Wednesday, May 13, 2020

Binge Watch Suggestion List - Part VI 🙂

I am sharing below my pick list with short reviews of 7 popular and well made Netflix and Prime Video web series from India. All the web series are in Hindi.



1. Inside Edge (10 Jul 2017, 6 Dec 2019)
Channel: Prime Video
Genre: Thriller
Season: 1, 2
No. of Episodes: 10, 10
Running Time: 40-47 minutes

Short Review: Based on a fictional T20 playing league and cricket franchise, it is Amazon Prime Video's first original Indian series. It stars Bollywood actors like Vivek Oberoi and Richa Chadha.

The series shows the power play and lobbying involved in running a high profile cricket franchise and the mammoth changes incurred when there is any change in it's ownership. Alongside, it focuses on the eccentricities of the players, their work culture and their willing/unwilling participation in match fixings.

The series is Bollywood style and well made. It comprises of enough political drama, use of abusives and adult scenes.



2. Sacred Games (5 Jul 2018, 15 Aug 2019)
Channel: Netflix
Genre: Crime Conspiracy Thriller Mystery
Season: 1,2
No. of Episodes: 8,8
Running Time: 43-58 minutes

Short Review: Based on Vikram Chandra's novel called Sacred Games and directed by award winning Bollywood directors, with both of it's main protagonists being the mainstream Bollywood actors, it is the first Netflix original series in India.

It's plot is a complex web of flash back and mysteries. Both of it's seasons are starkly different from each other.

In the first season, a notorious gangster who has been missing for 16 years, informs a troubled police officer about his whereabouts, only to leave him with an alarming clue and die, the clue being the need to save the city within 25 days!

What follows is a mayhem of police investigations and emergence of various connected people and incidents and the surfacing of concerned police officer's personal demons both in his personal and professional life.

The series ends with the hanging question - whether or not the city annihilation took place?

The second season starts with the disturbed police officer's continued search for the tool and venue of the aforesaid annihilation. It also continues with the parallel autobiography of the gangster in the past mode, accompanied with his narrations in both past and present modes, covering his associations with - drug lord of Mombasa in Kenya, RAW agent, ISI and finally the queer and mysterious Guruji.

The series' storyline is quite new and the depiction of it's series of sequences is quite interesting.

It's an engaging watch with some brilliant acting by lead artists, like - Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Saif Ali Khan, Radhika Apte, Pankaj Tripathi, Amrita Subhash etc.

You can read the detailed review of Sacred Games 2 at -

http://jaimaadurga.blogspot.com/2019/08/netflix-series-sacred-games-2-15-aug.html?m=1


3. Ghoul (24 Aug 2018)
Channel: Netflix
Genre: Horror Fiction Thriller
Season: 1
No. of Episodes: 3
Running Time: 45 minutes

Short Review: Based on Arab folklore monster Ghoul, it is a horror series picturised in an eerie military detention centre in a near future dystopian society.

A series of confusion and murdering of officials ensues when a sect leader is brought in the detention centre for interrogation, because he has invoked a ghoul, who can take the form of any human being that he touches.

Laced with effective direction, acting, make-up and music, it is one of the most horrifying horror series that I have ever seen.


4. Mirzapur (16 Nov 2018)
Channel: Prime Video
Genre: Crime Action Thriller
Season: 1
No. of Episodes: 9
Running Time: 43-53 minutes

Short Review: Involving a lot of lawlessness, shooting, blood and gore, this series is about a millionaire carpet exporter cum don of Mirzapur, his power hungry and eccentric son and two sons of a simple and moralistic lawyer, whose lives get entwined with the aforesaid don to the point of causing a power shift in the region.

It's a well casted, scripted and enacted series with good dialogue delivery in pure eastern UP dialect by most of the actors.

If you can digest mindless action and assassinations, then do watch this series.


5. Made In Heaven (8 Mar 2019)
Channel: Prime Video
Genre: Drama Satire
Season: 1
No. of Episodes: 9
Running Time: 50 minutes

Short Review: It is a close peek into the lives and experiences of two high end wedding planners and close friends, with one of them being gay and the other being the wife of an affluent businessman, in whose office she used to work as an employee!

Each episode reveals an altogether different range of dynamics involved in a big fat Indian wedding, some usual, some unusual and some outright scandalous.

The series is about how the aforementioned duo handles the myriad situations to ensure a happening wedding or a moral outcome, alongside handling their not so happening lives.

It's a big budget series filled with glam and gloss. It's an interesting and engaging watch.


6. The Family Man (20 Sep 2019)
Channel: Prime Video
Genre: Action Espionage Thriller Drama
Season: 1
No. of Episodes: 10
Running Time: 38-53 minutes

Short Review: It's a complex series with a lot happening in the cat and mouse chase between a top class intelligence officer of T.A.S.C. (fictious branch of National Investigation Agency) and a tough terrorist, controlled by ISIS.

The officer in question is also a middle class family man with a wife, son and daughter. He is in constant state of guilt and unsurety because of not being able to spend ample time with his family or getting to know them as he should which causes him to lie blatantly every now and then and even harm his marital relationship.

It's an extremely well scripted and picturized series with Manoj Bajpayee being it's well deserving star.

