Kuch Naa Kaho (Don't Say Anything) (2003)

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General		Extras
Category	Romantic Comedy	Main Menu Introduction Main Menu Audio & Animation Audio Commentary-Rohan Sippy (Director) And Abhishek Bachchan (Actor) Interviews-Crew-Rohan Sippy (Director) Featurette-Making Of Deleted Scenes Theatrical Trailer Trailer-Armaan, Monsoon Wedding, Chalte Chalte
Rating
Year Of Production	2003
Running Time	168:57 (Case: 172)
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (91:57)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Rohan Sippy
Studio Distributor	R S Entertainment Madman Entertainment	Starring	Aishwarya Rai Abhishek Bachchan Satish Shah Suhasini Mulay Jaspal Bhatti Himani Shivpuri Tanaaz Currim Meghna Malik Razak Khan Raja Choudhary Yusuf Hussain Dardhana Kashmiri Mousami Tondwalkar
Case	Amaray-Transparent-Secure Clip
RPI	$24.95	Music	Shankar Mahadevan Uday Mazumdar Loy Mendonsa

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	Hindi Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.35:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	Yes, Coca Cola, Western Union
		Action In or After Credits	Yes, story progresses during closing credits

    Kuch Naa Kaho (Don't Say Anything) is a typical offering from the Hollywood of India, Bollywood, meaning that it's full of colour, songs, romance and dramatic moments! This is the first film from young director Rohan Sippy and is a reasonable example of the genre.

    Raj, played by Abishek Bachchan, is an Indian living with his mother in a fancy apartment in downtown New York. His mother keeps hassling him to get married to a 'good girl' from India but he continually resists. The viewer is not quite sure of what he actually does in life, but he seems to enjoy it, regardless. However, his mother conspires with her brother back in India to 'arrange' for Raj to meet some suitable girls during his forthcoming visit.

    To help in the quest for a girl for Raj, and to act as chaperone whenever he does meet someone, the uncle enlists the aid of one of his staff, Namrata, played by ex-Miss World, Aishwarya Rai. Of course, she's not terribly ugly, in fact far from it, and Raj actually falls in love with her rather than any of the girls he has been asked to meet.

    She's not so quick to reciprocate his feelings because, as we find out, she's already married and has a 7 year old son. It turns out that her husband left them when the child was born, and hasn't been seen since. Eventually, after a few song and dance numbers, Namrata falls in love with Raj and the two agree to get married. But of course, things can't just go so simply in a 3 hour Bollywood film, can they? Just when the marriage plans are being finalised and everything looks just dandy, Namrata's husband just happens to rock back into her life...

Video

    The transfer is presented in its original theatrical aspect ratio of 2.35:1 and is 16x9 enhanced.

    My general impression of the transfer is that is very slightly overexposed (too bright) throughout. This seems to be a fault in the transfer, as I don't recall noticing this in the theatrical release. This overexposure results in loss of shadow detail, as well as introducing very slight posterisation of some skin tones.

    The picture is not as crisp as one would expect for a very recently made film.

    The colour palette used throughout this film is very rich, though I feel the overexposed transfer has washed out some of the richness. Some of the song sequences look quite nice with their unique colour 'schemes'.

    There were very few visible positive or negative film artefacts. There was a vertical scratch that appeared for a few seconds on a couple of occasions, such as at 54:58.

    There was some Gibb effect in the closing titles that made them somewhat difficult to read.

    Subtitles were available in English only and used a pale yellow font. They were well timed to the on-screen dialogue and quite a close representation of the original Hindi. Some trouble was taken to modify humorous lines or double-entendres that wouldn't have worked in a literal translation.

    This is a dual layered disc with the layer change occurring at 91:57. It's actually mid-chapter and disrupts the flow of the scene.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    The only soundtrack available for the film itself is Hindi, in Dolby Digital 5.1. The audio commentary is presented in English, in Dolby Digital 2.0.

    The dialogue quality is good and generally in sync with the actors' lip movements. The sync goes somewhat awry during the many song sequences.

