 What are you drinking? I am drinking my Kavita Master Brew Kombucha Pineapple Peach with live probiotics. What are you drinking? Your mom. Welcome back to our stupid directions. Yadi, it's I'm Corbin. I'm Rick and you follow us on Instagram and Twitter for our juicy content. Thanks for some hate controls for the countering of the publication. Go bang for it, don't forget to check out the description below. Two days. Not like chicken. We're doing a movie review. Not just any movie. Not just any movie. A really old movie. Yeah 1960 Mughal e Azam. The directed, written and I believe produced by Kay Asif. I believe that's correct. I believe that is correct. Starring quite a few people but the main ones are Prithviraj Kapoor, Madhubala, and then the late great Dilip Kumar who, he's the reason obviously we're doing it now, but we've been meaning, I've been meaning to, I wanted to get to this during classic one because we just didn't get to it because obviously this is one of the big classics of Indian cinema and also one of his most famous films as well. So we wanted to, like we said when we did that song reaction to him after he passed, we want to actually see his stuff because he's known as you know this legendary actor who, that's how we want to honor them is by actually watching their work. So this is going to be 100 Spints for one of the few who came out in 1960, which is almost 60 years ago. Actually over 60. A little over 61 to be exact. But I think it took many, many years actually from what I believe I've read. It took almost a decade I think to a little more. I think this project was started and then was held up by partition. And then just the original cast number passed away. So yeah, this was like a lot of big films that finally get finished. They take oftentimes decades to get finished. Your initial thoughts please Rick. So to those of you who suggested we watch this, thank you. Because he hated it. He can no stay away from it. To say that I was, that it exceeded my expectations as a transcendent understatement. This one for me, and we'll talk about a lot of things. It won't surprise me for here a long time. But this is not only my favorite classic we've seen. This is one of my favorite films of all time. It's on my list of favorite films of all time. I think this film is as good, as important as, and I'm going to reference things here. When we talk about in American cinema, the films that are like the top of the list changed cinema forever. Gone with the wind. Exactly. Gone with the wind. The Ten Commandments by Cecil B. DeMille. I think this film is like that and I'll tell you this too. The disclaimer at the beginning of the film that said the original intent was to make this in color and that was the reason for the colorization. This is not only the best colorization of a black and white film I've ever seen, but it changed my mind about whether or not black and white should be colorized. Yeah, this one and we'll get into that. So definitely, I believe. Freaking, absolutely spectacular. Um, I agree. I think this is my favorite classic we've seen. Right on. In terms of everything, in terms of the film, the acting, everything like that, there might be some I'm like more partial to in terms of I can probably watch that a little more. Right, like Pedosin immediately comes to mind. That's so much fun. But Pedosin, you got Chollet, Amiach Baranthony for me. Those in terms of classics that I could watch all the time. Sure. And I could watch this. If this is on, I'm definitely watching it 100% percent. But in terms of that, but in terms of like, terms of how cinematic it is in terms of how great the acting is. This film is almost flawless in terms of especially when it came out. Yeah, I was watching it. I haven't felt like it was doing the last time I felt this sense of hold this together, don't screw it up was when we were watching Header. And it was so good halfway through. I'm like, please, please, this is so delicate, so fragile. You're doing so great. Please end as well as you started. And I felt that way. And it did. I just, I can't, I can't say enough. It genuinely is one of my favorite films I've ever seen. I was just floored at how good it was. It was really impressive because obviously it's a long film. It's three hours, 10, I believe. And I wanted it to go longer. Yeah, it's one of those, especially a long film, but older. Yeah, which is even more difficult to keep your attention nowadays. And it did. It sure did. It was extremely captivating, everyone. So let's just start. Let's start with the man himself, the late great Dilip Kumar. I want to say everything he's ever done because because a lot of times you can get overhyped with an actor sometimes. And especially because people in India love their stars, right? Absolutely. And so you don't know if it's like he's a star. We love him because he's a star. Correct. Or if he's a thespian, right? Or both. But sometimes they don't live up to what you've heard about them. And we've heard that like he is, he brought basically method acting. Right. At the time to Indian cinema. Right. 