It's quite interesting and amusing to see the hardcore shrewd abusive spilling Manoj Bajpayee, the agent to become speechless in front of his growing children and feel overwhelmed upon his son's usage of mild abusives.

Do watch this series.


7. Bard of Blood (27 Sep 2019)
Channel: Netflix
Genre: Action Espionage Thriller
Season: 1
No. of Episodes: 7
Running Time: 40-49 minutes

Short Review: Based on the novel of the same name by Bilal Siddiqi, this series is like a Bollywood espionage thriller complete with high end weapon props and special effects. Even the protagonist herein is Emraan Hashmk, a Bollywood mainstream hero.

He plays a former intelligence officer who is sent on a crucial rescue mission to Balochistan to free four Indian intelligence officers from the clutches of Taliban. Though Balochistan is the place  of his painful past, still he moves ahead with the mission and enters into the complex web of past associations, risky plannings, secret hideouts, failures and triumphs.

The series is like a usual Bollywood spy thriller, no more no less.

Binge Watch Suggestion List - Part I - http://jaimaadurga.blogspot.com/2020/03/binge-watch-suggestion-list-part-i.html?m=1

Binge Watch Suggestion List - Part II - http://jaimaadurga.blogspot.com/2020/03/binge-watch-suggestion-list-part-ii.html?m=1

Binge Watch Suggestion List - Part III -
http://angrezipicture.blogspot.com/2020/04/binge-watch-suggestion-list-part-iii.html?m=1

Binge Watch Suggestion List - Part IV -
http://angrezipicture.blogspot.com/2020/04/binge-watch-suggestion-list-part-iv.html?m=1

Binge Watch Suggestion List - Part V -
http://jaimaadurga.blogspot.com/2020/05/binge-watch-suggestion-list-part-vl.html?m=1

Thursday, May 7, 2020

Binge Watch Suggestion List - Part V 🙂

Burnt out after months of binge watching high octane American sci-fi and thriller series and Indian crime thrillers set amidst the political backdrop of UP and Bihar, I searched for some simple, upbeat, factual and regional movies and ended up watching the 3 below given Bengali movies.

They were a refreshing watch and provided good edutainment and effective awareness.


1. Alinagarer Golokdhadha (20 Apr 2018)
Channel: Prime Video
Genre: Adventure Mystery
Duration: 139 minutes

Short Review: An interesting trail of riddles comprising of clues pertaining to the centuries of history of Kolkata and it's nearby regions leads to an exclusive prized possession, with a parallel track of crime and greed for the same object.

Alongside, there is a good peek of the modern day reality and decay of the age old affluent rajbaris.

Full of edutainment, this movie is an interesting watch. You will end up learning a lot about the city of joy - it's people, historic monuments and food, ever since it was a collection of three villages, till it was captured by the Britishers, followed by Siraj ud-Daulah, then again Britishers.

If you are wondering about the nomenclature of the movie, then watch the movie and find the close connection between Alinagar and Kolkata!


2. Shah Jahan Regency (18 Jan 2019)
Channel: Prime Video
Genre: Drama
Duration: 156 minutes

Short Review: It is the second movie adaptation of the famous novel Chowringhee (1962) by Mani Shankar Mukherjee. The first movie adaptation was also titled Chowringhee (1968).

Shot beautifully in relatively dim light, befitting the interiors of a posh and iconic city hotel, the movie covers all the nooks and corners of a hotel named Shah Jahan Regency and different aspects of the lives of the people connected with it, starting from it's owners, to it's staff, to it's patrons and visitors.

Subtly paced, the movie gives a well etched view of life in modern day Kolkata, all inclusive of it's beauty, ugliness and irony.

It's a one of a kind movie that will keep you glued to the screen and leave you with a faint streak of dismay, establishing the fact that all that glitters is not gold and nothing in this life can be taken for granted.


3. Samantaral (24 Nov 2017)
Channel: Netflix
Genre: Drama Family Psychology
Duration: 114 minutes

Short Review: Set amidst the backdrop of an old styled middle class Bengali bari, it is a family drama centred around a mentally retarded (claimed to be) individual who is under house arrest (read room arrest) from years.

His grown up but orphan nephew visits the house after three years, empathizes with him and tries to find the reason and cure of his lost state. He is well supported in his endeavor by his girlfriend.

Watch the movie to find out the shocking divulge.

Hopefully, the viewers will learn few long pending lessons from this film.

Binge Watch Suggestion List - Part I - http://jaimaadurga.blogspot.com/2020/03/binge-watch-suggestion-list-part-i.html?m=1

Binge Watch Suggestion List - Part II - http://jaimaadurga.blogspot.com/2020/03/binge-watch-suggestion-list-part-ii.html?m=1

Binge Watch Suggestion List - Part III -
http://angrezipicture.blogspot.com/2020/04/binge-watch-suggestion-list-part-iii.html?m=1

Binge Watch Suggestion List - Part IV -
http://angrezipicture.blogspot.com/2020/04/binge-watch-suggestion-list-part-iv.html?m=1

Binge Watch Suggestion List - Part VI -
http://jaimaadurga.blogspot.com/2020/05/binge-watch-suggestion-list-part-vi.html?m=1