When caught up with the director Rajkumar Hirani, the producer, Vidhu Vinod Chopra and Munnabhai himself for their reactions after winning the poll.

Hirani said, “I was very scared about the film, but Sanju (Sanjay Dutt) and Vinod were confident.” But did Vidhu Vinod know the sequel was better and bigger than Munnabhai MBBS? “I knew it was better. But I wasn’t bothered about it being bigger,” he said. Munna on the other hand wants to play the character of Munnabhai till he is 80 years old he says. “Munnabhai was straight from my heart. It was woven very well,” Dutt said.

Vidhu Vinod added, “The character of Munnabhai should never die. As long as Sanju is alive, we will continue making Munnabhai.”“We are writing the script and it’s growing. We want Munna and Circuit to go to America,” Hirani says.

So do the audience pin their hopes on Munnabhai Part III?

Another Munnabhai in the making?
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Munna Bhai too good

Lage Raho Munna Bhai is a very humurous movie .Vidhu Vinod Chopra,Sanjay Dutt,Boman Irani Arshad Warsi ,and Jimmy Shergill magic is back .They have done superb roles .There is a new actress Vidya Balan ,who has done very good work in the movie.Gandhiji guides Munna, who starts a new life based upon Gandhism,particularly non-violence and truth,which he calls Gandhigiri.He advocates Gandhigiri with the help of his friend circuit(Arshad Varsi) who describes the October 2 holiday as dry day since alcoholic beverages are not sold on this day.This movie reminds us of the Gandhiji and his principles, which we have forgotten.There are some instances in the movie which are very funny.
First is when a son was going to commit to suicide when he realizes that he has done a mistake
Gandhiji gave him the courage to speak the truth .we begin to remind the Gandhiji’s principles of speaking the truth and forgiveness.
Second is when a person who splits in the front of a person’s house.Instead of criticizing and fighting ,the person didn’t say anything and gave him a big smile.we begin to remind the Gandhiji’s principles of non-violence and embarrassing the wrong person.
Third is when a girl went to choose a boy.Gandhiji preached that a person should be judged by the behaviour ,he do with his fellow men.That was awesome.
Fourth is when an old person was not getting his pension.He embarrassed the person at the desk by giving his medicines,clothes and everything.
Fifth is when a daughter was criticizing her parents because they have done a mistake.Gandhiji’s principles of respecting ur parents and speak the truth came into limelight.

Songs in the movie are very good.
Pal Pal Pal har Par kaise katega yeh Pal is very melodious.
Others songs like Anne CharAnne Bache hai CharAnne ,Samjho Ho hi gaya are faboulous and make us laugh.

There are lots of humourous scenes in the movie.People listening the radio and getting emotional and laugh by the real life situation on the radio.
Bomi Irani plays a good role in the form of a sardar.
Diya Mirza and Jimmy Shergill plays a good role.
Abhishek Bachan has a guest appearance in the movie who marries the Diya Mirza inspite of knowing the truth.

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Will try to have a critical view of Lage Raho Munnabhai: next

Can't seem to find any critical review of the film, seems that the critics also got hooked to Munnabhai

Boman Irani

The immensely talented Boman Irani plays Lucky Singh – a loud rich Punjabi builder. A colourful character, Lucky's priorities in life are money and family, and he is willing to go to any length for both. When he's not multiplying his money, Lucky is busy adding to his vast collection of doctored photographs, which have him standing next to the likes of George Bush. Has he ever been to the US? Of course not!

M.P. seeks Padmashree for 'Munnabhai' makers

LAGE RAHO MUNNABHAI continues to make news!

Makers of LAGE RAHO MUNNABHAI got support from a lawmaker who demanded that they should be awarded Padmashree on the Republic Day. In his Special Mention in the Rajya Sabha, Shantaram Naik, Congress, said, “No books written on Gandhiji could make inroads into the minds of teenagers. The producer and director of LAGE RAHO MUNNABHAI should be awarded Padmashree on the occasion of the coming Republic Day.”

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Lage Raho Munnabhai becomes Tax-Free

The theory of Gandhigiri has taken over the country and now, to make it easier for people to watch the film, the government has curbed the entertainment taxes on the film. The tax free orders were given out after the screening committee set up by the government gave clearance for it.

