Customer Reviews

Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

My discovery of Indian cinema has been almost a spiritual experience. It's like going from black and white to color for the first time. Compared to a movie like this, American and European films have no heart, no vitality, no color, and no passion. And I've never seen any love story that could compare to the one in this film. I've never seen the true definition of love expressed as deeply as it is here - and it is love in its purest form. I know I'm old-fashioned, but, for me, Hollywood ruins every good love story it manages to produce by making everything about sex. You don't have that in India cinema - you don't even have kissing; what you do have, though, are the depths and power of love expressed in ways Hollywood can't even comprehend.

Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam has everything you could want in a movie - romance; comedy; fantastic music, singing, and dancing; elaborate set designs and magnificent locations; stellar performances; and, of course, the most beautiful woman in the world, Aishwarya Rai. I'm trying to get my hands on all of her movies as quickly as I can. She's incredible in this 1999 classic, as are the two leading men who form the other two sides of the most poignant of love triangles. Salman Khan plays Sameer, a free spirit who comes to India from Italy to study music under Nandini's father. Nandini (Rai) isn't happy about this at all, but she and Sameer are soon engaged in some serious flirting. A strong love grows up between the two, only to be torn asunder by Nandini's father, who sends Sameer away with a promise to never meet his daughter again. A heartbroken Nandini is compelled to marry a young lawyer named Vanraj (Ajay Devgan). She doesn't love Vanraj, but he is an exceedingly good man who loves her dearly. For all her continued grieving over Sameer, it is Vanraj who eventually shows her what true love really is. The ending is just exquisite, a true emotional climax that brings both pain and joy to your heart at the same time.

The movie runs a little over three hours (which is pretty much the norm in India), but it is in no way too long. If you have a heart, it will be swept away during the second half of the film. The story and the passionate performances by Rai, Khan, and Devgan would be more than enough on their own to make this a stellar film - but Indian cinema gives you so much more than that. Music plays an integral part in the film, and every single musical scene is amazing (and, besides chapters, you can also jump directly to any musical number on the DVD). The one performance that really stands out, for me, is Nimbooda, which features Rai in a beguiling song and dance routine. Subtitles are always an issue with a foreign language film, but the English subtitles here are really rather good and certainly allow you to follow the film closely.

I'm having a hard time trying to convey the sheer magic of this incredible film. The love story puts Hollywood romances to shame, the performances are heart-felt and virtually guaranteed to make you laugh and cry, the cinematography is extraordinarily vivid, and I just can't get over how powerfully the film conveys the essence of true love. And even if you took all of that away, the mere opportunity to watch Aishwarya Rai for over three hours makes the DVD well worth the price. She is as talented as she is gorgeous.

This is yet another great example of when Bollywood films have the power to penetrate our hearts, open our minds and linger in our souls. Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam (Straight From the Heart--English translation) features beautiful, colorful and luscious cinematography, attractive and well-cast leading actors, melodious and soulful music, energetic dance numbers and a great combination of humor, high drama and romance.

Nandini (Aishwarya Rai) is the beautiful daughter of the singer, Pandit Darbar (Vikram Gokhale), who takes on a music pupil in Sameer (Salman Khan), a half-Italian/half-Indian young man who travels all the way from Italy to learn singing. Nandini falls in love with him, straight away. The conflict is that Vanraj (Ajay Devgan), a young lawyer, has sent a proposal to Pandit, requesting his daughter's hand in marriage. Once the two lovers are caught together, Pandit demands that Sameer leave and forget his daughter. The selfless and faithful Vanraj comes to know his wife, Nandini's love for Sameer, and promptly decides to reunite the two in Italy, even though he is very much in love with her.

This is a beautiful story about coming to learn the importance of respect and faith in a relationship, and how even the biggest tests can actually bring people together, overtime. Nandini must decide whether to follow her heart or her soul, when she is torn between the undying love of her husband or her love for Sam.

Great movie! Don't miss it. The three plus hours will fly by as you grow increasingly more engrossed in this romantic, intriguing and beautifully made film. I also reccomend I Have Found It, also starring Aishwarya Rai.

