Happy New Year

Chandni Chowk to China

By John P. McCarthy
Catholic News Service
If, on its way to garnering awards, “Slumdog Millionaire” presents moviegoers with a Western dish laced with Bollywood flavors, “Chandni Chowk to China” (Warner Bros.) is a multicourse banquet offering a fusion of the popular Indian filmmaking style with Hong Kong’s martial arts tradition.

No accolades will be forthcoming, yet this foray into Asia by a major American studio (Warner Bros. financed the project) is undoubtedly authentic.

Whereas you don’t want Danny Boyle’s “Slumdog Millionaire” to end, director Nikhil Advani’s movie seems like it never will. A colorful spectacle that proves to be too much of too many things, the prolix effort will test the patience of uninitiated moviegoers as well as fans of both cinematic genres and their respective ingredients.

Anyone who doesn’t relish nearly two and a half hours of speed-reading subtitles for the Hindu, Cantonese and Mandarin dialogue should choose another form of escapism.

Akshay Kumar, one of Bollywood’s leading action stars, plays Sidhu, a clownish cook from the Delhi marketplace of the title who travels to China to vanquish a gangster, Hojo (Gordon Liu), who is cruelly exploiting villagers. Kumar bears a resemblance to George Clooney, but his character behaves more like an amalgam of the late Peter Sellers and Jackie Chan.

A bumbling vegetable chopper and bread maker in the food stall run by Dada (Mithun Chakraborty) – who took him in as an infant, raising Sidhu as his own son with well-intended harshness – our unlikely hero dreams of making good. Instead of relying on hard work and his own talents, however, he resorts to fortunetellers, con men posing as gurus, and inspiration such as the image of the god Ganesh he discerns in a potato.

Two Chinese men turn up and, believing Sidhu to be the reincarnation of a legendary warrior, bring him back to their village near the Great Wall. He’s accompanied by his fraudulent spiritual guide and translator Chopstick (Ranvir Shorey).

There’s not room to describe all that transpires or the many tonal shifts that result. Sidhu crosses paths with a set of twins played by the lovely model turned actress Deepika Padukone, and after being humiliated by Hojo and suffering a shattering loss, is eventually transformed into a fighter by their father, a beggar who was formerly a police officer and kung fu master.

Shot in India, China and Thailand, “Chandni Chowk to China” is visually attractive and adequately rendered from a technical perspective. Yet a solid pedigree and decent execution can’t make up for its elongated nature, with repetitive montages and flashbacks accounting for much of the padding.

All the signature accoutrements of the Bollywood formula – designed to instigate laughter, crying and tapping of the toes – are present, along with the Hong Kong cinema’s fantasy dimension, intended to instill a magical sense of chop-socky prowess.

Although Bollywood conventions dictate that the leads are never shown kissing or hugging (dance numbers stand-in for romantic intimacy), and though there’s very little blood and no gore, “Chandni Chowk to China” will be too cartoonish for some viewers and too rough for many more.

The film contains frequent martial arts violence that is occasionally intense and pervasively broad, if generally chaste, humor characteristic of the Bollywood idiom. The USCCB Office for Film & Broadcasting classification is A-III – adults. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is PG-13 – parents strongly cautioned. Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13.