Shanghai

The most widely accepted definition of the word "Shanghai" is that it comes from the Chinese city of Shanghai, a common destination of the ships with abducted crews. The crew was often taken by trickery, fraud and by threatening them. The term has since expanded to mean "kidnapped" or "induced to do something by means of fraud." Dibakar Banerjee's film uses this definition as the underlying message of the film.In 1969 Costa Gavras made a film called Shanghai based on a Greek novel that was simply titled Z by its author Vassilis Vassilikos. In 2012 director Dibakar Banerjee makes a film that he officially has adapted from the same film. I loved his directorial debut in Bollywood with the humorous take on the land sharks of Khosla Ka Ghosla (2006). Boman Irani played a shady property dealer from Delhi in a benchmark performance. Report Card: National Film Award. Dibakar's second film Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye! starring Abhay Deol as an anti-hero who loves, steals and drinks (lsd?), got him three Filmfare Awards. Dibakar captures something about Delhi which is part satire and part reality that makes it really interesting to watch. In 2010, he directed India's first film shot entirely on Digital Camera, Love Sex aur Dhokha (LSD) - which I did not see. Shanghai is his fourth film - if we do not count his ad films in the list.Shanghai is not about Dibakar and his remarkable ability to tell stories. It is a film that makes Emraan Hashmi emerge as an actor. I must admit that I have always been very dismissive of Emraan. Besides being known as a "serial kisser", he has had very little to show by way of his acting skills. He started his career as an Assistant Director in the film Raaz in 2002. That sank without a trace. Two years later he emerged in a new avatar. This time as a lead actor in Murder opposite Mallika Sherawat. The film hit paydirt - possibly despite Emraan. This time it is different. Shanghai is to Emraan what Dil Chahta Hai is to Saif Ali as an actor. He plays the sleazy and awkward small town boy trying to fit in to the big city with comfort. His tobacco-stained teeth, toothy grin, ingratiating style are understated. The small touches (he saves Kalki's phone number on his mobile as "dreemgirl") reflect the director's eye for details.The story is based on the whole philosophy of progress at what price. Shanghai is the symbol of the planned development that is envied by so many countries. The roads are wide, the city is planned. There are no visible signs of poverty or poor people. Suddenly an island of prosperity seems to have been created to showcase to the world how it can all be had at once. The opening few shots talk about a bunch of people who are protesting the land that belongs to some slum dwellers being taken over to build a massive planned city catering to the hi tech companies and corporates. The protest is led by a writer and ideologue (Prosenjit) the author of a book called Kiski Pragati, Kiska Desh (whose country benefits from whose land) - that's a terrible translation, but you get the gist). He is mowed down by a speeding vehicle. Clearly, this is a murder, not an accident. The sole eye witness to this is a small time videographer (Emraan) who makes porn films. The leader's paramour played by a very wooden Kalki. The case is being investigated by Abhay Deol who plays a civil servant. The cops and the politicians have an unholy alliance that is too big to tackle.The rest of the film has to be watched. The humor is subtle and is far more refined than what mainstream Bollywood's style is. Bollywood's approach is more like, "When I tell you the punchline, you will really find it funny. Shall I tell you the funny line?..."  Emraan gets to demonstrate that he too is an actor. I suspect he does not get to do that in the movies directed by the Mahesh Bhat clan. After all there is only so much acting talent one can demonstrate while kissing. The disappointment is Kalki Koechlin. She was awesome in her debut film, DevD. Maybe Dibakar Banerjee had to work extra hard to get Emraan to act and that left no time to coach Kalki. In this movie, her character gets to display three emotions - being straight faced, being expressionless and being poker faced. Abhay Deol plays the honest Tamilian and speaks Hindi with the slight understated Tamilian accent. The music by Vishal Dadlani and Shekhar Ravjiani has given us an "item" number 'meri imported kamariya' (that one is hard to translate, and I won't even try). The song I was waiting for, Duaa didn't even feature. Why on earth is it then called a "feature" film?The film is one of the best narrated stories from Bollywood this year. I would still rate the Vidya Balan starrer Kahaani a shade better than Shanghai. You can read the review of Kahaani here. Dibakar is emerging as the thinking man's director. Shanghai too would get an A minus, from me. The character of Kalki needed to have been crafted deeper. The continuity shots could have been done better at least for Prosenjit. Look at the varying shades of grey in his beard that vary from scene to scene even though it is all in the course of a few hours. The best song didn't feature. (The last one is a trivial crib, forget it). The main flaw in the film is a weak characterization of the role played by Kalki.

Overall rating: A minus.

Recommended viewing for sure.Tell me if your opinion of Shanghai is different from mine. Would you rate it differently?