This is one of Bollywood's finest films to date.

At the heart of this story is a wonderful tale of what True Love is all about. Brilliant choreography, cinematography and script. This film won several awards at India's Filmfare Festival. Aishwarya Rai's best role.

Sameer is from Italy and goes to India to study traditional Indian Music under the tutelage of a master pundit. His daughter, Nandini, is not keen on the idea at first because she has to give up her room for her guest. Secondly, Sameer is a goofy nut and prankster but loves Nandini passionately from the heart. The same applies to his singing which has earned Pundit's interest to teach him, applying no fees for the lessons. Overtime, Nandini falls deeply in love with Sameer, not knowing her parents have arranged for her to marry Valraj, a respectable, honest but somewhat boring lawyer. Of course in any large family, there is a scheming relative who provides the catalyst for shattering the worlds of the lovers, stirring up a family feud and having Sameer evicted from the home as penance for his flirtatious whims with young Nandini. Both lovers part broken-hearted, most especially Nandini who falls into a lifeless stupor.

Nandini marries Valraj, the lawyer, but does not tell him of her love life with Sameer despite Valraj's request to base their marriage on truth and communication. He eventually finds out, and while at first angered by the news, does the bravest thing of all. He takes Nandini to Italy to rejoin her with her lover.

The trek to Italy is itself its own adventure. Nandini and Valraj have no leads to finding Sameer. They search from place to place asking individuals who might have seen him. They even have a bad interlude with the locals that put their lives in danger. Valraj is nonetheless steadfast in his quest which gradually earns Nandini's respect for him. Now, Nandini has a difficult choice to make as she begins to learn what true love really is.

This is an amazing story and definitely a tear jerker. It is true that the Italy scenes were filmed in Hungary, but that by no means, inhibits the plot. This is a Bollywood film keeper. Also, the CD is worth the buy.

Yes. Simply Outstanding. This is truly one of the best Bollywood movies to come out in a long, long time. A great commercial hit back in our India, it also swept all the major awards. Though I'm from India where Bollywood movies are compulsory watching, I dislike them for their absurdity but this film has me raving about it. Its simply fabulous.
Set in western India in a prosperous Gujarti household overflowing with people, lives Nandini, our heroine (the beautiful Ashwariya Rai), daughter of a renowned singer Pandit Durbar. Sameer (Salman Khan), a handsome young Italian who comes to learn classical music from the Pandit falls in love with his daughter. As the movie enfolds, we watch the beautifully enacted comedy of the star crossed lovers. But once the father comes to know, all hell breaks loose. Sameer is thrown out of the house, Nandini's heart is broken and she is married of to a young, respectable and well mannered suitor Vanraj (Ajay Devgan) who truly loves her but is detested by Nandini. But the husband also discovers about the affair, is heartbroken too, but decides to take Nandini to Italy to meet her lover.
As the plot moves to Italy (Hungary actually, which the director would have us believe as Italy), we are engaged in Nandini's and Vanraj's troubles of living in a foreign country, finding Sameer and living with each other. As she searches for her love, Nandini comes to know her husband and how much he truly loves her and realizes his grief and sense of loss in losing her. When she finally does find Sameer, she's torn between the two and must choose one of the them and break the heart of the other.
This is Bollywood at its best. Here the wonderful music that goes with this film, it underlines each scene with its sparkling melody. Also the set pieces are lavishly mounted and the music numbers burst upon the sceen. The movie is also very beautifully shot.
This movie also captures Ashwariya rai at her best. She is miraculously beautiful and lights up the screen whenever she's on it. All in all a must watch Bollywood affair. Iwould also recommend the same directorr's (Sanjay Leela Bhansali) Black, which is the story of a dumb, deaf and blind girl.

This is the first Hindi movie I ever bought. If you like hindi music and dancing, you'll love it, but after watching it once, you'll probably watch only the music sections in the future. The story is simple.. I just wonder how can anyone make an almost 3 hours movie out of such a simple story.