100% believe that. I got my, I don't, I'm not, I do like old films, but I don't love all old films because of how the acting style used to be. Right. It bothers me. So my two favorite old actors are Marlon Brando and James Dean. Right. Because of what they transitioned into realism. What they did to the industry. Right. 100%. That's what I got from him. Yeah. Is that level of intensity, but not nothing over the top. No. Very natural. And most of the cast was like that. Yeah. Most of the cast was very, very, with a few exceptions. So hats off to Kaseef for his screenplay and his directing. And keeping everybody extremely, extremely natural. But he brought so much to his character. And it makes me very, very excited that this, this man lived up to what I had heard about like, this is like people Amitabh Bakhtian looked up to. Right. Nawaz looked up to. Right. Like those ills looked up to as he is the greatest in their opinion. Yeah. And I see it. Yeah. And I could totally see it. I don't know. Absolutely. I absolutely see it. He, and I, I can't imagine like, so this is another one that Indrani watched with me. Did you see him before? Yeah. Oh, she's got it. She owns it. Yeah. I imagine most Indians have seen it. Yeah. That's just, it's, she has it on DVD. And I can't imagine what this was like on a big screen, especially the colorization. So let's, before we jump to those things, as far as the act is concerned for him, I absolutely saw what everybody talks about. I absolutely saw the Brando-esque believability. I also saw in the totality of this film, like you don't have the modern day Devdas. You don't have Padmavat or Bajramasthani. I see what all of these creators of those films were inspired by. Jodha Akbar. Yes. Because they got it from here. Yeah. And there were some moments where I was simultaneously just transitioning a little bit to tech. I was simultaneously flabbergasted by the cinematography and also the colorization. There were some moments where I'm looking at all of the ornate things literally you would have lost if it wasn't thousands and thousands and thousands that we would have lost and they did such, it's the best colorization I've ever seen. Absolutely incredible. Yeah. And him, I want to see so much more of him. I want to see everything he's done. Because like I said, I only got three films from James Dean, which makes me very sad. I love him so much. Always have, obviously he was way before my time. But in terms of old actors, those are the kind I look up to and he hit the mark almost immediately on screen. Instantly. There's something different about what he's doing. So I loved him. Please, please recommend more of his stuff because I guarantee next classic month we'll get to even more of his and even before that. I want to talk about her. Yes. One of the most gorgeous people I've ever seen in your life. Holy cow. And we've seen her in videos, dance numbers and all that kind of stuff. But seeing her in the totality, I almost, I always forget her name, but she struck me as a Nargis, mother India. Oh yeah, exactly. She reminded me a lot of her, but. In terms of acting and her beauty. Absolutely. And I agree. And Johnny said to me at one point, she said, don't you think had she been an American actress, she would have gone down in history as one of the greatest beauties of the Soviet state. Oh, 100%. Without question. I also loved, there were times, I don't know how they did it, but there were so many times, particularly for her character where it was directed in such a way where it was over dramatic, the pre-method kind of acting. But she was really grounded. So she could do, like there's one moment where she's in the dungeon and she's just been thrown in and the way that she's laying, it's modeling. She's laying that, the lights on her and she's looking back. And if anyone else were doing it, it would look cheesy. But because she's believable and the way it was framed, there's a shot of her in the chains and her face is framed by the chains during one of the songs. Yeah. And I just, could you, her face on a big screen? Just gonna talk about an easy job. For both of them. I mean, some of the most beautiful shots are when they're just together and he's gonna lean into kiss and she just slowly turns her face away being shy. And I'm sorry I didn't bring a feather. Well, they brought the feather out because there were two feathers. So the first one I was like, ooh, they brought a feather out. Some sensual feather play. But yeah, she was absolutely, and I read, I also, I understand she had a heart condition that actually caused her to faint while she was filming sometimes. Really? Yeah, so I don't know if she fainted like five times in this. Yeah, I wonder if one of those times actually happened on set. But the amount of emotion, and I also saw in the way they interacted with each other, it reminded me a lot of, they had to have been inspired by it. But their interactions and the way they loved each other and the way that there was stillness and the way it was written reminded me of Shahid and Dupika's interactions in Padma Bhat, especially when they first meet each other. And it's so ethereal. Do you think that's what