Happy New Year (2014)

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hi, I'm Shorrop Dash, also known as my stage name is Kili.

(00:08):
And I'm learning ballet, hip hop, freestyle, and contemporary.
Yeah.
Like, I think it will take me two weeks and I can win.
Is this your test? Are you testing the mic?

(00:31):
Yeah, I'm testing my mood as well.
No, yeah, I'm just testing my...Nicky says something in the mic.
Mooding.
In the awale. I don't know the lyrics so I just keep saying it.
Yeah, that's enough.
Hi, I'm Winnie. Well, you didn't test Winnie's, dude.

(00:52):
You have to like raise your...
I'm Winnie. I have the perfect podcast voice.
Is this recording it? Are the levels good?
Yeah.
And have we done mine yet?
No.
See, then we're not done testing, are we? Hello.

(01:24):
Welcome to Fear of Stairs, Desi Films decoded.
The podcast where four friends from different backgrounds unlock the world of Desi's cinema.
I'm Winnie, the Desi who's never been to India.
Hi, I'm Sourav, also known as Kili.
Yeah, and I watched a film this time.
Yeah.

(01:46):
Nicky, a very festive person.
And I'm Adam. I'm the Western Film buff.
And this week I learned that Happy New Year starts in October, I guess, for Indian movies.
It's the first time this movie has affected us emotionally and maybe even physically.

(02:10):
I think I physically rose from my chair watching it a few times and Kili was like on his knees on the ground.
Yeah, I fell down after so far.
Couple of times.
Couldn't, yeah.
I will say this is, so this is the first movie I've ever been like totally tricked by.
Like, we were talking, it kind of like did SEO jacking before that was a thing.

(02:31):
This movie came out in 2014, right?
Yeah.
It's called Happy New Year.
And actually, so we should explain the reason we picked this film is because it's going to come out the first week of next year, right?
Or of 2020, what year?
2026.
2025.
Oh, Adam's living in the future.
Oh, I'm losing it.

(02:52):
So it's going to come out the first week of 2025.
So we wanted to pick a movie for that and this was the first time I ever saw something that was just so misleading straight from the title, but we'll get into that.
Have you actually seen this movie before?
I think so.
I remember some scenes from the film.
Kili is really quick to throw out.
Like, I've seen this already and then immediately during the movie was what happens next?

(03:16):
What happens next?
What's going on?
I think that was, I think this was your first experience probably.
No, I remember some scenes.
I don't know how.
I think I watched this.
You think?
You were so confident that you didn't like the movie, but you're not confident you watched this.
He was so adamant that we never watched it and he was like, I have seen it before.
I am authority on this.

(03:38):
There are so many Bollywood films you don't have to watch to keep the verdict that it's a bad film.
Oh, you're judging a book by its cover.
It's a certain kind of film, it has certain kind of dialogues, you see the trailer and you are damn sure that it's a bad film because it comes from Bollywood.
You have not seen the movie though.
You did lie to say you saw it.

(04:01):
I think I saw it.
You did see it.
So you finally saw it with us.
You had the time of your life, Winnie, as the person that picked this movie from a Google search.
What happened and what were your thoughts?
Well, I think I watched the first hour with you guys and I was miserable.
What the fuck is this?
And then I fell asleep at some point and I decided to just go home and sleep.

(04:22):
So I actually have not watched this movie.
So when you took the film, we all watched it.
Killie had a change of heart and Winnie ultimately was the one that didn't like it at all.
It was really dumb.
I'm glad that you guys enjoyed it though.
I enjoyed it in the worst way possible. It's just the most stupidest thing I've ever seen in this podcast's lifetime.

(04:45):
I'm excited to top it though.
Alright, so hit us with the plot.
So Happy New Year is basically a heist movie.
Can we just, sorry, really quickly, when did this movie debut?
Because this is going to tie into the theme of this movie.
Right.
We thought Happy New Year was going to premiere sometime around New Year's Eve.

(05:06):
But apparently it premiered in October, which was Diwali at the time.
I think that was the intention.
Yeah, I mean, so in America, you know, we have all these holiday themed movies that come out on that day.
Because that's the point. Valentine's Day comes out on Valentine's Day.
We picked Happy New Year because for the episode is going to come out for New Year's.

(05:28):
So we're like, hey, let's relate it.
I was stunned to hear it came out in October and I think that's like part of a larger theme of this movie.
Where they just picked a random name and it has nothing to do with New Year whatsoever.
I think just little, small little references to New Year.
Diwali is New Year for some countries in India.
Yeah, that's why I assume that they're just tying New Year to Diwali.

(05:51):
It's like Songran for Thailand.
Yeah, some people in India celebrate their New Year in Diwali.
But the New Year happening on screen, like just referred once or twice, is not Diwali New Year.
New Year gets thrown like it's they mentioned New Year's Eve like three, four times, but it's not even like there is no New Year theme to it.

(06:17):
It just takes place during New Year's Eve.
I don't know if that counts.
Yeah, they don't mention Diwali.
I mean, that's for the.
No, it's not.
It's not.
So one thing, I mean, this is the whole dance competition where the show off happens.
It took place in New Year's Eve.
Yeah, there we go.
New Year.
Right.
So my point that it coming out October dance.

(06:39):
There's nothing.
So I remember when I was a kid, the IFA award, it's like a film fair awards for Indian like Bollywood films used to be hosted in Dubai or somewhere in the Middle East like this, where the film is happening.
And the set was used to be very similar to what the set in the film is. And that used to happen on the 31st Eve.