What is completely unforgivable is the fact that in the second part of the movie they try to make us think that they are in Italy when they are actualy in Hungary!! This is absurd and insulting: do the film makers think that we all are stupids??? How can they show hungarian typical dances and dialogues in hungarian language when they are suppossed to be in Italy. And further more, where was the Colisseum and all those monuments that characterize our image of Italy????

I give to this movie three stars for its music but just a half star for its story and production.

Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam (Straight From the Heart) is a beautiful movie, which draws you into a world of lush romance and bittersweet endings. I guess I'm a sucker for romance after all. There are several scenes in this film that will flat out make women cry and the menfolk tear up and surreptitiously reach for a hanky or a dirty sleeve. Well, maybe not the menfolk, as much. But I'm a guy and I'll tell the world there were instances where my heart either ached or/and soared and my vision became blurry. Now that could just be my eye prescription running out but, be that as it may, watching this film was truly a heady, eye-opening experience.

Skip this paragraph if you know the plot. It revolves around Nandini (the gorgeous Aishwarya Rai), daughter of a classical singer. She falls in love with her father's carefree half-Italian student, Sameer (Salman Khan). Vanraj (Ajay Devgan), son of a famous lawyer and a lawyer himself, sees and falls in love with Nandini and sends his proposal to Nandini's father, which is accepted. Nandini's father learns of her and Sameer's romance and demands Sameer forget Nandini. Vanraj marries Nandini and it's not until later in the marriage that he finds out that she still loves Sameer. Vanraj, out of love for his wife, takes Nandini to Italy to reunite her with her Sameer.

Just now, having read back what I've written in the previous paragraph, I must tell you that my words cannot do justice to the actual movie. The plot description above is flat and cold and abrupt compared to the rich tapestry woven in this film. It has so much heart and genuine emotions that, watching it, you feel you're breathing/soaking in every moment directly into your soul. Very dramatic, I know, but sue me, that's how I feel.

That the movie is 3 hours long shouldn't detract anyone from watching it. Trust me, it won't seem that long. The song numbers are across-the-board great. My two personal favorites are "Nimbooda" (the sour lime), wherein Vanraj falls in love with Nandini and the title song, "Hum Dil De Chuke", a lovely forlorn love ballad. By the way, yes, the scenes in Italy were actually shot in Hungary and no one's really fooling anyone here but I beg you, don't let that fact be a distraction.

The acting performances are superb, as they would have to be to elicit this kind of response from the viewers. The three leads are very very good. This is where Aishwarya Rai first flexed her acting muscles, as she goes thru the whole gamut of emotions, from the innocence and carefree happiness of a child to the mature, more subtle nuances that come with her acceptance of adulthood. She is, as ever, beautiful as the stars in the sky. This is my first sighting of Ajay Devgan and I'm sold on him as an actor. I guarantee that he will make you cry. Salman Khan is convincing as the free-spirited Sameer and you could see how a young girl could easily fall for this charming fella. He does a good job at the end of the movie when...well, I won't say.

Here in the states, where the emphasis is on the box office instead of art, 90% of the films are shallow, crass and formulaic. So I'm rarely exposed to movies such as this, which resonates, transports you to a different, seemingly more meaningful place and draws out deeper, richer feelings than those you would have when watching a buddy cop movie. This movie achingly throbs with images and ideas of duty, self-sacrifice, quiet faithfulness, and the meaning of true love. Dear viewer, watch this movie, you'll be swept away. You can thank me later. Now I'm back to watching Sportscenter because, while I'm a sensitive guy, I do have an image to uphold.

(SPOILERS....!!!)
I do love the colors and pageantry of Indian films. This one was one of the best, visually. It seems as though Nandini had a different sari on in every scene. That, I enjoyed very much, because the saris are just gorgeous. And so was Nandini. Sameer, on the other hand, though handsome, struck me more like an Indian Jerry Lewis with his demented need to be funny all the time. He was clearly the "comic relief" and, as such, it was a relief that the beauty did not choose the Indian Peter Pan in the end.

But my really big (B.I.G.) issue with this movie is how the director blatantly tried to pass off Budapest as being in "Italy". Surely this must be as insulting to most self-respecting, educated Indians as it is to Hungarians? Seriously, he could easily have presented Budapest as some city in Italy, if only he had not chosen to display the very well-known Hungarian panoramas of the Danube and the Hungarian Parliament as well as just about every single much-frequented tourist landmark in that city, and even including taxicabs with Hungarian writing on the side. I mean, filming in alternate locations is done all the time, but with a little more finesse and, generally, the filmmakers take pains to at least use the correct language and local customs and costumes for the intended backdrop. None of which happened here.

It gets worse... Not only did he try to pass off Budapest as being in Italy, all the "Italians" are speaking Hungarian! The closest you get to an Italian phrase in this movie is when they refer to "The church of the Santa Maria" which, in truth, is probably more a Latin name than it is Italian.

For me, a Hungarian (in case you haven't guessed...), this whole thing was very distracting and pretty laughable. Pity, really, since clearly this was a fairly big-budget production. And the storyline was kind of fun and unexpected too.

So, if you don't mind a tour of Budapest, a taste of Hungary, while trying to "imagine" you are in Italy, this is the movie for you. Overall, I did find the movie enjoyable and did not mind a good chuckle while I watched footage of my birth city, listened to my mother tongue and proceeded to get homesick just a little... Yes, pretty distracting, really...

This and Kuch Naa Kaho are my two absolute favorite Bollywood films.
This one just surpasses all for the music, costumes, singing, dancing, length of film you get for your dollar, acting, you name it.

Aishwarya Rai, Ajay Devgan, and Salman Khan give most excellent performances and all look picture perfect throughout the film. The scenery is amazing. This film is what I consider "monumental" as one can see the amount of time, effort that went into making this film.

Love, love and more love...the romance is intriguing-made me want to marry Ajay on the spot, but preferred Salman's light-hearted character a bit more.

I'm more than a little tired of the whole father picking the husband for the daughter routine-wish India would catch up with the western world in that respect, but glad to see it turned out all right in this film.

Highly recommended-buy the soundtrack too and blast it while driving around town. I can't tell you the bizaare looks I get when I get to a stop light and folks hear Hindi music!! Make your neighborhood culturally aware :)

What a beautiful movie the settings are superb and the music and dance number are awesome. The story line is great Aishwarya and Salman Khan did a wonderful job in the movie. When watching the movie you will be swept away and time will not matter. Great movie to watch.

It's nice to read the reactions from Bollywood novices about this film. It it a great introduction and I am glad it's available on the Western market now. I've been watching many and most major Bollywood films of the last 10 years, and this is in my top ten. It is the best Aishwarya Rai film also.

The story is exemplary for Hindi movies: it shines with high values and emotions. By portraying Nandini and her cousin's fate in marriage it also raises critical issues with the own society, while still celebrating its values. Particularly here: the sanctity of marriage, responsibility and true love (refer to what St. Paul writes about love in his 1st epistle to the Corinthians 1Cor 13:4f). Do notice the role that religion plays in the turn of events (typical for Indian films). This example is particularly remarkable, as you notice Sameer's Christian background, and how much his special spiritual connection is influential in the turn of events, almost ironically.

The songs Nimbooda and Chant Chupa are masterpieces, and the title song is also beautiful. Notice how all songs have a function in the story line and are not just interruptions like they are in your typical "musical" (for the worst example I think of "Chicago"). Song in Bollywood films carries the story to another layer, and can express emotions, dreams and fears of one or even multiple charatcers interwoven at the same time, the lyrics are poetic.

Be aware of one blunder upfront: they sell you Budapest and Hungarian as Rome and Italian. That's quite silly to try and very unlike the general understanding of the World at large that Indians have. If you know this problem, you don't have to worry during the film, it is a minor problem in the grand scheme of things. Don't get hung up on it!

Finally this film strikes with a particular sincerity. Take note of the dedication of the director (?) and Sameer's final words: "father, come and hold me, just once". And you see that this special relationship (or lack thereof) that Sameer has with his father seems to communicate something very personal from the director himself.

This is a great love story and a wonderful celebration of values. Aishwarya at her best. Make sure to check out other films with Ajay Devgan also. Particularly, watch the pairing of Aish and Ajay in "Raincoat".