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Saturday, August 24, 2013
Main Hoon Shahid Afridi - Movie Review - (pakistaniyan.com)
Main Hoon Shahid Afridi is a Splendid, Awesome, Terrific and Great Pakistani Feature Film. It exceeds in all the departments, Creative Direction by Syed Ali Raza Usama, deep & profound acting by Humayun Saeed, Ismail Tara, Shafqat Cheema, Mahnoor Baloch, Hamza Ali Abbasi, Javed Sheikh and Newcomer Hero Noman Habib.
Sensible and seat gluing story by Vasay Chaudhry, Camera Work & Picture Quality was beyond expectation and High Definition which makes the movie watching experience more pleasurable.
Yes! It had some vulgar or obscene scenes like item song of Mathira and other actresses but it was necessary to create the environment for elite class and it can be ignored considering the whole package of the film and storyline.
The Songs are wonderfully amazing and so much full of zeal and passion. The match scenes in the cricket ground are too good as well.
Well done Humayun Saeed and Six Sigma, Well Done ARY Films.
Have you watched the movie yet? If not then you should go and watch the movie in cinema to support Pakistani Film Industry and believe me you will not be disappointed by MHSA at all.
Give your feedback in the comments below.
Credits :Ahsan Ejaz
Thursday, August 22, 2013
Movie Review: Main Hoon Shahid Afridi
For anyone vaguely interested in rolling along with Pakistani cinema’s new-blood revival would have given a smidgen of consideration to Main Hoon Shahid Afridi (MHSA), the ‘first’ Pakistani sports-flick dunked deep in family drama starring Humayun Saeed, Noman Habib, Javed Sheikh, Nadeem Baig, Ismail Tara, Shafqat Cheema – and about a gazillion cameos from anyone abstractedly linked to the industry.
Bearing in mind the bash of a premiere yesterday, think of the cameos as family-support for Mr. Saeed and Shahzad Nasib’ssurefire blockbuster;And, in case anyone forgets about either theiror ARY Films’ – who distributes the movie along with Mandviwalla Entertainment – place in the industry, this is one extended family.
The love part from the industry is infectious, but it never seeps into the feature film; at least not directly. Mr. Saeed plays Akbar Deen, a pro-cricketer who’s the pride-and-joy of his familythat includes a mom, a pop (Mr. Baig),a wife (Mahnoor Baloch) and son. Akbar gets implicated with illegal drugs after he gets drunk by an orange juice drink and a (quite revealing) dance item by Mathira (the song is Masti Main Doobi by Neeti Wagh and Shani). It is – quite literally – a flash, which dumps Akbar in a jail cell and bats his career out of the cricket grounds.
Years later, Shahid (Noman Habib), an on-the-breadline prodigy youngster from Sialkot who works the cash register in a local restaurant, pushes the owner of his local cricket club (Ismail Tara, playing Malick Khalid) to try the team for a Pepsi-sponsored tournament. A few beats later, and rather vapidly, Akbar signs up as the teams’ coach.
Their rivals, silver spoons who reach the cricketing grounds by choppers, are employed by Mian Asif Qureishi (Mr. Sheikh senior), and includes Mikaal Qureishi (Shahzad Sheikh), Akbar’s son.
For those of us who are still biased to put MHSA along Chak De India, I have one thing to say: please don’t.
Mr. Saeed’s film written by Vasay Chaudhary, working from a scarred-underdog/least bet-team that wins the cup formula,devises enough deviations in its revved up pace to make the distinctions obvious. A few unresolved angles (the husband-wife split-up; the rich father-in-law vs. the cricketer son-in-law) do dig ruts within MHSA’s narrative. Nevertheless these are just minor botches that are easily swept under the rug by the speed of MHSA’s execution.
As performances go, I have a sincere advice for Mr. Saeed: stop acting for the small-screen.
Mr. Saeed, who mostly equips his acting arsenal with scowls and growls and a tear drop or two, kicks in some class nuances in unexpected nooks and crannies. And with 70% (maybe more) screen-time to his Akbar, Mr. Saeed becomes a central point of weight for MSHA.