(07:05):
So that's the only connection I could make because I'm like feeling forced to build a connection that how it can be New Year.
Like I'm just stressing a lot because there is nothing to hold on to.
More than the movie date because then coming out October, they did not give a shit.
Well, I think you guys reached the conclusion that this was SEO marketing, right? And really effective because that's how we found it.

(07:27):
We just happened to have been happy new year about it.
We ended up watching it. It worked. And we also found out this is the funny part about doing this podcast with Kelly too, because like Kelly is like, I've never seen it in this movie sucks blah blah and whatever.
But then we find out it was like the highest grossing Indian film at the time.
He's like, oh shit, really? Like he's very fingers not on the pulse. What's going on? He's like never heard of it before. It's like a huge film.

(07:52):
It turns out it's a pretty big star cast as well as Shahrukh Khan, Abhishek Bachchan and Deepika. Yeah, that's an A-list cast.
I mean, it worked. You type in happy New Year's. You saw the let's literally what you posted. You're like, this is the movie. This is the cast.
And we ended up watching it. It worked.
But it also could have worked if it had to do with New Year's. It probably would have been better. Our expectations would have been set better.

(08:14):
No, I don't think so. They would screw up in some way.
Like more than they already screwed up?
Yeah, this movie. So there is a thing. I was telling this thing. This movie is antithesis of everything it saves.
It's like the director Farah Khan, she's a choreographer and the main group in the film, they can't dance and the dance numbers are awful.

(08:38):
She's a woman and this film is so misogynistic. The characters are so misogynistic and she's a woman.
And then there is this dance competition happening and the sponsor is an insurance company and everything gets stolen during the competition.
So it's like every single decision they could have made, they went with the wrong one, including the release date.

(09:06):
Can we talk about how there's a little bit I remember from the film is that there's a female character who kind of just falls in love every time a male character speaks perfect English.
Let's get in the plot. Let's pick it off.
I'm going to do a rundown of all the characters first. So it's a Happy New Year is a high smoothies. It's your typical India. It's like India's answer to Ocean's 11.

(09:27):
I don't think so.
Okay, we can agree to disagree. It can be Ocean's 11. Now you see me, whatever.
How is it not really quick? How is it not? Dude, it's a high smoothies.
I mean, I see you.
This is a school for high school.
Is it like Tower Heist with Ben Stiller?
It's unintentional school film.
Okay, but unintentional. That means they didn't do it. That means it is not. It's at the Ocean's 11.

(09:48):
I don't want it to represent India's high school.
It's too late. But buddy, that's enough to you. It does.
It's a high school from India.
Okay, it's in the vein of Ocean's 11.
In the vein of Ocean's 11.
Not exactly carbon copy.
Because Ocean's 11 is like cult classic.
So is this buddy? It was a high school film.
It is not cult classic.
Yeah, it is. It was as big of a hit as Ocean's 11 was. I'm sorry, but this is part of cinema.

(10:15):
You guys are right.
This is a star studded, high school film.
This is B-Film.
That made a huge change.
Like Ocean's 11.
Yeah, and Happinyo is what Bollywood represents.
Okay, thank you.
It is.
So anyway, you have your character, right?
Shahrukh Khan, obviously plays the lead.

(10:36):
He plays Charlie.
He's like very heroic, very invincible.
What a surprise. Shocker.
Nothing can go wrong. He's a womanizer, obviously.
He's our main character, right?
And then you'll have a guy named, I think it's Sonu Suud as Jag.
So this guy is like massive, jacked, massively jacked.

(10:58):
He's like a meathead.
And like he's supposed to be like, so I found out like, so his character is like, has some loony tunes as quality in the beginning.
Cause like, you know, when he gets angry, he like steam comes out of one year.
One year.
So I found out that they actually briefly explained in the movie that he's ex bomb squad and he lost an ear.

(11:19):
That's why it's only one steam.
But that's so weird for the Bollywood film to never bring up again why it's one year.
You think it'd be some plot device or at the very end of the finale, like he uses the one ear to like blast someone.
It's weird that, cause that seems like a weird, weird detail.
Cause it's a cartoon steam coming out of his ear and not the other side.

(11:40):
It's weird that they don't bring up why.
I think it's one of those cases where we shouldn't be questioning too much about the film.
Okay, fine, fair.
But the nice hallmark about the Bollywood films is like, he says like they do repeat themselves every five minutes.
If you're looking at your phone, like they'll just tell you.
Critics say it's Ocean's Eleven written by baboons, right?
It's Ocean's Eleven written by baboons.

(12:02):
Are you still fixated on this? Ocean's Eleven? Go on.
So you have, you have Charlie, Sonosuit is Jagged.
And then you have the, the safecracker Bowman, Irani as Tammy, which is like, he's this guy that like has epileptic seizures.
Every now and then.
And he likes to take out things from his bag and is the safecracker.
And his seizure is just for 30 seconds every time.

(12:25):
Yeah.
For whatever reason.
I don't, I guess seizures are funny. I don't know.
So anyway.
They're the funniest.
Yeah, seizures are super funny.
And then you have Vivan's Shaw as Rohan Singh, which is like this young, young emo looking hacker straight from 2008, 2009.
He looks like Drake Bell, right?
Looks like Drake Bell.
You know, and when he hacks, you have those typical like CGI-esque monitor screens where like they do these cheesy.

(12:50):
I love like, there was a point where he like, this engages some, some, some device by hacking.
And it's just comes out like valve opened or something.
Or like lasers deactivated.
Laser deactivated.
Yeah. It's the nicest animation possible.
I love that hacking software.
And then you have Abhishek Bachchan, who I've.

(13:12):
I think his character sucks, man.
He sucks.
He's, he's in a dual role as Nandu Bide.
He's like this drunkard and he's supposed to like do this, like play up a disguise for the heist.
But in, in the movie, it's like a dual role.
He, he also portrays like the villain's son.
Yeah.
Named, what was that again?

(13:34):
Vicky.
Vicky Grover.
Yeah.
That's such a weird name.
His superpower is like he can puke anytime.
He can puke anytime.
Okay.
This was another thing that wasn't paid off at all.
No, no, no.
He puked in that room because at the, at the, before the climax in like the final scene.
Did it do anything though?
They were assigned to the green room at the beginning, right?

(13:56):
That's was the whole point that way.
Why they joined the dance competition because team India will be given that dance room.
But when they were finalists, that, that, that green room was like assigned to English team.
And then that's why it goes into that room and pukes so that the English team is like disgusted and doesn't use that room.

(14:17):
So they just change, exchange this room.
Okay.
What a cool superpower.
I mean, anyone could have done that.
Yeah.
I mean, like,
So you have your fight, you have your five guys and then you have the female lead.
I don't know.
I'm sorry.
I'm going to put your name deep pick up.
But it's gone.
She plays as Mohini Joshi.
She's like this.

(14:38):
She's basically like the dancer of the group because in happy new year, it's a heist film,
but it takes place at a dance competition.
And like these, these five men needed help from a female lead, I guess.
And she's the one that, you know, brings them all in and teaches them.
Yeah, it was too much a sausage fist.
They needed a woman.

(14:59):
They need a woman and she loves English.
Yeah.
Well, but also it just to put it, she works at like a Mulan Rouge place.
Yeah.
Like they literally took the interior design of Mulan Rouge and replaced Nicole Kidman
with her.
And so she's kind of like the dancer there at this very fancy brothel, I guess, right?

(15:21):
Yeah.
It's like, it's like that.
Anyway, I guess,
Don't forget the emotional appearance.
And there's an emotional appearance.
I have no idea what that is.
Yeah.
So this is the funniest thing because we saw that on screen.
We see the whole cast and I've never seen this before.
And I even Googled this and it couldn't give me a good answer.
It says emotional appearance by who?
Anupam Kher.
Okay.

(15:42):
So have you seen that term before?
Emotional appearance?
Never.
This is the, I've never seen that.
It's usually like special thanks to if someone is like doing some big star is doing like
a small role.
This is like special appearance, guest appearance.
Yeah.
This is very common in Bollywood.
Same.
I mean Hollywood too.
Yeah, but not emotional.
Emotional appearance was like, I guess, I like Google's best guest was like,

(16:08):
It makes everyone feel emotions when he's on there.
It's like, it's like flashing, you know, like MLK's face on the screen or whatever,
but this guy's alive.
He kills himself.
So that's cool.
Wait, so he does appear in the movie.
It's not like he's just there in spirit.
No, he's really there.
I mean, he's spirit at the end because he kills himself.
Oh, maybe that's what they mean by emotional.
He's also physically there as an actor.

(16:31):
So first I thought only his photo is used or something like that.
That's maybe that's why emotional.
I thought he inspired the film or something.
He's like giving like a video call like he's like zooming in.
Hey, everyone, how are you doing?
But he is properly in the film like he's acting.
So is he very famous?
That's why they had to give him a special credit like that.
Yeah, definitely.
But the term is like emotional appearance.

(16:54):
He's a politician.
So who is this guy?
No, he's not.
He's a political stooge.
Okay.
What's the difference, Kelly?
Adam's like, this is an actor like from Bollywood who just sucks up to the.
But I thought he's politically involved.

(17:15):
Yeah, you said he was a big supporter of the BJP.
He doesn't.
He's not in active politics.
He's the cultural support of the politics.
Okay.
Yeah.
Right.
He's representing in his cultural support.
Yeah, the pro Hindu.
Okay.
BJP.
Yeah.
I mean his wife, who is also an actor.

(17:38):
She is in politics, like active politics.
Yeah.
Okay.
So a lot of political influence.
Yeah.
And anyways, big emotional in this film.
Huh?
We see Modi in this film.
Modi's in this film?
Actor.
I look alike.
Oh.
That would be a bit insane.
It was weird.
Um, yeah, but anyways, emotional appearance.

(17:59):
That was very special.
I didn't know if that was like a common thing or not, but okay.
So it's just weird for this movie.
Yeah.
Okay.
Cool.
Anyway, so the, I guess the majority, the, the, the first few scenes in the beginning
is just, you know, a shower con.
He's just playing the hero type as usual.
He has to form the team.
So we one by one were introduced to the, to, to, wait, wait, wait, why is he forming a

(18:21):
team?
Why is he for, why is he forming a team?
Because he, we find, and we don't find this out in the beginning.
We find this out later.
We find out that, uh, basically his father was, is basically like a, a, a safe maker.
Uh, he's like, he owned, he's, he's been contracted to build the most advanced safe

(18:42):
system for this guy, our villain, Charon Grover.
Uh, Charon Grover is basically, he's described as like this African arms dealer, diamond
dealer or something.
I don't, I don't remember what he deals in, but basically diamonds.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Diamonds.
He, he, he, he orders, he orders shower cons, uh, father to, to build the safe.

(19:03):
And here's the small connection to the title.
It's like during New Year's Eve, when they, when they're finishing, when, when his father
finally built the safe is that, uh, Charon, Charon, the bad, the bad guy just, just drugs
and then frames his ass into stealing the diamonds.
And, and then like, you know, his father was in prison and then we later find out that,

(19:27):
uh, he committed suicide.
So that, that motivates Charon's character to steal from, from Charon Grover, form a team
through the heist.
So the dad is the emotional appearance, by the way, that's that actor.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So the emotional appearance is this dad who got blamed and kills himself, like cuts
the, the vein in his juggler in the hand.

(19:51):
Is that your fantasy of him?
No, actually, if you cut your hand like that, you don't, don't die because your blood will
coagulate, stop flowing bleeding at one point.
You may pass out, but you won't die.
So in order to die, you have to,
At fear of stairs, we want you to correctly commit suicide.
Uh, in order to die, you have to drown your hand, you know, like a cold water or something

(20:15):
so that the blood doesn't coagulate.
Okay.
Thank you.
I don't want to disseminate that info.
So was this movie scientifically inaccurate in the way that the father died?
12 movie mistakes.
This movie does not commit suicide correctly.
This is a bad way to kill yourself.
Kids, don't do this.
You won't die correctly.

(20:36):
Maybe they're doing it for the kids that are watching.
There is another way to die.
Like if you're in a jail and you don't have any access to anything and use some like,
like open your eyes, like the, um, like what is the film?
The clock, clock, orange and make them watch the happy new year film.
Huh?

(20:57):
Like on repeat.
Uh huh.
You buy that.
Sure.
Sure.
So you could kill yourself if you watch this movie over and over again.
Yeah.
Okay.
Thanks.
I think I saw flashes of God.
He had a DMT trip as he was watching this film.
So all right.
So shower con is, is, is getting a team together.

(21:18):
We're bringing the band back together.
Yes.
But can we mention too, like the movie scene opens up with the dance number just to establish
the dance competition.
I just really want to quickly say who is the main bad guys of the dance team.
So apart from char and Grover, right?
So at the beginning we see this like very festively event happening on stage.

(21:41):
And the first thing that I noticed, or maybe you noticed too, Adam, is that there was a,
the North Korean flag.
Yeah.
The North Korean flag was there.
So apparently the, the, the team, the, so this is a dance competition and the team that
our, our heroes go up against is, is North Korea of all, of all countries.
No, I, yeah.

(22:02):
So this, yes, caught my eye instantly.
I am interested when North Korea shows up on screen and stuff.
It flashes North Korea as like the, the dance competition team and like buses show up and
it's just the Korea.
It doesn't say North.
It just, they label North Korea as Korea.

(22:23):
South Korea is not mentioned whatsoever.
And the North Korean team is like this very talented, good-looking dance group with like
spiky leather jackets, like they're like in like a punk nineties band.
Yeah, they're very angry.
They're always angry.
It has zero like geopolitical knowledge of like Korea or like, or North Korea or South Korea.

(22:48):
Like they made a choice because they chose North Korea and it's written as North Korea.
But then the rest of the time they're just Koreans.
And like it's just, if you, if you would be choosing North Korea as the baddies, don't you have,
wouldn't you have them be kind of like a weird communist group, you know, like have some angle like that,
have some weird aesthetic, but instead it's like they don't reference that part at all.

(23:10):
They're just the bad guys that happen to be North Korea.
What if this is strategic because there's some actor that has political influence.
Modi shows up in the movie and they just recognize Korea as North Korea.
So maybe it's just a strategic Korea.
Like there is no nothing called North Korea and South Korea.
It's like democratic people's Republic of Korea.
Right.
It's North Korea and South Korea.

(23:31):
And then South Korea is like, what?
Are you trying to start a civil war dude?
This is Modi like kind of cozying up to North Korea.
Yeah.
I mean, if you call North Korea just Korea, that is like their dream.
That's legitimizing them.
Yeah.
And there is no mention of South Korea.
But again, to never mention, yeah, like Kim Jong-un or like, you know, perhaps like there's no, you know,

(23:56):
communist flags or any like red symbols or stars on them.
So like, I don't even think they do understand that part of North Korea.
I think they just chose the one country that is never going to like give them shit at the UN because they're not even there or something.
It's the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and People's Republic of Korea.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So there is no North Korea.

(24:17):
Thanks.
Is that what you've been looking at?
Owned by facts and logic.
No, but so North Korea is the bad thing.
I do want to say like as part of, so I recently came back from my trip to Laos because I wanted to see the Laos football game.
There was a football match in Laos when it was North Korea versus Ryan.

(24:41):
And I went with my friend.
We could not get tickets.
We couldn't find them online or anything, but we just went anyway.
So I went to VNT in Laos.
The football stadium was about an hour out of town.
So we took a taxi all the way there.
The game was at like 5 p.m. or 7 p.m. We were either like 5.

(25:03):
Immediately get there.
Parking lot's completely empty.
The security guard's like, where's your ticket?
We're like, we don't have any.
We want to buy some.
He's like, you need the CIP pass.
There is no general public.
It's like this is cut off from everyone.
Just go back.
And so we just had a tele-taxi driver to go back and I went all the way.
Oh no.
Yeah, I never saw that.
I never saw the match.

(25:24):
That is so sad.
Yeah.
You should have called me.
And said what?
What are you going to do?
Are you Batman?
You can do.
I'll put in a word for Kim Jong-un.
I'll let you in the game.
People's Republic of Korea.
Side note as well.
I just want to say too, when I used to work in an office down here in Bangkok, there was a North Korean.
I used to go to all the time.

