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Katrina Kaif is world's sexiest Asian woman
London: British Bollywood actress Katrina Kaif has retained the top spot in an annual list of the world's 50 sexiest Asian women unveiled Friday.
The British Bollywood babe beat off tough competition from other actresses, former beauty queens, models and pop stars to hold on to the Eastern Eye crown she won last year.
Indian actresses took eight of the top 10 spots, with British television star Laila Rouass and Pakistani actress Mehwish Hayat completing the list.
The top 10 of the Eastern Eye 50 Sexiest Asian Women are: Katrina Kaif, Priyanka Chopra, Freida Pinto, Laila Rouass, Kareena Kapoor, Bipasha Basu, Lara Dutta, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Mehwish Hayat and Deepika Padukone.
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NRI,
Katrina Kaif's weak speaking Hindi is no longer a
deterrent to a career as a Hindi actress
Katrina's voice dubbed again
Mumbai, July 24, 2005
IANS
NRI, (non-resident Indian) Katrina Kaif will have
two releases in as many weeks and Akshay Kumar, who
starts with her in Raj Kanwar's "Humko Deewana
Kar Gaye", thinks she's shaping up to be a "major
heroine".
But Katrina's relatively small walk-on part in Ram
Gopal Varma's "Sarkar" and her full-fledged
part in David Dhawan's "Maine Pyar Kyun Kiya"
have one thing in common - she did not speak her own
lines in both films.
Reason? Apparently Katrina's Hindi is a bit on the
weaker side.
In fact, Varma had originally decided to retain Katrina's
ultra-anglicised voice in keeping with her US-returned
character in "Sarkar". But the Hindi spoken
by the actress was way too outlandish to pass off
as a non-resident Indian accent.
Hence the dubbed voice.
Now fans will have to wait longer to hear Katrina's
real voice. Even in her second July release, she won't
be speaking in her own voice.
Confirms David Dhawan: "We've got a professional
dubbing artiste to do Katrina's voice. But it in no
way takes away from her performance and beauty. Not
that she can't speak the language.
"She's improving all the time...After a while
I'm sure she'll have the confidence to dub her own
lines. Didn't Sridevi start using her own voice only
after doing many Hindi films?"
Dhawan has a point. Not speaking Hindi is no longer
a deterrent to a career as a Hindi actor.
When John Abraham came to filmdom, he couldn't utter
a word of Hindi. In fact there's a story about how
a director ticked John off for trying to be a Bollywood
actor without knowing the language.
Earlier, Sridevi's first dozen of so Hindi films
were all dubbed by two professional artistes - Habiba
and the late actress Naaz.
Sridevi worked on her Hindi and managed her own lines
from Yash Chopra's "Chandni" onwards.
Bipasha Basu's first two performances in "Ajnabee"
and "Raaz" were dubbed.
But do dubbed performances work? Lisa Ray, whose
voice was dubbed by Divya Dutta in "Kasoor",
couldn't make any headway. One hopes Katrina goes
the Sridevi way and not the Lisa way.
Sarkar
Cast:Amitabh Bachchan, Abhishek Bachchan,
Kay Kay Menon, Supriya Pathak, Katrina Kaif, Tanisha,
Zakir Husain
Director:Ram Gopal Varma
"Sarkar" too takes us through a world governed
by the rules of survival of the fittest. So what makes
this film the most special achievement of Varma`s
career? It`s the father-son combination of Amitabh
and Abhishek Bachchan, furnishing Varma`s ebony vision
of the world gone awry with a kind of blazing and
bridled intensity that one last saw when Dilip Kumar
and Amitabh played father and son in Ramesh Sippy`s
"Shakti".
Who`s the real villain? The people who rape society,
or the ones who check crime and corruption by means
that are extra-constitutional? The socio-political
issue becomes more tangled in the light of the septic
corruption that has crept into the governmental structure.
Abhishek as Shankar, the quietly faithful, duty-bound
younger son destined to take up the strange family
business -- a role that has its roots in Al Pacino`s
character in "The Godfather" -- is in-sync
with his character and the senior Bachchan`s prismatic
persona.
Abhishek`s delicately balanced facial expressions,
his projection of the character`s fierce unquestioning
loyalty towards his father`s politics, is done with
such rare care and sensitivity that you cease to look
at the actor.
Kay Kay Menon as the archetypal son gone to seed
remains understandably outside the two-member circle
created so vividly by the Bachchans. His villainous
grimace seems a trifle exaggerated in a film where
the main characters express themselves in small print
rather than italics.
Another over-the-top character is the Chandraswami-styled
godman with a wig that mocks the muted makeover of
the main characters.
"Sarkar" actually has one super-hero, Amitabh
Bachchan, and two heroes Abhishek and Varma, lending
the goings-on a glory that repudiates glitter in favour
of something far more deep and precious.
* While rumours are flying thick and fast that Katrina
Kaif's voice has been dubbed in Ram Gopal Varma's
next 'Sarkar', Katrina is terribly miffed.
On the other hand, it's being said that she has been
allowed to dub in David Dhawani's 'Maine Pyar Kyun
Kiya' (which co-stars her boyfriend Salman Khan) simply
because she plays an NRI, and hence her accent will
be justified with the character she plays.
Maine Pyar Kyun
Kiya
Producers: Shree Ashtavinayak Cine Vision and Sohail
Khan Productions
Director: David Dhawan
Cast: Salman Khan, Sushmita Sen, Arshad Warsi, Sohail
Khan, Katrina Kaif, Ishaa Koppikar
Salman Khan
I play a doctor who doesn’t want to get married,
so he tells all his girlfriends that he is a married
man. Then he falls in love with a girl (Katrina) but
tells her that he is married too. Then she wants to
meet his wife and children, so he has to concoct them.
The comic scenes between Sohail and me are my favour
Love triangles have always fascinated DD and Maine
Pyaar Kyun Kiya is no exception. This one also revolves
around two women falling in love with one man, but
it borrows heavily from a hit Broadway play, which
director Gene Saks adapted brilliantly on the big
screen and called it Cactus Flower (1969; starring
Walter Matthau, Goldie Hawn, Ingrid Bergman).
