Ki and Ka

Plot

Kia (Kareena Kapoor) aims to become a successful business woman and also wishes other women to work instead of managing the house-hold and just becoming the support system of her husband. On her flight to Delhi from Chandigarh, she meets Kabir (Arjun Kapoor). The two get along very nicely and start meeting quite often. Kia discovers Kabir wants to be a 'house-husband' like his mother, who was a 'house-wife' which fits for her needs and does not want to get caught in becoming of business woman. Kia also learns that Kabir is the son of a highly successful building constructor (Rajit Kapoor) and does not want to inherit his wealth.

Kia and Kabir gradually in love and decide to marry where Kabir would handle the household stuff while Kia would be the breadwinner. They convince their parents for this marriage and get married in a court. Their married life goes on well and Kia gets a tremendous boost in her work and is promoted. Meanwhile, the landlord of their house decides to sell the house due to financial problems and Kabir, not wanting to move out, decides to buy it. To make up the money required, he becomes a gym coach for some ladies. Soon, they are successful in buying the house.

During an interview of Kia (for her highly successful career), she mentions about her husband's role in the house and the interviewer is impressed by this. She takes an interview of Kabir also in which he explains that it does not matter if ki (girl) takes up the role of ka (boy) and ka takes up the role of ki. People are impressed by this interview and Kabir is called for many more interviews and speeches on Gender Equality. Kabir gets busy with these interviews and speeches and so he is not able to manage the house properly. This upsets Kia and gets jealous of all this attention and argues him to stop appearing publicly with the notion of publicity of their life. Kabir bashfully agrees to this.

Kia then goes to the USA for her work where Kabir does not accompany her. At a college reunion, one of Kabir's friends asks him to give an interview which he reluctantly agrees. Jaya Bachchan who sees this interview on TV, and asks Amitabh Bachchan to call Kabir as she wants to meet him in person. Kabir pays them a visit and she gives him a gift for Kia. Meanwhile, Kia's mother (Swaroop Sampat) suffers from low blood pressure and collapses. She is taken to the hospital and upon receiving this news Kia hastens back to India.

Upon learning that Kabir had gone for an interview she hurls him with abuses and accuses him of cheating her. She further tells him that he used her for his own profit to earn fame without working and he was, going to get money from his father. In all this Kabir does not say anything to her and returns to their home dejected. He starts packing to leave for Chandigarh. Kia sees the gift given by Jaya Bachchan in which is a letter which explains her feminist advise that to be a man not working but handling the house is a brave choice but to be a wife of such a man is a harder choice. The letter says that Kabir was indeed lucky to have Kia and vice versa. Kia's mother charitably tells her that Kia's jealously of Kabir's fame is the probable cause for the fight and as one who earns in the family is bound to be jealous when the other gets attention from outside their roles. Kia realizes her love for Kabir and apologizes to him for her bad-mannered mistake on the flight to Chandigarh. In the end, Kabir's father appreciates Kia's business acumen and decides to make her the CEO of his company and all ends happily.

Cast

Development

Balki finished the script in July 2015. The film derives its title from linguistic gender divisions of the Hindi language found in the words "ladki" and "ladka" meaning "girl" and "boy". He said, ""In Hindi not just human beings but also nonliving objects have gender. Everybody and everything is categorised. But this film, like the couple's marriage, underlines the fact that Ki and Ka as genders don't matter."

Release

Ki & Ka has followed a similar path to Kapoor & Sons on day one and has seen a pick up in the evening and will finish with similar collections. It could go a little higher due to the slightly wider release. The early estimate is around ₹6.75 crore (US$1.0 million) nett. The film managed to pick up in the evening in the evening to record collections of ₹7.25 crore (US$1.1 million) approximately on the first day. The film earned ₹8.25 crore (US$1.2 million) on second day. The film earned ₹9.25 crore (US$1.4 million) on third day. The film had a decent weekend though the trend was not great for a content urban film. A furher push on Saturday would have benefited the film tremendously. It is the third highest weekend of 2016. The weekend business of Ki & Ka is ₹24.75 crore (US$3.7 million).Ki & Ka had the normal Monday drop of around 50%. A ₹3.50 crore (US$520,000) nett plus Monday is reasonable for the film. Ki & Ka held very well on 5th day with a very limited drop of around 6-7%, film earned ₹3.25 crore (US$480,000) on 5th day. The film had a decent first week of ₹37 crore (US$5.5 million) nett apprx in India. The film earned ₹39 crore (US$5.8 million) in eight days.

Music

The soundtrack album features songs composed by Meet Bros for the T-Series label besides having an original song composed by Balki's regular collaborator Ilaiyaraaja, who has also composed the background score of the movie.

