Cinebits_A True Tribute to the Women's Day - Queen and Gulaab Gang

Got to watch 2 rock-solid performances over last 2 days !!

A performance coming from an actress who is known for doing ‘cutie-pie’ / ‘goodie-goodie’ roles for last 30+ years, now played an outrageously cunning villain and delivered an award winning performance. Yep – Juhi Chawla from days of Sultanat and QSQT to ‘Son of Sardar’ has finally delivered a performance of lifetime in ‘Gullab gang’. Her expressions / dialogue delivery is completely opposite to what she is known for all this while. Feels like she has arrived and even outperformed Madhuri in this movie. While Madhuri and the movie are definitely good, but it’d be remembered for ‘Sumitra’ the character performed by Juhi -Just outstanding.

Another actress who was almost written off (at least from acting prowess standpoint) has proved everyone wrong. Absolutely amazing performance by Kangana Ranawat in ‘Queen’. After doing the psycho roles (regardless of the role the act was more of psycho) in most of her movies close to a decade, she has shown very different (than her usual) and true to the character expressions in this movie. But it’s not just expressions, the overall feel of the character is almost worn and carried stunningly. Interesting to see what roles Kangana accepts after this and how the directors would be leveraging the talent which was hidden all this while.  

I was talking to a friend earlier this week of me eagerly waiting for Gulaab Gang for Juhi (Nope, not for Madhuri, even bring an ardent fan of hers) and when I got to see the promo of ‘Queen’ also mentioned about it being a ‘Must Watch’. However wasn’t too confident about Kangana’s performance and rated Juhi’s role as top 10 all time great female performances of Bollywood. But after watching Queen, Kangana can definitely be included in the top 10 list.

Also to highlight both are debutant directors, while Soumik Sen of Gulaab Gang has done a great job (aside the titles were amazing as well), Vikas Behl surpasses most of the Bollywood debutant performances till date and delivered a masterpiece. He has keenly captured every small nuance of life beautifully- it directly touches your heart. Both movies could have been a little shorter though, and songs could have been cut down in both.

While Gulaab Gang is vocal about the women rights and kind of does some explicit preaching on the subject, Queen says all about women liberation etc. w/o even subtly mentioning the same.

Queen a Must Watch for the ladies and gentleman. Can be best enjoyed in separate groups :-)  Also highly recommended for a home DVD collection – I’m sure it’d be made part of the syllabus at many movie courses.