Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani (released in 2009) - A comedy starring Katrina Kaif against Ranbir Kapoor

Rajkumar Santoshi used to make serious movies in an earlier avatar, and made movies such as Ghayal and Damini, powerful movies. However, he also made some incredible comedies such as Andaz Apna Apna, and this movie, "Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani", was another in those line of comedies. The movie starred a couple that seemed a bit strange, namely two young superstars in the form of Ranbir Kapoor and Katrina Kaif. The movie was a wacky comedy, which turned out to be a huge hit, being the third biggest hit on 2009 (difficult to compete with a movie such as 3 Idiots).
The movie starred the following: Ranbir Kapoor, Katrina Kaif, and Upen Patel. The movie shows them as perfectly normal people, with Ranbir and Katrina both suffering from a stammer, which can make things difficult. It's Upen who is the super-rich, and who is also made to appear as a fool in the movie. The movie had some good music by Pritam Chakraborty, and was produced by Ramesh S Taurani. The movie did not show too many serious situations, and even the confrontations in the movie were handled in a light manner. The movie also won some favorable ratings from critics and got Ranbir a Filmfare award for Best Actor.

The movie showcased some great chemistry between the lead pair of Ranbeer and Katrina. The movie stars Ranbeer as Prem, a happy go lucky person, who is always ready to help others and who is the head of a Happy Club, one that tries to make others happy. He comes into contact with Katrina (Jenny) when he kidnaps her by mistake, and falls in love with her. However, he realizes that she is not for him, since she loves somebody else, the rich Upen Patel (Rahul), who is the son of a politician.
Even though his friends urge him otherwise, he decides to get them married to each other, with the complication being that Rahul's father does not want his son to get married to Katrina. And there is the funny mobster who wants to get money from Rahul's father and tries various schemes for the same. The rest of the movie is about resolving all this complication, and does Prem really get Jenny in the end ?

Veer Zaara (released in 2004) - A cross-border romance starring Shahrukh Khan, Preity Zinta and Rani Mukerji

Veer Zaara is a movie from the Yash Chopra production house, produced by Aditya Chopra, and directed by Yash Chopra. The movie was released in 2004, and was set in a cross border situation between India and Pakistan, where the inherent hostility between the 2 nations provides a great situation to set a story of hostility and romance. The movie showcases the full power of love, where people are willing to take a 22 year delay for their loved ones. The movie was promoted with all the power that Yash Raj Films could use, and turned out to be a huge hit, in India, in Pakistan, and in the overseas market.
The movie also had the distinction where the music was by using tunes from the deceased famous Music Director, Madan Mohan, where unreleased tunes of the famous music director were used, with his son Sanjeev Kohli, leading this effort. The female lead of the songs was Lata Mangeshkar, adding to the poignancy of the overall effort, since she has sung for many movies in the past where Madan Mohan was the Music director. The movie received a large number of awards in the Filmfare awards, IIFA awards, Stardust Awards, Star Screen awards, Zee Cine Awards, and many others. It was almost like a clean sweep of the awards, with these covering Best Film, Actor, Actress, Best Director, etc.


The movie is about the romance between Veer Pratap Singh (Shahrukh Khan) and Zaara Haayat Khan (Preity Zinta), where Veer is a Squadron Leader with the Indian air force, and Zaara is a young Pakistani girl from a prominent family. She is already engaged to Raza (Manoj Bajpai). Zaara comes to Punjab in India for fulfilling the last wishes of her governess, who wanted her ashes to be scattered in the river Sutlej near the holy city of Kiratpur. However, when Zaara comes over, she is left in a precarious position due to a bus accident, and Veer saves her with his helicopter. He takes her one day to his village where she meets his parents, Amitabh Bachchan and Hema Malini, in a small appearance. They are impressed with Zaara, but the couple separate when it is clear that they need to go on their own ways.
Zaara is now confused, since she has come to love Veer, but must marry Raza for the sake of pride and honour; Veer comes when told to by Zaara's maid, but when he comes to their home, her mother implores him to go away for the sake of their family. However, when he is going, Raza takes revenge by getting him arrested as a spy. And that is where things go totally wrong, since Veer is sent to jail, and Zaara believes that Veer had died in a bus accident.
22 years later, a young firebrand lawyer called Saamiya Siddiqui (Rani Mukerji) is fighting for the rights of women in Pakistan, and also gets allotted the case of prisoner number 786, Veer, who has been convicted of being an Indian spy called Rajesh Rathod. Veer has not spoken to anyone, which makes the case all the more difficult.
What happens next ? How does she find out the truth, and do the lovers meet again after 22 years ?

List of songs from the movie: 1. Tere Liye 2. Main Yahan Hoon 3. Aisa Des Hain Mera 4. Yeh Hum Aa gaye hain kahan 5. Do Pal 6. Kyun Hawa 7. Hum To Bhai Jaise 8. Aaye Tere Dar Pe 9. Lodi 10. Tum Paas Aa Rahein Ho 11. Jaane Kyon