Sanjay was inspired by, obviously? I know Sanjay was inspired by this film. Had to have been. Because there were so many shots that were, now that I've seen both of them, almost, you can tell what Sanjay was going for. Yeah. And a lot of Padma Bhat and Bhaji Ramastani. The mirror shots. Yeah. Oh, there's one shot where Salim is coming around. It's toward the end when he's got the feather thing and he looks in the mirror and he sees in the reflection, in frame, all of the, it's just mind-boggling. Joda Akbar as well. You could definitely tell. Yes. I don't know if like the, I believe he's a transgender who's her handmade and Joda's. Yeah. I saw one in this in the very beginning. So I didn't know if that character was inspired by this character. Well. They seemed a little pretty similar. And you know Joda Akbar is the mom and dad. Yeah. Yeah, I said it's kind of like the sequel to Joda Akbar. But yeah, so you saw a lot of that. I think the, sorry, we'll get back to the acting just a second. I think the fight scene at the end was actually better than Joda Akbar did. Which was, you know, we loved Joda Akbar. But that was our big gripe is obviously the fight scenes weren't great. It was Cecil B. DeMille. I'm looking and I'm thinking the number of people, the number of costumes. And it's all practical. The number of props. Yeah. This is all real. And the staging and even the back and forth with them, the dad and the son with their swords, just as good as anything of the day, if not better than anything of the day. And I want to talk about the original Kapoor. Mr. Prithvaraj, forgive us if that's who it was pronounced. I believe he's like the the original of the Ranbir clan. I don't know that for sure. It wouldn't surprise me. It makes sense. I don't know. But I believe this is our first thing of him unless I've been wrong a thousand times. But with confidence. He did really, really well. Oh man. He definitely brought that old school acting style above. But that grandeur, especially with the voice, what they did do is an incredible voice. The hey, hello, hello. Nice to meet you. Yeah, yeah. The dynamic between him and Dilip was great. Oh yeah. I thought their chemistry in terms of father-son chemistry and the way it was written, I thought was really, really great. He has great screen presence. And he still wasn't over the top, which is how a lot of, I think there was only just a few actors that really did the old school, old school. His wife was one of them who did, like whenever she was talking, she was talking like this. It was almost, almost this. Yes. But there was very little of that in this, which is for 1960, an Indian cinema, even Hollywood cinema. Correct. Is incredible because that was not the style of the day. That was the style of the day, but what Dilip did in most of this film, a very subdued realism, was not the style. And so to bring that is incredible. And he did a great job of making you angry with him. The emperor, making you angry with him for his legalism, but also understanding he's trying to do it on principle and the struggle that he has. And it could have been easily just one-dimensional. And he didn't make him one-dimensional. And the vacillation he has, which was a credit to the screenwriting as well, I think the subtitles, did it justice? Great subtitles, but obviously it's probably not going to be as good as the original. But this was a combination of poetry and profundity. I repeatedly, there were so many battles like when he's talking to his wife, and he's going to go fight. And he's making her choose between husband and son. There were so many tit for tat. I was constantly going, ooh, she said that. Oh, he said that. Wow. Oh, she replied with that. It was like heavyweight punches because of great, these actors must have just been drooling over the script because, and it never lagged. There were never points where I'm sitting going, okay, let's get back to the story or everything about the film kept me engaged for three hours. And I didn't want it to end. It was for three hours, it's a fairly simple story. Very simple story. Guy falls in love with a slave girl. That doesn't like it. Right. That's, that's the whole story. That's the whole story. But it does not lag. I wonder, I'd love to talk to Ranveer. And I wonder if this was in his mind in Bajramasthani when he's defiant against his family because he wants to be with her and he's supposed to be with Priyanka's character. And they're like, you can't do that. Do you realize what you're doing as the future heir of the kingdom and you're going to marry this girl who's beneath us and she's not even of our faith. And he's making these decisions that are like love is love and you can't stop the love. I wonder, it had to have influenced him because I can't imagine he didn't grow up watching this. Well, he definitely grew up. I think all Indians grew up watching this. But obviously it was a big inspiration for Sanjay. Yeah. This film. For sure. Because I read in the comments and I read up as well that is and it was clear. It was obvious. This Joda Akbar. Any big epic I feel you kind of have to take inspiration from so