Product Details

• Actors: Rekha, Anil Kapoor, Jackie Shroff, Madhuri Dixit, Ajay Devgan
• Directors: Rajkumar Santoshi
• Writers: Rajkumar Santoshi, Ashok Raut, Ranjit Kapoor
• Producers: Rajkumar Santoshi
• Format: Classical, Color, Dubbed, DVD, Subtitled, NTSC
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: Unrated
• Studio: Eros
• DVD Release Date: March 25, 2003
• Run Time: 202 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00008W2M7
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #38,472 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Lajja" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

47 of 48 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars So many famous Bollywood stars in one 3 1/2 hour film., November 23, 2004

By 

Rykre "The Rogue Scholar" (of the vast Western Dystopian Wasteland) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lajja (DVD)

The story is about a typical traditional Indian girl (Manisha Koirala) who marries a wealthy Westernized Indian guy (Jackie Shroff), who takes her to america to start a new life. Her husband begins right away, to show her that their marriage has very little integrity as he flaunts casually with other women and expects her to be just as loose as he. She is totally displeased with her husband and wants to leave him to go back to India. So, he doesn't care. "Go!", he says. But then, later, he (Jackie Shroff) has a car accident and is injured below the belt. And, as a result of the accident, he is now totally incapable of having a child, and his father expects him to have a son to be an heir to the family wealth. Later, he discovers that his wife who has left him, IS pregnant with his baby. He has no interest in saving his marriage, however, his father encourages him to send some of his hired goons to search for her in India, and kill her after the baby is born, and bring the baby back to him.

The movie really begins to take off from here as his wife is constantly on the run from her husband and his hired goons. She encounters other people throughout the film. So, basically you will get about three more little sub-stories within this film, all leaning on the subject of women and abuse from the men in their lives. There is a lesson to be learned from all of this, as you can see the dark side of their warped male-dominate religion, as if women were second-class people or less.

Also, many Bollywood favorites are all over this film. Manisha Koirala, Jackie Shroff, Mahima Chaudhary, Madhuri Dixit, Anil Kapoor, Ajay Devgan, Rekha, Aarti Chabria (I wish she would do more movies, she's gorgeous), and Johnny Lever just to name a few. This movie also has three great music videos, which star Urmila Matondkar, Sonali Bendre, and Madhuri Dixit.

This is a beautiful, and yet terrifying film. I highly recommend it. If you enjoyed "The Joy Luck Club", this movie will move you as well. And I'm sure you can find this movie alot cheaper if you just go to an Indian goods store and ask them to order it for you. Or you can order on-line (I like to order Indian DVD's from Nehaflix). You can go to IndiaFM.com and check them out as well. I go there to download wallpapers and pix of my favorite Bollywood stars from India.

Check it out.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars More Subtitles, Please!!, February 5, 2005

By 

Camelback (Phoenix, AZ, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lajja (DVD)

I'm not sure if it was simply my edition of this DVD, but the subtitles in it were quite sparsely placed. There were whole sections of the movie in which there were no subtitles at all, which only made me feel excluded from what I thought was a truly wonderful movie. So many great actors and such a valuable social commentary--from what I could understand, this movie really moved me. I understood the essentials; I just wish I could have had more subtitles, so that I could have been admitted further into the tragic, but ultimately heroic world of these Indian women.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not brilliant, but impactful..., October 24, 2006

By 

Chandni Dendukuri (Plano,TX,USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Lajja (DVD)

The plot was interesting enough to get me to watch the movie - a story that narrates the tale of four different women as seen and experienced by one of them. And despite its melodrama, obvious cliches and a lot hamming, the movie made an impact. The central protagonist, or the sutradhar, is Vaidehi (Manisha Koirala). She is the wife of a NRI tycoon - who feels lost in his materialistic world that she finds debase and unfulfilling.

Vaedehi's attempt to escape from this shallow world and preserve her integrity in the process, takes her on a journey - a journey which brings her face to face with some stark, brutal reality. Through her eyes, we witness lives that remind us of the grim situation that continues to exist in India even today. Lives that are representative of the greatest ironies of Indian society - where the female form is worshipped as goddesses on one hand and defiled through practices of dowry, infanticide and rape on the other hand.
The story weaves in an out of the lives of the four protagonists --

Vaidehi, the wife of a selfish, egotistical man. She's being hunted by him and is on the run. A flight the takes off falteringly, but ends with her soaring to reach out for the purposeful-ness she is searching for.

Mythili, the college-educated demure middle-class girl who displays spunk in revolting against the back-breaking dowry demands and the constant humiliation suffered by her father at the hands of her future in laws.

Janaki, the bold and independent small town stage actress who is unabashed about her pre-marital pregnant status - and rises up against the hypocritical standards of proprietary that society imposes solely upon women.

Ramdulaari, the progressive, backward-caste mid-wife living in a small village somewhere in northern India who challenges the oppressive ways of the upper-caste local politician - plodding relentlessly to uplift the dismal status of the women folk.

As the story progresses, we find ourselves, like Vaidehi, drawn into the plight of these women, and are left stunned, disgusted and shamed. Overly-dramatic they maybe, but the tales being played out are real stories of real women in contemporary India. And not too different from Vaidehi, we are left in awe of the way these women choose to stand up and face their grim situation bravely and courageously.

Amongst the performances, Madhuri Dixit steals the show. She sizzles as the brassy nautanki-actress who lives life on her own terms. The entire 'Ramayan' sequence that conveys what is essentially the crux of the movie, is sterling. It draws an analogy between the life of Sita and these women, questions the double standards that exist in the entire Agni Pariksha episode and goes a step further to state that Ram's victory over Ravana would have been futile had it not been for Sita's will to keep Ravan's overtures at bay. Madhuri competently emotes the myriad emotions of heartbreak, disbelief, agony and rage that the character, Janaki, goes through during the course of the stage play - as backstage, she is confronted with the reality of her own life that is coming apart.

The other female leads are adequate and do justice to the roles they are called to enact. The chilling gang-rape scene is chilling and portrayed sensitively, managing to do what it is meant to do - make one cringe.

The male actors complement the female characters and do not attempt to hog the screen. They are presented to us in varying shades of morality - the self-indulgent,arrogant husband (Jackie Shroff); the good-hearted small time thief played by Anil Kapoor. The larger than life, super-heroic Robin Hood-ish Bulla (Ajay Devgan),a character which feels a tad out of place in this tale that is principally intended to be 'feminist' in tone.

The movie by no means is perfect or brilliant. There are plenty of factors that dilute the movies tone and pace - the comedy track, some hackneyed scenes and a lot of true bollywood style high voltage drama. And it never really achieves to strike the chords of conscience in the manner Rajkumar Santoshi's earlier film 'Damini' did. Neither does it match the morally complex terrain 'Damini' drags us into. The situations and characters are either white or black - lacking the subtlety that blurs the line between right and wrong in real-life situations . The only too human mental conflict that a Rishi Kapoor's character goes through is missing, rendering the situations and the people a little unrealistic - and our own involvement in the movie fleeting, being held only as long as the movie lasts.

Nevertheless, I found it engrossing - absorbing enough to make me write about it. And Madhuri Dixit was definitely worth the watch.