However, the ticket rates of only the single screens will be slashed by 40 percent. The new multiplexes have the tax holiday policy, so there won’t be many changes in the ticket rates. Though multiplexes which are more than three years old will be giving a 25 percent reduction on ticket rates. So, with everything working for Munnabhai, all we can say is Lage Raho Hiranibhai.

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'Munnabhai' screened at the U.N.

On Friday, 10th November, LAGE RAHO MUNNABHAI was screened at United Nations in New York at the Dag Hammarskjold auditorium. This was the first time ever that a full-length feature film in Hindi was screened at the U.N.

Shashi Tharoor, who introduced the film, warmly welcomed the film to the U.N. and appreciated its role in bringing Gandhi back into the public consciousness. In a humorous vein, he recounted how he was intrigued by the term ‘Gandhigiri’ in the Indian media and tried to figure out what it meant.

There was thunderous clapping at the high points of the film, like the pensioner shedding his clothes. The applause at the end of the screening was unending. A vibrant question and answer session followed with director Rajkumar Hirani, writer Abhijat Joshi and actor Boman Irani, who flew to the U.S. for the screening.

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Protests against Lage Raho Munnabhai

Lage Raho Munnabhai has now drawn flak from none other than Gandhiji's grand-daughter, Usha Gokani. According to her, the whole concept of 'Gandhigiri' is disrespectful to the teaching and philosophy of the man, who led India to independence through his grit and determination.

Explaining her dissatisfaction on the way the philosophy of Gandhi has been propagated in the movie, Usha Gokani said, "People misuse Gandhi's message and teachings all the time and interpret his philosophy according to their own whims and fancies.''

Youth Congress workers in Indore, led by Deepak Chhabara (NSUI activist) took to the streets and staged a protest against the movie by burning posters. They have demanded a ban on the film.

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Munna's tryst with Oscars begins

LAGE RAHO MUNNABHAI was the opening film at the University of Southern California’s first-ever Indian film festival. The film was screened before a capacity audience at the Frank Sinatra Auditorium on 27th October to a rapturous response.

Students and faculty of the prestigious university clapped for minutes after the screening. A lively question and answer session followed with Vidhu Vinod Chopra, Rajkumar Hirani and Abhijat Joshi, the producer-director-writer trio of the film. Almost all questions were prefixed with heartfelt praise for the film, with one member of the audience pointing out that the film was in the tradition of the great films of Charlie Chaplin in its capacity to make people laugh and cry.

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Lage Raho Munnabhai

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Samjho Ho Hi Gaya

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Samjho Ho Hi Gaya

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07.18.06
“Munnabhai Lage Raho is not a sequel,” says the Director

“I would like to reaffirm that Lage Raho Munnabhai is not a sequel to Munnabhai MBBS,” says director Rajkumar Hirani. Then what exactly is it….Bole Toh Mamu? “My latest is a continuation of the concept. It is a different episode in the life of Munnabhai,” he clarifies. ‘Munnabhai Lage Raho’ is one of the most eagerly awaited films of the year as it hits theatres on September 1st. Starring Sanjay Dutt, Arshad Warsi, Vidya Balan, Jimmy Shergil, Diya Mirza and Boman Irani, ‘Lage Raho’ may be the biggest event in Sanju Baba’s life after ‘Munnabhai’.Arshad Warsi who is basking in the glory of his latest release ‘Golmaal’ owes his second innings in Bollywood to his ‘Circuit’ act in Munnabhai MBBS a couple of years ago. Sanjay Dutt on his part wanted the title to be ‘Munnabhai Meets Mahatma Gandhi’ but when an opinion poll seconded ‘Munnabhai Lage Raho’ he decided to go with the flow. The promos of the film are already creating curiosity value on the small screen as Munnabhai plans to serenade the Multi Screens this September with his Robin Hood act. Once Again!

