Fiza (2000)

An unexpected masterpiece

A lot more amusing than I thought it would be.

Go in cold, and you're likely to emerge with your blood boiling. This has to be seen to be believed.

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

This film portrays a sensitive issue for the Indian community.An issue that has seen many horrible faces in the past,The religious clashes destroys the mind of an youth,in order to survive, in order to seek answers, in order to find the people responsible for the major change in his life he slowly falls a prey to politics and corrupted religious warmongers. Misleading him to a path of no return and revenge it ultimately triggers his own destruction. Another side of the story is a fight of a sister for her brother, a strong woman who wants back the happiness that was taken away. the film has minor essence of romance as well as comedy, but the main plot remains untarnished and well portrayed. This film is for mature audience who can view it with open mind rather than debating on whose fault it is ( ie Hindu or Muslim ).The acting is very good, and most of the actors did a very good performance.The music lightens the heavy topic at times and very well composed by A.R Rehman. The movie is not any masala flick with cheap actions and actresses getting semi nude, neither it has very big names that merely gets praises buy stupid dialogs. it shows a very ordinary Indian life with the bitter reality. If you want story, go for this.( This is no Karan Johar film, so you will not find multimillionaire love stories or actors living with sadness in big palaces in foreign locations )

Having not really watched Bollywood films, since the days of the action movies of the 70's & 80's, I wasn't really interested in watching the more recent offerings from Bollywood, since I assumed they were mostly love stories and were full of songs which had no reason for being there.But, having watched a few (subtitled) films shown as part of an Indian season over here in the UK, I've started to change my mind.I watched Fiza last night and even though it was full of songs and was let down slightly by the second half, I was amazed to find a film dealing with the Bombay Hindu/Muslim riots of 1993 and it's consequences on a Muslim family.It starts with the 1993. Amaan (Hrithik Roshan) lives with his mother (Jaya Bachchan) and sister Fiza (Karishma Kapoor). One night Amaan goes out into the riot-stricken streets of Bombay and disappears. We then jump to 1999 and the first half of the film then deals with the consequences, as Fiza determines to find her brother.Through flashback we find out what happened, as Amaan finds himself a outsider in his own country, but the real reasons for his disappearance are only discovered when Fiza discovers her brother hiding out with terrorists.I won't reveal the rest of the story, but I will say, it was refreshing to see a film from the Indian-Muslim viewpoint and having central characters who were Muslim. Being British and of Indian-Hindu descent, I hadn't really thought about it before.I know the film isn't an in-depth look at the problem or even that it represents Indian-Muslims in general, but it did open my eyes slightly to the problems facing India today, especially since the recent (2002) Hindu/Muslim riots in Gujarat showed how bad the violence could be and how much politics played it's part in them.One last point, the performances from the three main leads is excellent. Hrithik Roshan was much better than I expected, but Jaya Bachchan and Karishma Kapoor were really outstanding.Although, not a perfect film and still very Bollywood in it's style, I still found it much better then the standard Bollywood fare and I would highly recommend it.

My husband and I really enjoyed this movie. The music is great, and the story was really really good. I think this was a great way to introduce us to Hindi movies since the story was so compelling and included a look at Hindu/Muslim relations that Americans don't really know or understand. Plus the cinematography was beautiful. After seeing this one, we hardly watch any english language movies anymore! Go Bollywood!

A powerful movie with superb acting from all the actors and actresses. Beautifully choreographed music. This movie was the best movie I've seen this year. Hrithik Roshan is a brilliant actor as the role he played was very demanding.Karisma Kapoor was also outstanding and the special appearance by Sushmita Sen was in a class of its own ! Go and watch the movie with an open mind. You will not be dissappointed!