wonderful. Okay, so favorite moments. What are some of your favorite moments? Because I have a couple. Do you have any favorite moments that stand out that were hallmark moments for the film for you? Well, all the songs were incredible. So I'd have to think about for specific non-song moments. Well, one can be a song moment. Because like, for example, one of my favorite moments in it, there's two and they're both song connected. The first one and one that isn't song connected I just mentioned, which is the husband and the emperor and the wife talking. But the moment when Salim is going to be executed. And he makes a speech and they all say long live the prince and he walks up to the top and then the sculptor comes and starts singing the song of long live love. And the emperor comes and you think, is he changing his mind? And it looks like he's going to but he's not. He's going to pull the trigger but he's just going to turn his back so he doesn't have to see it. And you're there on that tension and she starts to run to the scene while the whole time this amazing song of long live love that no matter what you do, no matter if you kill people, love is more powerful. That got me kind of emotional at that point. Yeah, all the end scenes obviously when he went up on that big thing and then the big, the crowd around him, the song during that moment. I loved the sculptor. I thought that in Kumar, I believe. Is that him? Yeah, the sculptor and Kumar. He was wonderful. He was fantastic. I liked his character a lot. And also the one who was protecting her, Rajput. Yeah, yes. The Rajput. Is that him? Durjan Singh? Because there was Man Singh. It was constantly Man Singh. Man Singh was good. But the guy who was protecting her. Correct. I thought he did really, really well. He did really great. You know, he reminded me of that character. What's the film? We saw it a long time ago. What's the film where they're fighting and he gets his head cut off and he's still fighting? You know what I'm talking about? It's an old, it's an older film and this one guy who's the sidekick and he is Rajput. Am I saying that right? Forgive me if I'm mispronouncing that. He's fighting after his head has been chopped off and his arms are still going. Oh, yeah. The shots from behind and he's between two pillars and they're coming to get him and he's clearly dead. But even with his head cut off, his arms are still... That Game of Thrones? No, it wasn't Game of Thrones. It was an Indian film. Anyway, he was great. Oh yeah, I liked him a lot. Yeah, like all the songs were some of the most beautiful cinematic songs I've ever seen. And we've seen, I think, two or three, I think? From the film? From the film. Very early on, we definitely saw. Yeah, we've seen two. We saw the one where the girls are singing and they're seated together and then we saw, which is so much better in the film, the one where she comes out to perform for the emperor and she's just defiant. The song is basically saying, you can't stop. No, and we didn't have context. We were just talking about, man, he looks, this is intense because the emperor is like boiling, like clearly he's not happy. Well, when you watch it, you realize what she knows absolutely certain that what she's about to do is going to, she's going to die. Yeah. Doing what she's doing, but she doesn't care because she's not going to lie about the fact that she loves him. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, those were all fantastic. Also, I was going to say something. Songs? No. Well, in addition to the songs, the score was ecstatically beautiful, incredible, so epic, large, so much of it. Like, I think the totality of film had underscore. Yeah. I think there's a whole, it's full three hours of scoring in addition, obviously, to the songs. And the other thing, I learned this from a stupid baby that because Letta is singing in this, but one of the things I learned was in the same way that we learned that with Zekir Hussein, we should say Yostaji Zekir Hussein, that it's appropriate to call her like Ladadi to give her the honor and respect that she's due for what she does. Yeah. Ladadi is just. Ladadi, Ladadi. Exactly. They had to call her Ladadi. So I hope that is the right thing because we want to give her the respect that she's due. She is, oh, you know how old that wonderful woman is? Probably 80s? She's in her 90s. Yeah. Yeah. Dang. But you obviously, every time I hear her now, I think of Corbin going, there's Letta. Yeah. Yeah. Ladadi. Yeah. You see the synopsis, a 16th century prince falls in love with a court dancer in the battles with his emperor father. That's it? That's the entire. Three hours of that. Everything else is weaved around just that simple sentence. Incredible. Yeah. It's a testament to the writing, the directing, and the actors of how well they did and the cinematography in this thing. I'm so glad it was colorized. Really? And that's so weird to say. And yeah, because usually you always want it how it was intended. But this thing, I feel like you would have lost a grandeur. Absolutely. If it wasn't colorized. Especially since that was his desire. I love it at