It has been 25 years since the cult classic Aashiqui, starring Rahul Roy and Anu Aggarwal hit the screen.
While the plot was nothing to write home about, the music was another thing entirely – the real star of the film.
To celebrate the landmark anniversary, music company T-Series recruited rapper Honey Singh to recreate the film's best-known song, Dheere Dheere, which was originally sung by Kumar Sanu.
The new "tribute", as it is being described, features Bollywood superstar Hrithik Roshan and clothes horse Sonam Kapoor. The video was filmed in the beautiful locales of Antalya in Turkey. Sounds idyllic, doesn't it?
It's not. Directed by Ahmed Khan, the cringeworthy video – which might as well have been titled "The Rich Old Lonely Man's Guide to Nabbing a Pretty Young Wife" – makes you wonder why no one involved in the project took a step back at any point and realised what a terrible idea it was. There are many, many reasons why this supposed tribute is so bad, but here are four of the biggest.
1. Honey Singh: He is the Punjabi rapper with a Midas Touch. All of his songs, no matter how lewd, senseless, sexist or ridiculous they are, seem to top the charts and are played non-stop on the radio until you can hear them in your sleep – which is probably why T-Series asked him to recreate the song in Punjabi. But it falls flat. Even though lyrics have never been his strong point, lines such as 'Teri meri story hai big bang theory jo main sunaon sabko" – which translates as "our love story is like the big bang theory, which I tell everyone about" – are cringeworthy. Even though the song is meant to be a ballad, he just seems to be droning on without any emotion. Luckily for Singh, there is a lot more wrong with the video, which distracts some of the attention from his droning.
2. A lack of chemistry: Even though the idea of Roshan and Kapoor as a couple sounds good on paper, it does not translate on the screen. He looks too old, while she is her usual, too-giggly, immature self. There is no spark and no semblance of a believable connection. In the original, Roy and Aggarwal recreate the rush of first love beautifully, whereas in this case, it all seems very scripted and forced.
3. Hrithik Roshan: The actor looks a lot older in this video and sports a tuft of cringeworthy orange hair. He seems to be playing some sort of tycoon, and when he's not walking around looking important – getting in or out of his fancy cars – he likes to stalk Kapoor with his fancy camera. He goes as far as printing out the photos he takes and hanging them up which, of course, is not alarming psycho behaviour. Nope, not at all. Not only does it set a bad example in general, he goes as far as riding a child's bicycle (major Koi Mil Gaya throwback here, folks), and changing out of his stuffy business suits into more casual wear, inexplicably getting his hands dirty unloading a delivery of stuff for a cafe to impress his more "middle class" love interest. His dance routine towards the end seems forced – but I suppose the producers wouldn't be getting their money's worth if they didn't coax some fancy moves out of him.
4. Sonam Kapoor: After watching a few of her films, and her videos, we have come to the conclusion that Kapoor does not really act. She always plays the same irritating, giggling girl with an impressive wardrobe – which is basically how the actress comes across in real life. She looks fantastic in all her outfits, which are probably the only good thing about the video other than the scenery. She plays a party planner, who randomly whistles at Roshan's character and then motions for her friends to be silent more than once in the five-minute video. Also, unlike normal girls, who would freak out seeing photos of themselves plastered all over a random stalker's walls, she gets all teary-eyed and excited – enough to marry the voyeur towards the end of the video.
ajhurani@thenational.ae