Noman Habib, as the engaging rural Shahid Afridi, piles on the innocence, but more often than not his naivetéand unsophistication(acting wise) becomes rather apparent.Ms. Baloch is plastic, and like the most expensive kind is (unblinkingly) fixed in place.Ainy Jaffri, the big city girl with big,big eyes, who falls for Shahid is flimsy, because of the way she’s placed in the film – rather like Asym Mehmood, Ainan Arif and Gohar Rasheed, who are fairly good to average depending on the scale and cliché of their exposure.
Mr. Arif plays Michael Magnet, a Christian who makes way for some minor obligatory racial biasness.Like every conflict, the resolution is nippy if not shrewd (case in point: the estranged father-son dilemma between Mr. Baig and Mr. Saeed, which piles up, only to open a separate narrative track). Sometimes – for example, the climax and the cricket matches – the hastiness works against the anticipation.
Still, for a bulk of its entirety, MHSA swaps between characters one ends up rooting for: the roll-call includes Majeed Maulvi, the slightly racist, short-tempered Pathan played by Humza Ali Abbasi, Mr. Sheikh’s stereotypical villain Asif Qureishi and Mr. Cheema’s brilliantly played Bashir Bhatti, a worthless, gambling self-indulgent father to Shahid. The only other actor who stands up to Mr. Cheema’s vivid charisma and dexterity is Mr. Tara, whose presence even dominates Mr. Saeed in some scenes.
MHSA isn’t unblemished as far as technicality is concerned. A few issues with color grading (sometimes apparent within cuts in a continuous location), camera/resolution/sharpness issues in cricket matches (and no, we aren’t fooled into thinking we’re seeing a televised broadcast) pop up and fade away, oft times by the sheer aesthetic diligence of putting on the show. This aesthetic diligence includes three groovy songs by composers Shani & Kami – JeraVee (Shafqat Amanat Ali, Shani), Angreja (Momin Durrani, Jabar Abbas)and Masti Mai Doobi; Malaal, the fourth song sung by Rahat Fateh Ali, is an adequate space filler.
Syed Ali Raza (aka Usama), coming from a television background, is proficient in setting up cinema-quality frames with a dastardly penchant to throw the BG out of focus in close-ups. He is also quite practiced in executing film-level performances from a bulk of his cast (of course, the expanded gamut and resolution of the RED camera helps here).
The problem with the industry is that no one wants to appreciate a good mainstream family movie – especially from people within the film fraternity. I could hear murmurs about art and intelligence, as soon as I ventured outside the screening. For these self-made connoisseurs of the medium, I only point to the deafening applause the film collected two or three times.
A film that looks good, keeps you engaged, lets you unwind and then coerces (some if not all) to wild-cheering is a product well-made – and as the tickets will tell – well-sold.
ARY Films and Mandviwalla Entertainment Present ‘Main Hoon Shahid Afridi’.
Staring: Javaid Shaikh, Nadeem Baig, Humayun Saeed, Mahnoor Baloch, Noman Habib, Annie Jafferi, Gohar Rasheed, Humza Ali Abbasi, Shafqat Cheema.
Directed by Syed Ali Raza; Produced by Humayun Saeed and Shahzad Nasib; Written by Vasay Chaudhary; Cinematography by Asif Khan; Editing by Asad Ali Zaidi; Umer Gulzari, Production Designer; Art Director, Jari Khushnood; Costumes by Jazib Qamar; Lyrics by Sabir Zafar, Nadeem Asad. PR handled by Syntax Communication.
The film is family friendly – given that one shields the young-one’s eyes when Mathira belly-dances like an Arab slave-girl.
Main Hoon Shahid Afridi has its premiere at Karachi’s Atrium Cinemas.
The eagerly-awaited Main Hoon Shahid Afridi which is all set to release this friday had its premiere at Atrium Cinemas today. Here we are sharing with you some pictures from the red carpet event. We will update it with more pictures as we get them. Among present are Humayun Saeed, Mahnor Baloch, Javed Sheikh,Noman Habib.Aniny Jaffri, Ayesha Omer,Mahira Khan and others. Enjoy
Tuesday, August 20, 2013
Josh and Ishq Khuda Movie Timings
Ishq Khuda Movie Timings in DHA Cinema Lahore.(20 August Update)
Josh Movie Timings in Cinepax Karachi.(20 August Update)
Zinda Bhaag wins four awards in Canada
The Mosaic MISAFF festival held at the Mississauga City Centre, Toronto on Friday was attended by film industry leaders, professionals, local members of parliament as well as senators. The Mosaic festival is the largest South Asian festival visited by more than 70,000 people from all over Canada each year.