The DVD

Video:

Another nice mess. That’s the only way to describe this dodgy DVD release of Lage Raho Munna Bhai by Eros International, a company that’s never shy to boast about the massive quantity of films in their vaults or the equally hefty amount of cash at their disposal. When it comes to supplying quality products for their consumers however, they are clearly just as ill as Lucky Singh. This disc is in NTSC format, but has been copied from a PAL video source, which in turn has been improperly converted from a 24fps master. So not only are we getting the usual ghosting that goes with bog-standard interlacing, but duplicated frames as well giving a horribly blurred and jerky picture. Rounding off the muck-ups is a dreadful amount of MPEG compression problems that are also on display. Points may be awarded for some wonderful colour/contrast rendition, an absence of any print damage and a thankfully correctly-framed (if slightly cropped) anamorphic widescreen presentation, but this doesn’t make up for such an amateurish transfer.

Audio:

Things happily improve somewhat on the audio front with a mostly clear 5.1 Dolby Digital track. Still, not all is well, as the mix sounds rather soft and weak, not packing the punch it should. Some of the dialogue tends to come across slightly garbled on occasion as well, which again sounded more a problem with the DVD encoding rather than the original recordings.

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Special Features:

A bonus DVD comes bundled with this release and includes a five-part, 98-minute documentary on the making of the film and a short promo made up mostly of clips from both ’LRMB’ and Munna Bhai M.B.B.S.. The documentary drags at times, but on the whole is an interesting enough look at the movie with all the main participants from the cast and crew offering their thoughts and, as always, gushing with praise.

No subtitles are supplied for the second disc (the majority of which is in Hindi), however the main feature on disc one includes an English subtitle track. With so much Tapori Hindi slang featured in the original dialogue (think Cockney or ‘Jive’), it was never going to be a simple job translating the lines in a coherent manner into another language while also maintaining the difference in speech and characterisation as well as the humour. Eros have made a fairly decent attempt at this and succeed at times, but too often the translations just wind up either too far out/crude or just the opposite by being overly formal. The song lyrics are particularly inaccurate and bare little resemblance to the original lines. Eros also distributed ’LRMB’ in English theatres where it ran with a completely different and far more credible subtitle translation, so I can’t fathom why the same track couldn’t have also been featured here.


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Eklavya The Royal Guard

Cast: Amitabh Bachchan, Sharmila Tagore, Jackie Shroff, Sanjay Dutt, Saif Ali Khan, Vidya Balan, Jimmy Shergill, Boman Irani, Raima Sen
Director: Vidhu Vinod Chopra

Contemporary India. A majestic fort. A royal dynasty that no longer rules. A king without a kingdom.

Yet Eklavya (Amitabh Bachchan), their royal guard, lives in a time warp. He lives only to protect the fort, the dynasty and the king. For nine generations Eklavya's family has protected Devigarh, a centuries old citadel in Rajasthan.

His marksmanships are stuff of legends. His unflinching loyalty inspires ballads. Eklavya has spent his entire life serving the royals and closely guarding their secrets but now he's getting old and increasingly blind.

Unable to cope with the suffocating customs of his land, the heir, Prince Harshwardhan (Saif Ali Khan), has stayed away in London. But the sudden demise of the queen, Rani Suhasinidevi (Sharmila Tagore), forces the Prince back to the kingdom he had left behind.

The Prince's return brings a rush of joy into the moribund fort. His mentally challenged twin sister, Princes Nandini (Raima Sen) and his childhood love Rajjo (Vidya Balan) are delighted to see him. But the joy of reunion is short-lived.

There is unrest in the kingdom: Farmers are being stripped of their lands. The king, Rana Jayawardhan (Boman Irani), influenced by his brother, Rana Jyotiwardhan (Jackie Shroff), supports the atrocities being forced upon the helpless peasants. The king receives a death threat over the phone.

An irreverent police officer, Pannalal Chohar (Sanjay Dutt), is called into investigate. But he might be too late. The fragile peace of the land is suddenly shattered by a barrage of bullets. And amidst the mayhem, the safety guarded secrets of the fort are unveiled.

What follows is a contemporary, edge-of-the-seat dramatic action thriller with a stellar ensemble cast - Amitabh Bachchan, Sanjay Dutt, Saif Ali Khan, Vidya Balan, Boman Irani, Jackie Shroff, Jimmy Shergil, Raima Sen and Sharmila Tagore. The film marks the return of Vidhu Vinod Chopra who directs after a hiatus of seven years.
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