Kites (film)

Plot

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

In the following week, Jai 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 Jai escape, but Jai is shot in the process. In a car chase, Linda stops the car at a train, puts Jai aboard it, and drives off. Back to the present, Jai meets with Jamaal, one of Bob's employees, and is ambushed. Jamaal is killed but not before telling Jai of Linda's whereabouts. Jai kills off all of Tony's men and then kills Tony by smashing his face into the car door. He is shot then by Gina. He drives off to the location where Jamaal said Linda was last seen. It is shown that after Jai was put aboard the train, Linda was ambushed on a cliff and sent Jai a text message saying "I am going...Sorry, Forget me". She drives off of the cliff, killing herself by drowning. Jai 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

Casting

Earlier, actress Sonam Kapoor was offered the female lead, but she rejected the script due to the excessive bold scenes in the film. Later, Deepika Padukone was approached to star opposite Hrithik Roshan, although she also turned down the offer for the same reasons. Barbara Mori was eventually cast as the female lead after much negotiation and script changes.

Pre-release revenues

Kites's worldwide distribution rights were sold for ₹1.5 billion (US$23 million) acquired by Reliance big pictures in 2010 (except Mumbai). The satellite rights were bought by Sony TV group, while the music rights were bought by T-series/Big music.

Release

Kites was on 3000 screens in India, and 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 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. The clothing brand Provogue, which features Hrithik Roshan as its brand ambassador, launched a Kites clothing range. A photo shoot regarding the campaign was shot in the Maldives, featuring Hrithik Roshan and Bárbara Mori.

International versions

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

Kites was released in a second international English-language version as Kites: The Remix, "Presented By" Brett Ratner, recut by his regular editor, Mark Helfrich, with new music by Graeme Revell using remix techniques developed in the series Kung Faux.

Critical reception

The film received an 80% positive rating on the film critics aggregate site Rotten Tomatoes from 25 reviews, with the consensus being, "Thoroughly overwrought in true Bollywood fashion, Kites is deeply flawed —and too effervescently charming to resist." The movie generally received mixed reviews in India. It had a score of 5/10 on the critics aggregate site Review Gang, based on 13 reviews. 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."

India

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 for failure are being the film has a lot of English and Spanish dialogue." The film collected ₹49.27 crore (US$7.7 million) nett in its lifetime run in India.

Overseas

On its first weekend in the North America, the film opened in 208 theaters and ranked No. 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 No. 10 in the UK, with an opening of £174,000 from 70 screens. Overall, the film was rated as a flop by Box Office India.

Awards and nominations

Won

Nominated

Nominated

Nominated

Music

Kites music album is composed by Rajesh Roshan and lyrics are penned by Nasir Faraaz and Asif Ali Beg. The Songs "Dil Kyon Yeh Mera" and "Zindagi Do Pal Ki" (both sung by KK) became a rage while other songs were also successful.