(25:45):
It was right next to a K village.
There's Korean village right next to it was a North Korean restaurant.
It's not open anymore.
But every single night they had a show at 8 30 p.m. for free.
You go in there and the whole restaurant is run by North Koreans.
Like North Korea does it as like a cultural outreach thing.
And they want to get like, you know, goodwill or, you know, some PR and stuff.

(26:06):
So you go in, it's a little restaurant.
It was very, very expensive.
And the food was very, very bad.
Like it was like cold noodles and just and pretty really, really shit food.
But I wanted to see the show every night.
So you go in and there's like four ladies that are waitresses and they speak different languages.
So one speaks Japanese, one speaks English.

(26:27):
Like they were trained in different languages and stuff.
And, you know, they're serving the food and everything.
You can talk to them, you know, they're North Koreans and they like were brought here.
But if you ask them any questions that they're uncomfortable with, they're like,
they'll just like ignore you.
So if you're like, Hey, where did you learn English from?
They won't tell you because it's probably some like kidnap tutor and stuff.
And like you'll ask them.

(26:48):
It's true.
I'm sure.
But you don't know about these.
Yeah.
No, no, no.
There's this whole thing where like they would kidnap the Japanese along the beach shores and would bring them back to North Korea.
And they would live in like a commune of other kidnapped people.
And like they taught Japanese to the Koreans and they were going to have a kid and that kid,

(27:09):
the whole long plan was their kids would become North Korean spies.
They would go back to Japan and spy for North Korea.
But they did that with English people too.
They're like tutor English and stuff.
A lot of kidnapped people.
Yeah.
But they chat with you, you know, they were just being very nice.
But you'd ask them, like, what do you think of Thailand?
What do you think of Thai food?
I go, I don't like the Thai food.
Okay.
Where's your favorite place in Thailand?
I don't know.

(27:30):
Like because they're not allowed to leave the restaurant.
They live there and they work there.
So they're kidnapped workers who learn English from kidnapped tutors.
It's a vicious cycle.
And at 830 every night for free, they put on a show.
So it would be this big half hour show where they would do really elaborate performances,
big costume dances.

(27:51):
They'd play these North Korean instruments.
Each lady played like an instrument extremely well,
like cello and violin and stuff.
And they were incredibly impressive.
They would do Disney songs.
So they'd do like a Beauty and the Beast song or something.
They would do a mask show where like they wore masks and did like, you know,
performative dance in like a North Korean style.
They were still waitressing while they were doing this.

(28:13):
So because they were the only people that worked there.
So like if you ran out of beer, wanted some food,
like if someone wasn't dancing, they'd be running around and like pouring beer and stuff
and then going back on stage.
It was incredible.
Deeper people are really cultured.
Yeah.
I mean, well, they were trained just for this.
And I think like a big privilege should be able to be in one of these restaurants.
And then when the show, so the show lasted half an hour,

(28:36):
when the show was over every single night,
they'd make everyone get up and do the YMCA.
So we'd all get in a circle.
It'd be like, because I came a lot because I came like,
it was right next to work and I just really enjoyed it.
I don't think they liked me that much,
but it was always like a couple like Japanese people and some South Koreans kind of hanging out and like me.
And we'd all just get up and do the YMCA every night.

(28:57):
YMCA.
Yeah.
Because it just brings people together.
Everyone knows that song.
Yeah.
It is a very common song.
Yeah.
And honestly, it did bring a lot of goodwill.
It's a missionary song, right?
YMCA is a Christian missionary song.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But nobody knows it for that.
Oh, okay.
Thinking of village people.
Yeah.
It's village people.

(29:18):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Gay village people.
Yes.
Yes.
It is weird.
It's a world wide phenomenon.
I stayed in a YMCA hotel, like a guest house in one of the Indian cities, like when we
were traveling there.

(29:39):
They had a very nice inexpensive guest house.
Yeah.
They have good services.
They're cool.
There's tons of YMCA's in Bangkok and stuff.
Yeah.
Anyway, so.
So you saw some North Korean Broadway like musical.
Yeah.
Did you see similarities with the dance moves that you saw at that restaurant and on the
movie?
Is that like a cultural North Korean dance move you saw?

(30:01):
No.
This is my point.
They did zero research.
It's these punk guys in leather suits doing weird dances.
But anyways, yes, that is my two North Korean.
Do you want to know what I found out?
The lead Korean guy is Indian Chinese.
Oh, yeah.
Indian Chinese.
Yeah, they don't look Korean.
None of them look Korean.

(30:23):
Like, that was the first one.
That's true.
They didn't look Korean.
The young guy.
The young kid.
I was literally like saying to you guys, like, that is not a Korean.
So is he a Chinese born living in India?
He's a mixed Indian Chinese.
I am pretty sure they're all Indian Chinese.
Yeah, they don't look Korean.
They don't not.
Maybe like the Northern Indian.

(30:45):
Sorry, I forgot to bring this up.
Indian Indian.
They weren't speaking Korean.
Do you remember?
So the songs, they were just blabbering.
Yeah, they were babbling at one point.
The song when team India versus team North Korea.
The beginning, they were doing like the, the ching chong.
Yeah, basically.
What do you mean by ching chong?

(31:06):
Yeah, they did it long.
Oh my God, I'm going to get canceled now.
No, no, no, but that's how they sounded.
That's what they were trying to do.
Film is the most real.
I'm Asian.
I get to say that.
You have the past.
We're not speaking Korean.
They were just making like gobbledygook.
Like, and it's not like Korean is an unknown language.

(31:27):
Like it's they, you know,
So what was the subtitles doing?
They literally were just showing made up words.
Here's the funny thing.
There is a scene where the characters speak Korean to each other.
There is a scene.
Shahrukh Khan is speaking Korean to the kid.
I don't know how authentic that was.
Like how grammatically correct or pronunciation wise.
Of course it would be screwed up in some.