    The music is by the team of Shankar Madhadevan, Uday Mazumdar and Loy Mendonsa and is a typical Bollywood soundtrack made up of quite a few catchy danceable numbers (with requisite frequent mid-song costume changes!) as well as more romantic melodies. The title theme recurs throughout the film, both as background music as well as in some of the song sequences.

    Although this film has a recent Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack, it doesn't actually use the rears all that much. They're used to carry some ambient sounds, as well as music, but no discrete effects that I noticed.

    There was a very slight audio dropout at one point, though nothing serious.

    The subwoofer is used primarily to support the songs.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Main Menu Audio and Animation

    The main menu is 16x9 enhanced and has music and a short scene from the film playing in a continuous loop.

Audio Commentary

    The commentary track is provided by Director Rohan Sippy, and lead actor Abishek Bachchan.  It's probably their first ever DVD commentary, and according to them, was done specifically for this Australian release! It's quite entertaining with much information provided about the locations, actors, scenes, and the filming process. Sippy tends to be far more serious in his comments, while Bachchan lives up to his reputation of being a clown.

Interviews - Crew

    Runtime 10:14.  Presented in 2.35:1 letterbox. Interestingly, the bars at the top and bottom of the screen are bright orange instead of black. The Director, Rohan Sippy, is interviewed by Abishek Bachchan, mostly in English. There is some behind-the-scenes footage and interviews with the Producer (father of the Director) and actress Aishwarya Rai.

Featurette - Making of

    Runtime 14:28.  Same format as the Interview with the Director. Obviously taken from the same original interview, this featurette focuses on the music and the choreography, with plenty of behind-the-scenes footage. There is some terrible macro-blocking in some scenes, which is possibly due to a fault in the original Digital Video recording, rather than in the DVD transfer. There's also a curious colour flicker that lasts a few seconds in one scene. This is possibly a DVD transfer fault.

Deleted Scenes

    12 minutes worth of 4 different scenes deleted from the final cut. They are quite rough in picture and sound (the latter being quite inaudible in some sections). No subtitles are provided for the Hindi dialogue.

Theatrical Trailer

    The original theatrical trailer for Kuch Naa Kaho. Runtime: 3:05.  Presented in 2.35:1 with a Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack. Interesting that it intersperses scenes featuring a couple of characters (one being the onscreen son) to talk about the film itself.

Trailers (all Hindi movies)

    Armaan (runtime 1:01). Presented in 2.35:1 ratio letterboxed.

    Monsoon Wedding (runtime 2:14). Presented in 1.78:1 letterboxed.

    Chalte Chalte (runtime 2:37). Presented in 2.35:1 ratio letterboxed.

    This movie appears to have been released in R1 and R2. Some websites I've seen have indicated it being a 2-disc release in R2. However, I can't confirm what extras are present.

    Given that our R4 version has plenty of extras, including the commentary track which has apparently been recorded just for us 'down under', it would seem that this is the best version (based on available facts).

    A typically colourful Bollywood film with plenty of well-choreographed and well-filmed dance sequences. The story is somewhat predictable and does rely on a few too many implausible plot developments at key points to move the story along...but then it is a Bollywood film!

    The acting by the leads is pretty ordinary. Abishek Bachchan, the son of arguably India's best known actor, still has a long way to go to fill his father's shoes in acting ability. His face doesn't really display more than one expression, that being a slightly bemused look. Aishwarya Rai, undoubtedly delightful to look at, doesn't act much better (at least not in this film). The expressions she tries to make at times are almost laughable.

    The acting by some of the support cast isn't too bad, though they're not exactly called upon to deliver performances of great theatrical merit.

    The picture quality in this transfer is acceptable though I feel it has been made a little too bright, hence robbing some scenes of contrast and clarity, as well as making the transfer a little less sharp than it should be.

    The sound is good throughout, though predominantly across the front speakers.

    The extras are quite reasonable, especially considering that this is a single disc release. It's especially nice to see (or hear) that the commentary track was recorded just for the R4 release.

    Overall a reasonable film if you really want to see a 'typical' Bollywood film packed with colour, songs, theatrics and an easy to follow plot. It does have good English subtitles so this makes this film quite accessible.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall