As the forthcoming Indo-Pak war-drama ‘Bhuj: The Pride of India’ is nearing its streaming date on the Disney+ Hotstar OTT platform, the makers have unveiled three of the film’s song videos.
The first song video was the romantic track ‘Hanjugam’ sung by Jubin Nautiyal. Then, Noora Fatehi’s item number ‘Zaalima Coca Cola’ was released which had hit an impressive 20 million views and was sung by Shreya Ghoshal. Then on the occasion of Sanjay Dutt’s birthday, Mika Singh’s ‘Bhai Bhai’ song featuring the ‘Munnabhai M.B.B.S.’ actor came out.
‘Bhuj: The Pride of India’ is ostensibly based on an IAF Squadron Leader Vijay Karnik’s courageous efforts to reconstruct the IAF airbase located at Bhuj that he was in charge of, with the help of 300 women from a local village and is set against the backdrop of the Indo-Pak war of 1971.
Considering the film’s evidently serious and patriotic premise, was there any need of putting a romantic song, an item number, and the third song? Even though these well-choreographed songs are enjoyable when watched as standalone videos.
It is agreed that songs in Indian films are deployed as an age-old and time-tested strategy to market the film for a music-loving audience. Nevertheless, filmmakers should seriously ponder whether the songs that are somewhat or sometimes utterly unrelated to the film’s genre, should be made an integral part of the film or not.
Well-timed songs which are relevant to a particular film’s theme or genre usually integrate well with the story. On the contrary, misplaced and unassociated songs can act as a deterrent to the flow of the film’s narrative, especially for the refined OTT audience.
For instance, a well-made patriotic-themed song in a war film like ‘Bhuj: The Pride of India’ might even augment the viewer’s emotional experience. But in the case of the above-mentioned songs, whether they gel along with the film’s narrative and actually move the story forward can only be ascertained after the film’s release.
Having said that, the film’s trailer is a fine display of first-rate action sequences, impressive VFX, rousing dialogues, and the formidable screen presence of Ajay Devgn and Sanjay Dutt. The trailer has set high hopes for the film that is scheduled to start streaming on Disney+ Hotstar from August 13 onwards.
Since the idea of a song-less war film might be a distant dream, we earnestly only hope that the songs in ‘Bhuj: The Pride of India’ would at least not play a spoilsport for the film.
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