(31:49):
I think it was okay.
It was okay, right?
I mean, it sounded.
It sounded so they went to the point that they made Shahrukh Khan speak Korean to the little Korean kid actor.
But that's the thing about Shahrukh Khan's character is that like nothing, there's no wrong.
Like he's this hero.
He can speak Korean.
He can, he can win the woman's heart.

(32:11):
He can, I don't know.
I just feel like he can.
So you mean like Shahrukh Khan in every movie he acts in?
He can say the most offensive thing to a woman and the woman is still loving, loving all the time.
So we'll get to that.
So let's go on.
So sorry, that was the intro.
North Korea, very weird moving on.
We're still at the fucking intro.
Anyway, all right.
So, okay.
So he gathers up his team, right?

(32:34):
Jag is the hardcore guy.
Tammy is the safe cracker.
Rohan is the hacker.
Nandu is the drunk guy.
And they, you know, they, he brought them all together and under the guys that they were breaking into the safe, but he fails to mention that they were competing in the world dance competition.
Why are they competing in the world dance competition?
Because the only time it's the only time the diamonds are going to be in that safe.

(32:59):
And there's another reason, the hotel room.
The hotel room is the.
So for some stupid reason in, in the hotel, like where there's like an air shaft, the only way to be in that room at that hotel at that time is to be part of the dance competition.
They can't book it separately.
That room is assigned for Indian team all the time.

(33:21):
That room is assigned for specifically dance competition members.
So they have to join.
And you know how also like not any team.
Yeah.
It, it, that room is always assigned to Indian.
And you know how they know that is because shower Khan was part of the safe development construction team.
He was wearing blue, blue contacts, blonde wig.

(33:44):
This guy is can do everything.
Wait, shower Khan was a white man in the movie.
He was like, yeah, he was, he was wearing a blonde wig and blue.
In disguise.
In disguise.
And flawless.
He looked exactly like a white man.
So rewatching that scene made me feel like after all of that and the bad guy child girl, we're still does not recognize who he is.
Like also if you're making the safe, why don't you just put like a little hole in it or something for you to come back to later?

(34:11):
You're just seeing it to just see where the air duct is.
Like, yeah, if you're at ground zero, just do something to the safe.
Okay.
Now, no, wait, there's going to be diamonds in the safe at that night because of someone traveling, right?
Like there's just going to be diamonds there, which is the safest and most secure safe in existence, right?

(34:34):
Which means every other day, it's in a less secure safe.
If it's only in this safe on this one day, that means every other time it's less secure.
And so you should get those diamonds from literally any other place or time.
So it's very weird to try to get it when it's only in this very, very secure safe under this hotel.

(34:58):
Just get it in transport.
Just get it when it's in another normal safe that's not like Ocean's 11 dub.
Oh, okay.
They chose the hardest way for themselves.
Again, the worst possible choice.
I have a theory for that.
I have a theory for that.
What is it?
The theory is like the diamonds are not exactly owned by the villain guy.
He's just storing it for one night for some reason I didn't understand.

(35:22):
So his point is like stealing it from him and making it look like that he stole it himself and frame him for the crime.
The same way he framed the father.
The way he framed the father.
So that's why he wanted to steal it from his safe, not any other safe.
Okay, flawless.
You're right.
This movie tied all the loopholes.

(35:43):
I think the diamonds are like worth $20 million dollars.
That's what he said.
He says in rupees, the Netflix subtitle was converted into dollars based on the day they were writing the subtitle.
They use that exchange rate, I guess.
Okay, so Shahrukh Khan brings the whole team into like a mock up heist.

(36:05):
And then we get this like montage of like them practicing their dance routines and practicing their dance routines and their heist operations.
And the dance routine guys, it was, this is the part of the movie that I feel like is kind of like terribly dated in like, you know, ha ha.

(36:31):
Men in men doing gay things.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
This this this film is a very loudly homophobic.
It does come across that way to me.
Well, it's not just you.
It's objectively homophobic.
I mean, they make nonstop homophobic jokes.
I mean, ballerina them doing ballerinas.

(36:52):
Yeah, I mean, they're they're learning ballet.
But I mean, the main can learn ballet.
Being men, they don't have to wear a tootsie.
They wear this tootsie and then do this effeminate joke like many girls in the form.
It was quite cute though.
They bring up this transgender or transvestite dance teacher and just mocks her.

(37:17):
It wasn't no good reason.
Being fat or something like that.
Yeah, so so that about that.
It was like it was a man wearing drag, but he was impersonating a real life trans instructor.
Right.
Oh, so you looked it up.
I did look it up.
Yeah, yeah.
I don't know.
The thing is like the the dance is in that montage.
There was a man dressed as a woman and he was supposed to parody this this dance choreographer.

(37:40):
I don't know if she was trans or not, but she was a woman.
But then they do it.
They play it out like in a very like mocking way.
I'm not sure.
Yeah, because this film mocks and like it's very self-referential.
It's very meta-referential to other Bollywood films, to the director's older films, to the actors' different films.
Like it does that all the time.
That's another thing with the movie that I want to mention in the movie is like there is a

(38:04):
inside joke.
A lot of references to past movies, a lot of inside jokes.
You know, the thing that Keely pointed out, there was like a pep talk given by Mohini where it's like a reference to like a
Charmacon movie.
But again, you know, these things are just playful little things.
The flaw of this dance montage and the concept of this whole movie is it's using this team of high skies who are

(38:32):
not professional dancers that have to go into this dance competition.
So by virtue of this, they are bad at dancing and it has to show them being bad at dancing.
So this movie is actually brought up. This movie is filmed by a dance choreographer who cannot use her skills because the guys are
supposed to be bad at dancing.
So you're just watching a montage of bad people fucking up all the time.