the very beginning of the film. And this film did have a full re-release when it was colorized. That it was his desire to see it in color. And not only was it incredible to see it in color, I've never been so flabbergasted by the quality of colorization and never known a film that probably needed it more than this film. Anything you didn't like? No. There's nothing I didn't like about this film. I just wanted it to end faster at a different point. Oh, well, let me ask you this. I think you know what I'm talking about. I know. Because it's my understanding through Andrani. Because she asked me this question. She said, there's an argument about this and a lot of Indians feel one way and a lot of Indians feel another way. A lot of Indians think the movie should have ended with the last brick on the wall. Oh, yeah, I could have. I thought it was a stronger ending with them just taking her out and him on the floor. Well, just to go die. At the song. Okay. And you're like chasing. And she walks to the door and the door closes. Closes. Right. And you know she's going to go get killed. Right. That's where I wanted it to end. Right. It didn't ruin it the way it did, but it's just, you know, I, I prefer just a different, I don't know if that's the actual story or whatever the, whatever the real story is. Here's why, and this isn't just because I love happy endings. Because I do how, and I do like endings that are ambiguous or even negative. It doesn't bother me. I mean, one of my favorite movies is there will be blood. That thing doesn't end happy. And the thing about this one is the movie is about the emperor. The movie, it's his name, you know, the name of the movie is about him. Yeah. And the full lesson. I thought you have to have that moment where the mother of Anna Anja. What's her name? Not just the actress, but Anna Kalik. The mother remembers the promise, right? Yeah. And she goes to him and he lies. Says, I don't know what you're talking about. And when the ring gets falls on the scale. Yeah. And the scale actually goes up, right? That full lesson for him of, because at the beginning, Salim is completely degrading the whole thing by playing on the scales and makes it very clear he doesn't believe in the principles his father believes in. But the whole arc for this character is about how do you balance, which is the same for Arthur and Camelot. How do you balance being a ruler who must abide by law and not becoming bound by legalism? And that's why in the end, he tries to figure out a way to maintain law, but not be a legalist. And you don't get that if you end it on those two spots. But I know that... I just preferred. Yeah. I think it would have been a much stronger ending. I get why they did it. Yeah, you've got to have that lesson. But I think it would have been extremely, I was hoping like as she was walking and he was just there on this floor. And I was like, this is going to be an awesome ending. And then it kept going. But that's where for me, because this is I taught this ad nauseam, but in theater class or when I've taught acting classes, I've said what are movies? What's theater? It's storytelling. And stories always have a moral to them. What's the moral to the story? And you can't get the full moral because there's multiple. But when it comes to the Emperor's moral, you need that ending. Yeah. Yeah. But overall, obviously, I love this film. Incredible. I'd watch it again and again. One of the greatest movies ever made. It's a fantastic, fantastic film. So if you haven't seen it, I hope you're not still here. But if you are, just go watch it. Watch it anyway. I've seen. I feel like most Indians have seen this film. Well, you know what? To me, it's even if you heard this story, you never saw the film. Because I don't know how many people know the story of Romeo and Juliet and have never seen the play, right? You should still see the play. Still see a good production of the play. It'll impact you. I can't imagine. I literally can't imagine. Very Shakespearean this was. Very Shakespearean. If somebody watched this and didn't like it, my takeaway would be that you just don't like movies. You should probably just read books. Because this is about as good as movie making gets. Well, let us know what the next Dilip Kumar film and the next classic we should be want to explore. He only did 68 films of this in his repertoire, I believe. Yeah. And that's because apparently he was very choosy. I think his personal life was quite brand-o-y. Was it? I think it was. Because I heard something recently, like within the past week, because he passed away, there was a quote from Naseruddin Shah that was kind of critical of him in terms of he didn't really contribute much back to the craft in terms of raising up new people and training people. Very brand-o-y. And was very reclusive. I'm like, dude was brand-o. Some people just like that, man. Yeah. I'm not gonna fault them. Hey, not everybody has to contribute the way that other people do. No. So he was reclusive. Yeah. Some of us don't like people. But yeah, so let us know what the next film of his and then a classic we should watch is down below.