Lyrics have been penned by Kumaar, Amitabh Bhattacharya and Sayeed Quadri. The full music album was released on 25 February 2016.

Critical reception

Critic Rajeev Masand rated the film 2/5, writing, "Ki & Ka arrives with a curious premise, but Balki fails to flesh it out into an engaging film. I was especially pleased to see Kareena Kapoor sink her teeth into a solid role after what seems like an eternity. Arjun Kapoor deserves credit for taking a role that few male stars would, but both actors are let down by the inert writing." Anupama Chopra also rated it 2/5. She reasoned that "One of the enduring problems with Balki’s films persists — his crackling concept runs out of steam. It’s almost as if he spends so much of his creative energy coming up with the high-wire idea that he has none left to flesh out the narrative around it." Bollywood Hungama gave the film 3 stars out of 5, and stated, "On the whole, Ki & Ka is a cleverly crafted feel-good film that packs all the emotions. Though it has strong performances by both Arjun and Kareena, the film is bound to draw extreme reactions from the orthodox audiences who may find the premise difficult to digest. It is an urban progressive film and should appeal more to women and young married couples." Shubhra Gupta of The Indian Express gave the film 2 stars and termed it as "rocky" while commenting that "The film is fun when it is setting up the roles. But the execution, as it goes along, gets rocky. Much of it stays episodic, and starts reinforcing the very stereotypes it set out to negate. The problem is the film’s unwillingness to go the mile. She also noted that it could have been more "sharper" and "deeper". Rohit Vats from Hindustan Times gave the film a rating of 2.5 and noted that film has a lot of drama and summarized, "There is no denying that Ki & Ka has a noble concept, but hasn’t the director very conveniently confined himself to a comfort zone where he only needs to break some generalised stereotypes such as ‘women can’t be ambitious’ or ‘men can’t cook at home’ or ‘a woman’s career is finished after pregnancy’? Ki & Ka isn’t a strong voice against gender stereotyping, but it’s one of its kind in mainstream Hindi film industry, and that makes it notice-worthy." Meena Iyer of The Times of India gave the film 4 stars and stated, "Kareena is terrific, Arjun, endearing. But Balki's writing is inconsistent. A few scenes leave you misty-eyed, but for the most part, the stock situations are banal. Yet, Ki and Ka is worth a ticket because it tells shows how there is nothing wrong with the man wearing the apron and the women wearing her ambition."

Sukanya Verma of Rediff.com gave it 2.5 stars while noting, "Ki & Ka is obviously taken in by its liberal notions but fails to realise that it’s not so uncommon in today’s urban context where lots of working men and women share both their professional and personal duties." Sarita A Tanwar of Daily News & Analysis gave it 2.5 stars and described the film as "stretched" and "cheesy" but also called it "a daring film" while interpreting it as "The best thing about the film is that it questions gender roles that we impose on ourselves and each other. But, the film loses momentum mid-way. The idea is stretched too thin and the climax is cheesy. It's enjoyable when it's not trite. You might take to it if you are the sort that enjoys clichés." Pallavi Patra from Zee News gave it 2 stars and mentioned it as "trite enterprise" while summarizing the film as "Ki & Ka is a seemingly funny enterprise with a feminist theme gone awry. It's not the theme that is at trouble here but a laid-back script coupled with an ostensibly manufactured chemistry between its promising leads. Watch it or not, Ki & Ka prefix will enjoy its dominance over the youth – but cinematic wise – not a good picture here" Saibal Chatterjee from NDTV gave the film 2 stars and called it "intermittently watchable". He noted, "A concept film that has a lot to say - Ki And Ka actually succeeds in getting a few of its points in edgewise - but the writing is below-par. As a consequence, Ki And Ka is like a string of patched-together monosyllables that never attain sustained coherence. Too much talk and very little plot progression put the skids under the film. Ki And Ka goes belly up pretty quickly never to recover fully." Ananya Bhattacharya of India Today gave a low rating of 1.5 and summarized it as "good germs of film spoilt by bad execution" and mentioned, "he film tries so hard to be what it is not that it loses way badly. The writing is not a field which Ki And Ka excels in. The film, for most part, feels like a rehearsal of sorts. Both Arjun and Kareena look like they are mouthing sharp, one-tone dialogues to impress the conductor of this out-of-tune opera that is Ki And Ka. The ping-pong dialogue-delivery between Arjun and Kareena is a major dampener." Anna M.M. Vetticad from Firstpost also criticised the film as "fun concept spoilt by patchy plot" while stating "Large swathes of Ki & Ka are fun, considerable sections of it are unexpectedly broad-minded, path-breaking for Bollywood and insightful. The problem is that we can section it off in this fashion. Ultimately, what fails the film is its mixed messaging and choppy texture."