(38:58):
They're dance moves.
So it's not very entertaining or fun to watch.
She could show proper dance numbers because there are other teams in the competition who are supposed to be good dancers.
But she doesn't choose to show any other dance teams.
Except North Korea.
We see North Korea dance sometimes and they're not super good.
So you're watching these men be bad at dancing and then they're also, yeah, they're being, you know, like, you know, wearing

(39:25):
colorful clothes and doing ballet and then being no homo the whole time, which reminds me.
So I used to work at like a female strip club, right?
I was not a stripper.
I was a bartender at.
And there's this guy I was, I was just really, really drunk one night.
I was helping him.
So I was just helping him up the stairs.

(39:47):
Just he was kind of leaning on me and the entire time he was going up, he just kept saying no homo, no homo, no homo.
And I'm like, dude, like, I'm just like, yes, we know, I'm just getting you up the stairs.
Like I'm not hitting on you.
Like, is this gay that I'm just helping you like get upstairs?
This is what the dance montage reminded me of.
It's like, we guys, like you can be gay or not.

(40:10):
It doesn't matter, but like you can just do the dance number.
You don't have to keep bringing it up.
It makes it more weird.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And then so we have that dance routine.
And then the ultimate solution is that I'm shake back chance character was like, we got a higher woman, higher mojini, basically.
And when we get to the scene where they're hiring mojini, one thing we learn about her character, as I mentioned before, is that she's

(40:36):
falls in love with Charo Khan's character because he can speak English.
He can speak English.
And it's like in that scene, it's like she was like wooed by his like English dialogue, right?
And then she was like, okay, I'm in.
I mean, I'll give me the address.

(40:58):
And then we cut to the scene where like Charo Khan's giving like this pep talk to the men.
And then he was saying stuff like, you know, what is what is mojini to us?
Like she's just a teacher.
She's a dancer who dances in like sexy clothes for two men for money.
She's like a call girl.
She's bald girl, cheap, tacky.

(41:20):
I don't know why suddenly Charo Khan's character shifted into this like, yeah, misogynistic trade, but then I guess it's played.
It's played up for laughs, but you know, she gets she was they do they did that bit where like she's standing right behind him hearing everything that he says, and she storms off feeling you know, just crying.

(41:42):
And what and how did you make it up to her by apologizing to her in English.
So, okay, right.
So she has one character trait which is she likes English.
And she falls in love with anyone that speaks English.
And then Charo Khan calls her a whore, and basically disrespects her in front of the entire dance crew.

(42:05):
She cries and then he just says stuff in English she does not understand the English.
She just likes the sound of it so she doesn't know what he's saying, and just completely forgives him instantly.
And does a whole song where she's madly in love with him because he makes sounds that she likes even though she doesn't even know what he's saying.

(42:26):
Now, I just want to say to if this is your thing where you just get turned on by English sounds like what happens when she watches like friends on Netflix.
Is she just like orgasming the entire time.
Does she like fall in love with every single street sign that says stop like what where does that end like can anyone just go up and speak English to her and that's it.

(42:47):
Like what is that and then also I think it literally is just like the definition of gaslighting when like she cannot even like you're just saying nonsense to her but like she just locks in and fixates.
And Winnie have you ever been hypnotized like that because we speak English around you.
Definitely now but I think it's a common experience for white people when they go to India like people will just stop them to take photos.

(43:13):
So this is probably just equivalent to that where like he's just he's like showing a aspect of westernization of whiteness by speaking English and she's drawn to it.
Or maybe it's just a director projecting her fantasies through a female lead character.
I actually wrote down his apology and it was more about like the way he was actually like objectifying her.

(43:36):
And then he was like doing stuff like the movement of your booty the beauty of your movement.
And your hips don't lie.
Wow that's worse and your breast taking I mean your breathtaking he was literally saying like that was the apology like he was just literally checking her out and she was meanwhile it's just played up for last where she's just like staring at him like doh I'd like oh he's so charming.

(43:59):
She's like hypnotized. She doesn't know the words he's saying as he's just insulting her more in front of the work crew.
And then yes she just falls in love and is forever behind him now because he speaks English and this is 2014.
I want to crumble into a small ball and roll down under the sofa.

(44:21):
Do you think guys tried this after watching the movie.
Do you think they're like if I just speak English or if I find the word.
Tell us if it's how it is in India like are people really would if somebody speaks perfect English.
Is that like is it impressive to girls.
I know but it's a class symbol that you're educated and most probably you earn money.
There we go.

(44:43):
Like you can have can hold a corporate job so it's that in that way but I don't think I've never met anyone who is just would buy someone who just can speak English just for the sound of it.
Do the guys kind of try to like show off their English skills.
Yeah a lot.
I mean the city people like yeah they mix up their natives with English all the time.

(45:12):
But I don't think they show off.
They just like grew up like that in studying in English medium school like so there are schools like where you cannot speak the your mother tongue.
You have to speak in English so they develop like this dual language speaking tendency.
And does the movie ever show how shower cons characters gets perfect English like is he from a high class.

