Kites (film)

Kites
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Anurag Basu
Produced by	Rakesh Roshan
Screenplay by	Robin Bhatt Akarsh Khurana Anurag Basu
Story by	Rakesh Roshan
Starring	Hrithik Roshan Bárbara Mori Kangana Ranaut Kabir Bedi Nick Brown
Music by	Songs: Rajesh Roshan Background Score: Salim Sulaiman
Cinematography	Ayananka Bose
Editing by	Akiv Ali
Distributed by	Reliance BIG Pictures Filmkraft Productions
Release date(s)	21 May 2010 (2010-05-21)
Running time	130 minutes
Country	India
Language	Hindi English Spanish
Budget	60 crore (US$12 million)
Box office	88 crore (US$17.6 million)

Kites is a 2010 Bollywood film directed by Anurag Basu and produced by Rakesh Roshan, that stars Hrithik Roshan, Bárbara Mori, Kangana Ranaut, and Kabir Bedi. The film was released in India and in North America on May 21, 2010. Its 208-theater opening in North America made it the largest Bollywood release there to that time. It was also the first Bollywood movie to reach the weekend top ten, though My Name is Khan had a larger first-weekend North American gross. Despite a strong opening in India, it was eventually declared a flop.

Plot

J (Hrithik Roshan) is a dance teacher in Las Vegas, Nevada. As a sideline, he marries immigrant women to get them green cards. When Gina (Kangana Ranaut), the rich daughter of a powerful casino owner Bob (Kabir Bedi), falls for him, J goes along to marry into money. He discovers that his future brother-in-law, the vicious, homicidal Tony (Nick Brown), is about to marry a Mexican woman named Natasha (Bárbara Mori), whom J knows as Linda, the last of the immigrant women he married. On the night before "Natasha" and Tony's wedding, Linda and J spend a romantic but chaste night, humorously agreeing to a "divorce." A jealous, gun-wielding Tony arrives at her apartment while J is there. After he hits her, Linda impulsively knocks him out with a heavy object while he tussles with J. Linda and J go on the run toward Mexico, with Tony and police in pursuit. They are helped by a friend of J, Robin (Anand Tiwari). Robin gives them fake passports and IDs so that they can go wherever they want.

In the following week, J and Linda get married in Mexico. On the day of their wedding they come back to their house. There, Robin comes to give them the passports and is unexpectedly shot by Tony and his men. Linda and J escape, but J is shot in the process. In a car chase, Linda stops the car at a train, puts J aboard it, and drives off. Back to the present, J meets with Jamaal, one of Bob's employees, and is ambushed. Jamaal is killed but not before telling J of Linda's whereabouts. J kills off all of Tony's men and then beats Tony by smashing his face into the car door, until he is shot by Gina. He drives off to the location where Jamaal said Linda was last seen. It is shown that after J was put aboard the train, Linda was ambushed on a cliff and sent J a text message saying "I'm going...Sorry, Forget me". She drives off of the cliff, killing herself by drowning. J cries and then smiles, jumping off the cliff as well. Finally, he is reunited with Linda under the ocean, and they embrace through death.

Cast

• Hrithik Roshan as J.
• Bárbara Mori as Natasha/Linda
• Nick Brown as Tony Grover
• Kangana Ranaut as Gina Grover
• Kabir Bedi as Bob Grover
• Anand Tiwari as Robin
• Yuri Suri as Jamaal
• Madhuri Bhatia as Gina's mom

Release

Kites was on 2000 screens in India, across 30 countries and 500 screens globally, according to distributor Reliance BIG Entertainment. It opened on 208 screens in North America, making it the largest Bollywood release there to that time.

Promotion

To help the promote the film, mini "music videos" were released online, each about one minute long and featuring a song from the soundtrack set against scenes from the film.^{[citation needed]} The clothing brand Provogue, which features Hrithik Roshan as its brand ambassador, launched a Kites clothing range.^{[citation needed]} A photo shoot regarding this campaign was shot in the Maldives featuring Hrithik Roshan and Bárbara Mori.

International versions

While the Hindi version of Kites was released May 21, 2010 in India, the international version was released one week later, on May 28, 2010. The film was scheduled to be released in over 60 countries.

