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The superstar is poised to hit the big screen after a two-year hiatus and the industry is abuzz with excitement, writes
Saibal Chatterjee
The turbo-charged power of the special effects-laden action fantasy, Krrish, is ready to be unleashed. And the 32-year-old Hrithik Roshan, the star of the film, is back in business. With Krrish, the superstar is ready to enter the next crucial phase of his life and career. Hrithik hasn’t been in the thick of the box office action since the magical success of Koi`85 Mil Gaya in 2003. The tale of an extra-terrestrial’s bonding with a child-man (played with admirable ease by Hrithik) struck a chord with the masses and rescued the actor’s career from the deleterious effects of a string of expensive flops. Hrithik did have a big release in 2004, Farhan Akhtar’s Lakshya. He gave a good account of himself in the role of a young drifter who finds his footing in life in exceptional circumstances, but the film fell well short of being a box office hit. The question is: will Krrish, a sequel to Koi`85 Mil Gaya, send Hrithik’s career to an all-new orbit? When he burst on the Bollywood scene in early 2000, days after his 26th birthday, he triggered a nationwide frenzy of the sort that the Mumbai movie industry hadn’t witnessed in a long, long time. Kaho`85 Na Pyaar Hai, crafted with care by father Rakesh Roshan as a launch pad for the young man, set the box office afire and a sensational new career was launched. There was no way one could have missed the reasons behind Hrithik’s meteoric rise. Here was a hunk with a superbly sculpted body, amazing callisthenic skills, oodles of overpowering charisma and a range of acting skills that belied his lack of experience. Even as the masses went gaga over Duggu, the young actor delivered two more solid performances that year – in Khalid Mohamed’s Fiza and Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s Mission Kashmir. Positive reviews, good box office returns, rising mass frenzy – Hrithik had everything that a young actor could hope for. Then, inexplicably, his career went into a nosedive. He delivered turkeys in an embarrassing heap between 2001 and 2002. A combination of bad choice of roles, poor scripts and an ill-advised strategy to cash in on his image as a dancing-singing sex symbol backfired on the industry and on Hrithik himself. Repetitiveness threatened to kill the golden goose. Several of the films that bombed were big-banner productions that were expected to take him places, but they all suffered from telltale signs of haste. Subhash Ghai’s Yaadein, Kunal Kohli’s Mujhse Dosti Karoge, from the Yash Chopra stable, and Sooraj Barjatya’s Main Prem Ki Diwani Hoon came completely unstuck at the box office and his career seemed in real danger of going off the rails completely. What made matters worse was that he lent his name and presence to films that had disaster written all over them – Vikram Bhatt’s Aap Mujhe Achche Lagne Lage and Arjun Sablok’s Na Tum Jaano Na Hum. The former had him opposite his first co-star Amisha Patel, but there was no sign of the old magic being recreated. The only film of his that clicked during this low phase of his career – Karan Johar’s mushy Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham – wasn’t really his film. It was driven by megastars Amitabh Bachchan and Shahrukh Khan. But just when his detractors began to write him off as a flash in the pan, Hrithik bounced back and how! Koi...Mil Gaya, obviously inspired by Steven Spielberg’s E.T. – The Extra Terrestrial, helped the young actor regain his foothold, and the doubts quickly melted away. In a brief span of half a decade, the actor has seen all the ups and downs of stardom, but he has faced the vicissitudes without ever losing his grip on his career and craft. He has held his ground with the tenacity of a man who knows that he has worked diligently for whatever he has achieved. He will be on test yet again in a couple of months from now. Krrish will see Hrithik opposite a new co-star, Priyanka Chopra. The film will also have him donning multiple looks as he plays an ordinary man blessed with bionic powers – shades of Superman, obviously. And, most crucially, Krrish belongs to a genre of moviemaking that Bollywood doesn’t have too much of a tradition of. So, it doesn’t have anything to go by. It isn’t just Hrithik
Roshan’s career that will hinge on the film. The entire industry
will watch the progress of Krrish with interest. Bollywood’s
health after all hinges largely on the fate of its superstars and
mega-budget flicks. |
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