3 Idiots (released in 2009) - A superhit movie about a different kind of guy, starring Aamir Khan

3 Idiots was an incredibly successful movie, released with some hype, but which also turned out as a movie that was seemingly very different from the normal romance movies. The movie takes the story of an incredible student, who refused to be crushed by the normal pressure of college even when other students are buckling under the tremendous pressure, with even suicide seeming like an option for some of them. Further, handling the expectations of family is also a huge problem, especially when the family does not have resources of its own, and it is expected that the person be able to take a job that pays well (even when this can be a compromise with a career that a person would really like to do).
The movie was directed by Rajkumar Hirani (who had directed the Munnabhai series of movies earlier) and was produced by Vidhu Vinod Chopra. The screenplay was by Abhijat Joshi, and Rajkumar Hirani, with a huge dollop of controversy over the book being based on Chetan Bhagat's "5 Point Someone". The movie starred Aamir Khan, R. Madhavan, Sharman Joshi, Kareena Kapoor, Boman Irani, Omi Vaidya, Mona Singh, Parikshit Sahni, and Javed Jaffrey. The music for the film was by Shantanu Moitra, and the movie won a series of awards at all the different awards that there were for 2010 (Star Screen Awards, Filmware Awards, Stardust Awards, and the IIFA awards).

The movie gets its strength from the challenge between the engineering college principal and the student who is a rebel, who thinks about things and refuses to accept things just by rote; and the student is so convinced about his beliefs that he can take on the principal and teachers where required.
There are 3 students who enter the famous Imperial College of Engineering in Delhi (run by the principal Professor Viru Sahastrabudhhe (ViruS) (Boman Irani). The 3 students are: Farhan Qureshi (R. Madhavan), Raju Rastogi (Sharman Joshi), and Rancchoddas Shyamaldas Chanchad "Rancho" (Aamir Khan), all from different backgounds, and with different aspirations. These 3 are to share a room. Rancho turns out to be a student very different from what Virus likes, since he keeps on asking questions. When another student, Joy Lobo, commits suicide due to the pressure, Rancho almost accused Virus of being responsible for this suicide.
Virus wants to break the associations of Rancho, and tries to convince Farhan and Raju to break free from Rancho since this would affect their career. On the other hand, the favorite student is Chatur, who does not ask inconvenient questions, and answers all the queries in class. Rancho causes huge problems to Chatur when he changes the words of a speech that Chatur has to make in front of all the students. Rancho also comes into contact with the daughter of Virus, Pia (Kareena Kapoor), when they break into a marriage, and it is that of the elder daughter of Virus.
The movie continues in this run, where Rancho surprised everybody by coming in first, whole Raju and Farhan are at the bottom of the class consistently. Things escalate in a drunken situation, when they urinate at the door of Virus, and Raju is forced to make a choice; and he decides to jump from the 3rd floor. What happens next ? Do they manage to graduate ? What happens between Virus and Rancho ? Watch this incredible movie.

3 Idiots Chatur Ramalingam's Funny Speech

Love Aaj Kal - a different love story starring Saif Ali Khan and Deepika Padukone (released in 2009)

Love Aaj Kal was a love story released in 2009, produced by Saif Ali Khan as his first movie as a producer, and paid him rich dividends, becoming a fairly big hit. The movie starred essentially 4 people in 2 parallel love tracks (separated by a generation), Rishi Kapoor, Saif Ali Khan, Deepika Padukone and a Brazilian newcomer, Giselli Monteiro. The music of the movie was also well appreciated, with songs such as Twist, Chor Bazaari, Dooriyan, and Aaj Din Chadheya becoming big musical hits. The music for the movie was by Pritam (lyrics by Irshad Kamil). The movie was directed by Imtiaz Ali (who also had a previous big hit in the form of Jab We Met).
The movie was a story of breakup and meeting, set in a very modern generation, where people concentrate on their careers, and contrasts this with a storyline that was set a generation back, where the person would do a lot for love, and base their decisions and their actions on love (and in the end, the conclusion of the movie is that the power of love still makes people do things even when they feel that they are driving their own decisions).

The movie is the story of Jai and Meera, who are a modern couple in London, and parallel to this, the movie also tells the story of Veer Singh and Harleen (from the past). Jai and Meera (Saif and Deepika) are in London, where they meet and become a couple. However, they have career needs that they realize will take them in different directions, with Meera interested in conservation, taking her to India, and Jai being an architect, working for the Golden Gate firm in San Francisco. They decide that they cannot be together, and have a separation party, deciding to move on with their own life. They do however, decide to remain very much in contact, and with the power of modern communications, it could be that they remain very close to each other. When Meera is leaving, Jai comes in contact with Veer Singh, who is surprised that Jai is letting Meera go like this, and tells him the story of how he fought for Harleen (in a sepia tinged story), whom he liked but did not get a chance to speak to much.
Now, Jai and Meera are living their own lives, with Jai involved with a blonde in London, while Meera has received an offer from her boss, and finally decides to accept his romance. In between, Jai pays a visit to Meera and they have a lot of fun together, but things get serious when Vikram (Meera's boss) proposes to her; Meera is confused because she still has feelings for Jai, and she and Jai have an argument (with Meera telling Jai that they should stop being in touch with each other).
And then Meera marries Vikram, still confused. Jai comes there, and in a remarkable coincidence, he gets an offer from the Golden Gate. In the meantime, Meera realizes her marriage was a mistake, and tries to get in touch with Jai but realizes that he is incredibly happy over going to San Francisco and does not say anything more to him. He enjoys his stay in San Francisco, but over a period of time, this excitement starts falling and he starts to feel depressed. It takes a mugging for him to realize that he is actually missing Meera, and he rushes back to Delhi even though he knows that Meera is married. When he reaches here, he realizes that Meera and Vikram are no longer married, and he has an emotional reunion with Meera at her site.