In addition to its original subtitled version, Kites was scheduled to be released in a second international English version as Kites:The Remix, "presented by" Brett Ratner and recut by his regular editor, Mark Helfrich, with new music by Graeme Revell.

Box office

Box Office India said the film "opened to a bumper response at most places" in India, but noted "reports are not encouraging, the biggest reason being the film has a lot of English and Spanish dialogue."

On its first weekend in the North America, the film opened in 208 theaters and ranked #10 in the box office, grossing $958,673. It was the first Bollywood movie to reach the weekend top ten, though My Name is Khan had a larger first-weekend North American gross, with $1.9 million at 120 theaters, reaching #13. Kites debuted at #5 in the UK, with an opening of £274,000 from 70 screens. Overall the film was rated as a flop by Box Office India, and in media outlets.

Critical reception

The film received an 82% positive rating on the film critics aggregate site Rotten Tomatoes, with the consensus being, "Thoroughly overwrought in true Bollywood fashion, Kites is deeply flawed —and too effervescently charming to resist." The movie generally received negative reviews in India. It rated 5/10 on the primarily Hindi film critics aggregate site ReviewGang. The chemistry of the lead actors and the cinematography were specifically praised by Indian critics Anupama Chopra and Raja Sen. Rajeev Masand of IBN said "Thrilling action set-pieces, a super-fluid dance number to show off Hrithik's killer moves, and repeated glimpses at the toned bodies of both lead stars. It's almost enough to forgive the uniformly bad acting of all supporting cast". Anupama Chopra of NDTV said "the film doesn’t become more than the sum of its parts because the second half is flat and in places, outright foolish". Noyon Jyoti Parasara of AOL India stated, "It fails in the primary promise of a love story which surpasses language barriers," while Shubhra Gupta of Indian Express calls it "really old wine in a sort-of new bottle".

In the U.S., Jeannette Catsoulis of The New York Times called it "a lovers-on-the-lam blast of pure pulp escapism" that "caroms from car chase to shootout, from rain dancing to bank robbing with unflagging energy. It's all completely loony, but the stunts are impressive, the photography crisp and the leads so adorably besotted that audiences might as well check their cynicism at the door. Frank Lovece of Film Journal International said, "Bollywood enters telenovela territory in a hybrid film that takes the heightened emotions, wild tonal ranges and impeccably crisp technique of modern Hindi cinema and puts all that in the service of a tragic love story straight out of Mexican TV. ... As an old-style Hollywood romance in modern dress, it delivers what people say they want when they say, 'They don't make pictures like that anymore.'" Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times said the film "draws from westerns, musicals, film noir [and] chase thrillers with stunts so preposterous they verge on parody — and it gets away with everything because of [director] Basu's visual bravura and unstinting passion and energy."

Awards and nominations

2011 Zee Cine Awards

Won

• Best Cinematography - Ayananka Bose

Nominated

• Best Female Debut - Bárbara Mori

Music

Kites
Soundtrack album by Rajesh Roshan
Label	T-series

Kites' original music is by Rajesh Roshan and the lyrics are by Nasir Faraaz and Asif Ali Beg. Variety Magazine said the music "ranges from hip-hop to Enya-esque ululating."

Kites: The Remix was almost completely re-scored with new music by Graeme Revell.

Track listing

No.	Title	Artist(s)	Length
1.	"Zindagi Do Pal Ki"	KK
2.	"Dil Kyun Yeh Mera"	KK
3.	"Tum Bhi Ho Wahi"	Vishal Dadlani, Suraj Jagan
4.	"Kites In The Sky"	Hrithik Roshan, Javed Dayma, Suzanne D'Mello
5.	"Fire"	Rajesh Roshan, Vishal Dadlani, Anirudh, Anushka Manchanda
6.	"Fire English Version"	Rajesh Roshan, Vishal Dadlani, Anushka Manchanda

External links

• Official website
• Kites at the Internet Movie Database
• Kites at Rotten Tomatoes
• Kites at Box Office Mojo
• Kites at AllRovi
• Kites at Bollywood Hungama