Bollywood gets animated with Romeo

After many years in the coming, Bollywood finally released its first ever full length animated feature film called Roadside Romeo during Diwali 2008. In conjunction with Walt Disney Pictures, Yash Raj Films have produced a unique venture by creating a 3D animation on par with Hollywood 3D films.

Roadside Romeo is potentially the biggest animation movie ever coming from the house of Yash Raj Films. It stars the voices of Bollywood actors Saif Ali Khan as the lead character of a dog called Romeo, Kareena Kapoor as his love interest called Laila and Javed Jaaferi as the villian dog in the film, called Charlie Anna. It is written and directed Jugal Hansraj, produced by Aditiya Chopra and Yash Chopra, and the music is by Salim-Sulaiman.

The story is about a dog called Romeo who is left behind by his rich family when they move and about his survival and adventures during the transition from rich dog to street dog. He is left all alone on the streets of the Indian cosmopolitan city of Mumbai, where he encounters four other strays that scare him, however, he soon after smooth talks them into friendship. Along the way, he meets Laila, the leading lady dog to whom he loses his heart at first sight! However, he is challenged to fight for his new found love with the villain dog, Charlie-Anna, who also loves Laila.

The movie has all the jazz of Bollywood mixed with the gloss and finishing of 3D animation. The film utilises computer animation done entirely in India by Tata Elxsi’s Visual Computing Labs (VCL) unit.

This is likely to be the first of many animated movies to come out of Bollywood and will be used to gauge  the success of this format. As it is a very new concept to Bollywood cinema goers, especially in India. Many believe that the Indian audiences are not ready for feature length films of this nature and box office takings have not been very spectacular during the initial weeks to prove this point. However, the newer and younger generations have welcomed the film and the path Bollywood is taking to broaden its film making ability,  giving audiences new and different formats to watch.

Despite Indian audiences going through the changes to adapt to this computer generated format of films, the rest of the world, especially the West, will not find the format so different. However, what may fascinate Western cinema goers much more is the fact that a movie like Romeo Roadside is fully dubbed in Hindi as its default language. Plus, the intrigue to see what Bollywood has to offer in this genre of film making.

To get a taste of the movie if you have not watched it, watch the video trailer of this first fully animated Bollywood film below.

It is hoped that the Bollywood film industry will continue to expand and make more movies in this format. Because with the support of huge animation corporations like Walt Disney Pictures, it is likely that Bollywood will produce hits in this genre too, as it has done so successfully with the reality pictures.