Hema Malini Movies

Pradeep Sarkar's Bollywood drama Laaga Chunari Mein Daag concerns two sisters who learn that life is not nearly as simple in the big city as it was when they grew up in a loving family in their rural home. Soon both of them make compromises that lead to a loss of innocence. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide

A star-crossed love affair has political as well as emotional repercussions in this Bollywood romantic drama. Veer Pratap Singh (Shah Rukh Khan) is an officer and pilot in the Indian Air Force who one day meets a beautiful Pakistani heiress, Zaara Hayaat Khan (Preity Zinta), as she travels to a small Indian village to scatter the ashes of one of her family's loyal servants. Veer has family in the village, and while most Indians show no affection for Pakistanis, his aunt and uncle are willing to take Zaara in for the night. It isn't long before Veer finds himself falling for her; however, Veer learns that Zaara is engaged to another man, Raza (Manoj Bajpai), a cruel and humorless Pakistani. A friend of Zaara contacts Veer and tells him that Zaara wants out of her engagement and has strong feelings for him, but when he comes to her rescue, matters take a turn for the worse and Veer winds up in jail. Twenty years later, Veer is still behind bars, and finds that his case is being given a new trial, but while he has a new chance at freedom, he discovers his lawyer will be going up against a state attorney who has never lost a case. Veer-Zaara was one of the first Indian blockbusters to open in India, the United States, and the United Kingdom at the same time. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

This 1975 film provides a superb look at popular Hindi cinema. Although it can be called an adventure, it has a spaghetti-western storyline, martial-arts sequences, comedy, soap-opera melodrama, and even musical numbers, including an early scene that has the two main characters riding a motorcycle and singing like Elvis Presley in the carnival flick, Roustabout. The film itself is indeed a carnival, and many of the features produced by India's popular movie industry exhibit a similar mixture of ingredients in an attempt to meet the audience's every possible expectation. Veeru (Dharmendra) and Jaidev (Amitabh Bachchan) are two small-time troublemakers who, in the past, have run afoul of Thakur Baldev Singh (Sanjeev Kumar); the Thakur, a former law officer, has seen the pair's heroic nature despite their criminal ways. When a gang of bandits led by Gabbar Singh (Amjad Khan) murders the Thakur's family and cuts off his arms, rendering him helpless rather than killing him, he enlists Veeru and Jaidev to help him seek revenge. In the Thakur's rural village, the two bandits find romance and a hope for redemption and seek to free the village from Gabbar and his minions. The massive appeal in India of films like Sholay becomes evident; surprisingly, it succeeds in almost every genre it attempts to play. ~ Jonathan E. Laxamana, All Movie Guide