Siddique's Bodyguards 2: Song Comparison

The first full song promo from the Hindi language version of Siddique's Bodyguard is out, and I found it interesting to compare it to the same song setting in the original Malayalam version.

Here's a little bit of background to the setting of the Malayalam song:  Jayakrishnan (Dileep) arrives at the home of Ashokan (Thiagarajan), a businessman who has been reformed from a shady past, wanting to be his bodyguard.  Ashokan feels he has no need for a bodyguard, and sends Jayakrishnana away.  However, a threat to Ashokan and his family suddenly materializes, so Ashokan hires Jayakrishnan on to be the bodyguard for his daughter Ammu (Nayanthara).

Ammu, keen to rid herself of the bodyguard, decides to invent a “secret admirer” for Jayakrishnan, calling him from a private number so she cannot be traced as the source of the calls.  What starts out as a game for Ammu, and an annoyance for Jayakrishnan, slowly blossoms into an actual romance;  Jayakrishnan falls in love with this mystery girl, and Ammu slowly realizes that her bodyguard is a very sweet, shy guy, and she, too, finds herself falling in love.

This sets the stage for the song "Arikathayaro".  At this point in the film, the bodyguard, Jayakrishnan, is clearly in love, but he has no idea who his secret admirer is:

 

 

 

And now, here's the Hindi version, the song "I Love You":

 

 

What I absolutely love about the Malayalam Bodyguard is how Dileep takes this very one-dimensional bodyguard with definite ideas of how he should behave and do his job and peels back the layers to reveal the very sweet, decent man hiding underneath.  And the one thing I find baffling is seeing Salman Khan in that role,  because if Dileep reminds me of anyone in Hindi cinema, it’s Govinda – it’s a role that calls for sweetness, gentleness, the occasional bit of slapstick, and an ability to turn in some pretty serious “dishoom-dishoom” as required (although, of the two, Govinda is far and away the better dancer.  Sadly, he's also too old for a role like this). 

That said, you can see clearly from "I Love You" that the Hindi version knows clearly who the audience for this film is, and what they expect to see from Salman Khan, right down to that little touch of the deflating football.

 

And now, I suppose that I should stop pilfering from my Bodyguard notes and actually put up that post about the film, eh?

Comments

[Larissa]

oy, the deflating football! ::face palm::

[katherine]

@Larissa Oh, but it's just so very, truly Salman, no?

To be honest, what's kind of bothering me about the Hindi version is all the talk of adding in item numbers. Oh -- and did you notice? The little person seems to be out, and a very big guy seems to be in. Interesting all of it, how stuff shifts in moving the story from one cinematic tradition to another.

[Larissa]

Yeah, very Salman, and very gross :-P (Although the *look* Kareena gives him is pretty hilarious, bless her!)

I can't believe how Hindi films have gone crazy over item numbers post-Munni! The only one I heard about for Bodyguard is a "James Bond inspired" opening credits number featuring Salman and Katrina Kaif.

I think the very big guy is playing the role that Vadivelu played in the Tamil version. Did Dileep have a goofy sidekick in the Malayalam version?

As for whether the little person will make it in or not, that remains to be seen! :-)

[katherine]

Re: comic sidekick: yes and no. Dileep's character doesn't arrive with one. When the he and the girls move into accomodations near the college, two of the household servants are sent with them, one of them they guy in the Mallu clip who whaps Dileep with the mop. So he serves as comic relief/sidekick sometimes, but he's much more in the background in the Mallu original.

[meenkaran]

Interesting comparison! Dileep is an actor who has only 1 strength and that is comedy. He is not that good in serious scenes and action movies, but in comedy he is no 1 in malayalam. I thought Body Gaurd did not exploit his comic skills enough, and tried too much to make him an action hero. That was one of the reasons I didn't enjoy the movie much.

I recently saw one of his old Hits on TV - Punjabi House. I recommmend you to check it out if you get a chance. :)

[katherine]

@meenkaran I'm kind of relieved to hear you didn't enjoy Bodyguard -- I really liked the story premise and the twist, and there's a lot of it I did like, but I found it kind of let me down overall. I've not seen a lot of Dileep's films, but I am quite struck at how he reminds me of Govinda in what I have seen, so perhaps it's no surprise that you say he's better in comedies.

I'll keep an eye out for Punjabi House :-)