Se - full of grace and romance and playfulness.
JEWELLERY: wish they would manufacture a range of costume jewellery based on the Asoka designs!
OTHERS STARS: wholehearted participation, extremely effective, wellcast.
SANTOSH SIVAN: a visionary in an industry of mediocrity. (I wonder if he's met Francis Ford Coppola?) God bless you Mr Sivan, and thank you from the bottom of my heart.
ENDING: left me asking...then what?....then what? Much the same as young Arya asking Asoka to continue his story-telling. Leaves the door open for Asoka II? God willing! Are you listening Santoshji?
INTERVAL: could have been timed a bit better - I had tears streaming down my face when the lights came on!
THE BOOK ON THE MAKING: utterly stupendous...you gotta have it!

NEGATIVES: From a western perspective and sensibility, which is all I can give you, I could have done without the "three stooges", which however maybe an inherent part of Hindi movies. Also, I felt that young Arya took far too long to die! Call me insensitive, but it seemed that scene dragged a bit. And there were a few too many dismembered limbs lying around the battlescenes for my liking!

SHAH RUKH: his voice richer and huskier than ever, is an imposing vision - he IS Asoka incarnate: imperious, majestic, romantic, sensitive, playful, every move and emotion a portrait of Grace, Truth and Sincerity. Known for his legendary and unstoppable energy, Shah Rukh's moments of chilling stillness left me breathless at his versatility.

His intensity reminded me of Martin Sheen in Apocalypse Now, one of the highlights of Hollywood history, in its time. Martin at 35, was the same age in Apocalypse Now, as Shah Rukh in Asoka. Another highlight for me as Shah Rukh's sword-handling and one-on-one combat scenes - I could have watched that all day and all night.

After watching Hollywood-UK movies for over 45 years, I can honestly say this is THE BEST MOVIE I HAVE EVER SEEN IN MY LIFE...till DEVDAS, which I also love for opposite reasons.

Rating:
Summary: Breathtaking
Review: I saw this one on a whim, since at the time I knew nothing about Asoka and very little about Indian movies (Monsoon Wedding being the only exception). And I was blown away by this gorgeous and grim movie, so much so that I had to get my own copy.
It's not like anything else I've seen before. It managed to seamlessly blend a period epic (with battle scenes with an astounding number of extras), a sophisticated political intrigue, an utterly beautiful love story, a spiritual journey, and lush musical numbers.
Yes, musical numbers. If someone told me that an epic, and such a heart-breaking one, would also be a musical, I might have left it on the shelf. Glad I didn't, since the music actually fits wonderfully and doesn't detract but add to the emotion and beauty of the movie.
Overall, this movie has an utterly beautiful look: many, if not most of the frames, would make beautiful stills. But the thing that made me really sit up and take notice were the well-developed characters.
The actors are all good. I was especially enthralled by Shahrukh Khan's performance as Asoka. He can be both charming and utterly ruthless, equally convincing while telling a child a fairy tale, and participating in the slaughter of thousands. And the best are the final moments of the movie, when remorse kicks in. As a past reviewer said: just look at his anguished face. Apparently he is a big star in Bollywood, and if this movie is any indication, I can see why.
Everyone else is also very good, but I must single out Kareena Kappor. Her princess is certainly no damsel in distress, but is both utterly tough and utterly vulnerable at the same time. And very, very beautiful.
So, no doubt about Asoka's 5-star rating for me.
To end this review on a very random note: Never have I thought that teaching someone how to use a sword could ever be sexy. This movie manages.....

Rating:
Summary: Asoka
Review: ** SPOILERS AHEAD **

If you don't want plot details revealed to you, stop reading NOW! My apologies to any Evelyn Wood Speed-Readers, whose training no doubt kicked in and they already read the rest of this review in a blink.

In case you don't know (I admit - I had to look it up), the term "bollywood" is a nickname for Bombay India, where they produce over 600 films a year - a number that puts the real Hollywood to shame.

For some reason, reviewers on amazon.com always seem to be much more generous than other sites that have user-submitted reviews. On other sites, like MouthShut and Epinions, most of the reviews on Asoka are generally far less than favorable. Most of these negative reviews complain about historical inaccuracies.

For example: 200 BC predates indigo dye, so everyone in that period should have been wearing some shade of brown. Bindusara had many wives and fathered over 100 sons. There is absolutely no evidence that Asoka murdered his brothers, in fact there is evidence that many of his step brothers were generals in his battle campaigns. There was no Princess Kaurwati and he never married her. Yada. Yada. Yada.

Some people were even offended by this film, saying that it is blasphemy to suggest that the great Asokas' turning point was due to sorrow over the death of Ayra and the lust for a Kaurwati instead of the disgust over the senseless violence.

Well, sorry people, but if I wanted to see a movie where everyone wore drabby looking outfits, but is historically accurate, I'd go to the history channel. This movie IS NOT a documentary. Artistic license flows free!

With that said, I'll now clue you in on my REAL gripes about this film. The DVD cover depicts Asoka with an army of extras riding on horseback to battle. This image is obviously there to get guys to rent this movie. But, in actuality, that scene encompasses only about 4% of the entire movie. The other 96% is, more or less, a love story.

Which brings me to the actual story... I thought that the story itself was fair to good, and the dance numbers took me by surprise. But, in time, I came to appreciate them if only for the breaks they provided in this emotional rollercoaster of a film. The touches of humor in slow paced parts of the movie helped keep it flowing, but the second half of the movie seemed like a completely different movie from the first half. The overall tone was more forboding and there were fewer song/dance numbers.

They used a very low bit-rate when they mastered the film for DVD. This was so they could fit the entire 170 minutes (although the cover of the DVD claimed it was only 150 minutes long - an error that simply reflects poor quality) on a single layer DVD. The result is VHS quality video. They would have been better off presenting the DVD in 2.35:1 instead of 16:9, where the extra black space, that compresses to zero bytes with VBR, would allow a higher bit rate and better overall quality and still be single layer. This would have also fixed a problem where text is truncated on both sides of the screen. Another visual problem that could have been easily fixed was white subtitles over white portions of video were unreadable. They should have used an outline font. I also did not like the way they divided the chapters on the DVD. They divided the chapters by the beginning of each song/dance number instead of time based, so jumping to a scene does not work as expected. This is used by the special features that let you jump to the songs, but the movie keeps playing after the song is through. They could have easily mastered the DVD in such a way that each song had its own chapter, with other chapters based on time.

Rating:
Summary: Too bad there aren't 100 stars to give this film
Review: Asoka is a must see. All you pansies out there that think it is a good film but the music shouldn't have been there, having 5 songs in each Indian film is a style in Bollywood. Asoka is a better film than Gladiator or any other historical "recreation" The irony is unparalleled by any other film. The violent indians are fantastic, as well as the bellydancers. The characters could not have been pertrayed better by their actors. The film is worth the price and the price 100x over. A must see brawling epic.....

Rating:
Summary: Truly a Wonderful movie!
Review: YOu have probably read all the recommendations on the movie, so let me get straight to the point here:

RENT THE MOVIE, YOU WILL NOT REGRET IT! True, the first 10 minutes were a bit boring but then the movie really takes off. Also the songs and the wonderful acting by Kareena Kapoor adds to the list of reasons to watch this movie!

Great work! Hope to see movies like this one from Subcontinent frequently!