In this year’s prestigious award ceremony, the Pakistani film Zinda Bhaag, which is set to release on September 6, was truly victorious as it won four awards in three categories — Best Film Award, Best Actor Award and Best Music Award.
According to the press release, the MISAFF Jury headed by Kirk Cooper said, while announcing the winner for Best Film Award, “For the film that entertained and saddened us, for its music, art direction and overall innovation in storytelling, the best film award goes to Zinda Bhaag.”
The movie continued to be praised throughout the event as the jury presented awards to the music composer Sahil Ali Bagga for best music and actors Amna Ilyas and Naghma Begum for best actors.
The movie defeated many other international top nominations, including Mira Nair’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist.
About the success of Zinda Bhaag, Meenu and Farjad, co-directors of the movie, expressed proudly, “We congratulate the entire Zinda Bhaag team for these awards.”
Zinda Bhaag was the first choice amongst hundreds of entries, to be showcased as the opening night film of the esteemed festival.
The show was sold out in record time and played to a jam-packed house at the grand Empire Cinema in Mississauga, Toronto.
Published in The Express Tribune, August 20th, 2013.
Sunday, August 18, 2013
If it weren’t for Ishq Khuda, Meera would’ve left filmdom
LAHORE:
When there’s drama or controversy, Veena Malik and Mathira seem to be in the vicinity. The tradition of being in the news for all the wrong reasons, however, wasn’t pioneered by them. It was Meera who cut that ribbon. She went from Lollywood to Bollywood and bounced right back.
Although there was speculation that her film career may well be over, the release of her new film Ishq Khuda — which failed miserably at multiplexes but fared rather well at single-screen cinemas — proves otherwise.
“I really believe that this has been my best film [so far],” says Meera, adding that the film has acted as a medium to restore confidence and faith in herself and her acting career. The crew of Ishq Khuda recently cut a cake in Lahore to celebrate the commercial ‘success’ of the movie. “I was reaching a point where I thought to myself that this may just be my last film,” she adds. “But I think that’s what this film has done… it brought my interest back and I hope to do more work.”
Meera feels that the film’s script is unique as it aims to reach a wide-ranging audience. “It has the ability to connect with people abroad,” she says proudly. “The idea of sufism and true love really just resonates and the film also has good music.”
Her role as a 20-something Iqra, the daughter of an ex-army official, has received mixed reviews. While some say that she was not well-suited for the role, Meera and the film’s director Shahzad Rafique think diffrently. “The director cast me because he needed someone who could act with a certain amount of intensity, which is what you [will] see at the end of the film,” explains Meera.
Rafique too, defends his decision by saying, “I realise that people have said that she does not look her age, but I wasn’t trying to make her look like a college or university girl.” The director also admits that he was not competing with Chennai Express. “If an artist herself says that this may be her best film, there is nothing I can say to exceed that praise,” he smiles.
Queen of controversy
Apart from addressing the criticism she received regarding her role in Ishq Khuda, Meera expresses her feelings about being made fun of and mocked openly by people on television. “It’s a known fact that I started to act in 1995 — I was only a child,” she sighs. “But what hurts more is the way people have tried to judge me. Have they got no decency? They would never do that to an Indian actor.”
She then comments on the controversy regarding Kaun Banega Meera Pati where cricketer Shoaib Akhtar had backed out of her show and she ultimately faced a major financial setback. “He is very over-confident and this is no way to speak to women. If he thinks he’s such a star then I probably have just as big a name,” she says.
Meera admits that she is not interested in doing any films in India unless Mahesh Bhatt offers her one. “I want to be selective in the roles I choose. I suppose if Mahesh Bhatt approaches me for a film, I will do it. But otherwise, I would rather focus on my career here [Lollywood],” she says. “I have always wanted to do television. But I’ll be very honest, I have not been getting any offers… If a director thinks I fit a role, I would love to do something.”
Published in The Express Tribune, August 19th, 2013.
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