Premer Kahini - Critical Reception

Critical Reception

The DDLJ sameness doesn’t end there. The lovebirds romance on the terrace, night after night, like Raj and Simran did. They sing and dance in the rain, around trees and on mountains sporting trendy jackets and chiffon saris.Dev is a show stealer from the start. He woos Koel — and also the viewers — with his easy charm. Koel keeps up the coy lady act. Jisshu’s chocolatey looks manage to draw many “oohs” and “aahs” from the college-going crowd at the evening show in Bharati.

Just as you had desperately wanted Raj to end up with Simran in Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge, you almost will best man Akash on to win Barsha’s hand in Premer Kahini. Though it has several flashes of the Shah Rukh-Kajol-starrer, director Ravi Kinnagi adds novelty to the script and makes Premer Kahini an engaging watch.

Ravi Kinnagi is an intelligent young man. He writes, directs and edits his films himself and even writes the screenplay. He borrows generously from big box-office grossers in the South and relocates them within the Bengali ambience. The audience laps it all up because they have never seen the original. He has the guts to pack in newcomers and Jeet made his strikingly successful debut in Saathi directed by Kinnagi. He puts in a lot of action and fight scenes, song and dance numbers ‘inspired’ by popular Hindi masala and generally has a storyline that makes for a wonderful recipe of a ‘family drama’ the Kinnagi way. Kinnagi is also a metaphor for the widening of the geographical canvas of Bengali cinema because he belongs to Orissa though he has now made Kolkata is home. Other stalwarts and newcomers from the Orissa film industry and actors from Bengal are happily changing places between cinema of the two states, making for a stable marriage between the otherwise unfriendly but similar cultures. People ignorant about Kannada films will not learn that Premer Kahini is the Bengali remake of the hit Kannada film Mungaru Male, the version rights for which were bought by Venkatesh Films at a record price in the history of Bengali cinema. Shot on an astounding budget of Rs.2.5 crores, the best thing about the film is that a major portion of the film has been shot against picturesque backdrops of beautiful locations of Bangalore, Shakleshpur, Malkote and Jog Falls.