(45:37):
I saw in a review that that that that that Anupama Chopra's review that like he's from Oxford.
It's not never mentioned in the film right.
I don't know.
But he he's he's a very smart person.
He learned English.
His name is Charlie as well.
That's true.
Charlie.
Yeah.
Chip Charlie.
Yeah and and and yeah I so how how who was asking like if Indian men do that or not me.

(46:05):
Yeah.
So I remember this anecdote where an Australian man stalks a girl like Australian man of Indian origin.
What.
Oh it is in the city.
Yeah.
In the city in Australia.
Yeah.
Okay.
Stocks a girl follows her to the her house or something like a very criminal offense or

(46:26):
something and his defense lawyers.
His lawyers defense was that oh he grew up watching Bollywood films.
So and then he showed the film showed some scenes from Bollywood films how stalking is glorified in Bollywood films and gave them gave that as a defense defense in the

(46:47):
court of law that he he doesn't know better.
He grew up watching this as a normalized version of showing love.
So it's not his fault.
It's his culture.
So and that worked in court.
I don't remember whether that worked or not.
But that cannot have.
Look at these selective videos I've seen that made me like this.

(47:11):
Yeah.
They used it.
I mean I don't think it would work because like.
Sorry I only watch Arnold Schwarzenegger films.
I kill people.
Yeah.
The only thing I know.
Yeah.
And then like it wasn't the only time that that happened to to Mohini.
So when they they arrived to the preliminary rounds I believe the auditions.

(47:35):
Yeah.
They I remember that there was this another similar gag where it was like he was just
the human I like to be like insulting her while she's behind him.
And then like she storms off again.
But this time instead of Shahrukh Khan going to apologize to her we get Jag to go up to
her and then he was just like telling her like I think the takeaway is that he said

(48:01):
to her that you are the first girl Charlie is in love with and then she was just like
oh right.
And he says like oh he's talking to you like this because he doesn't know that he is in
love with you.
Yeah.
It was it was when I rewatched that I was like you can't you can't be buying this shit right
now like you cannot.

(48:23):
It's absurd like it's the theater of absurd.
Yeah.
I just really hope girls don't see that and just think like yeah that's cool or that like
I should chase English speakers above all else or whatever.
Like that's insane.
I don't think a woman will like fall into like think that's normal.
It's the men who think that oh I'm doing this that means the women should understand that

(48:47):
I'm in love with her.
Somewhere in the world Happy New Year is a very influential movie to this kid who will
be a woman.
That kid has to be really really idiotic.
That kid's gonna use this movie in court one day.
All right so so they fall in love.
They go to the you know auditions they win and no they don't win.

(49:11):
They enter the audition and they blackmail the judges who by the way one of them is
Arora Kashyap.
He's the director of DevD.
Yeah.
The past episode that we covered but they did this thing again where it's like it's it's
another like lowbrow humor type of gag where it's like we're gonna blackmail you judges
and then they showed like the team shows the judges like this hidden camera they got in

(49:37):
the room in some room and like the judges are engaged in homosexual activities.
It's not even sexual.
Well they were like dressed in drag and dancing with each other.
I don't know what the takeaway is that like it's just very casual.
It's just a casual homophobic joke.
Yeah it's just like that.
It's just for me it's just like oh.

(50:01):
It's just I don't know to me it's just like very lowbrow I suppose.
Yeah and I'm really surprised that Arora Kashyap was okay doing it.
Yeah considering like because he appears a somewhat sensible director.
Totally agree.
Island of like an ocean of stupid filmmakers.

(50:24):
They competed in this in the first few rounds right and then like I think you would think
that they would nail it right but then everybody hated them but guess what the only reason they
won is because they cheated you know it's with the hacking the votes and like I feel this
Rohan guy the hacker it's like he's this that's all there is to him like I feel like the characters

(50:49):
also treat him like shit I don't know do you ever do you ever see that like he's a boy
he's a boy yeah why don't you get do this right yeah they're always like looking down
up so but meanwhile like so yeah these guys all do things one after the other that are
not only not heroic but fucked up like he's super mean to like his dance trainer and disrespectful

(51:13):
then they blackmail to get in the competition then they have to win like none of these things
are by skill like usually you watch these movies and it's like oh you know they practiced and
got good but they did they don't get good they stay bad they and they just cheat and hack
their way into and we're supposed to be rooting for them and celebrating them but like why like

(51:34):
they're good at anything you have some he had some personal agent behind it that's it they're
supposed to just like like him because they're like team India and so like the country should
be happy but honestly they shouldn't be happy if these guys suck it's like honestly like
Reagan that Olympic dancer the break dancer for Australia right like like they're not going

(51:56):
to root for you if you suck really bad at it then you become very embarrassing so like they shouldn't
be rooting for them and like there's no merit that they're in there yes and I was rooting for them
until yeah we'll come to that point at what point changes all and everyone starts rooting for them
even even their opponents I'm gonna like fast forward a little bit right because like it just kind of like

(52:23):
the enders a little bit like how you guys should watch this film fast forward whenever you want yeah
so like they they are just there's like one scene that that that is like a highlight right it was
more like it was all the teams like practicing on this helipad and yeah and then you have this like
really cool fight scene like Charokhan and the supposed supposedly Korean leader North Korean

(52:49):
leader fighting on this helipad they're doing such cool it was like a Tekken level a Tekken level
yeah it really does and like it ends with like you know Charokhan's character almost falling off the
building but then he manages to gain the upper hand and then like pushes the North Korean but because
Charokhan is our mighty hero he spares him or something yeah well I just feel like that thing

(53:13):
that really sent me because like it's like oh good good lord like how many times was we realized
oh Charokhan is like our lord and savior but but like the fact that you said had to save him like
this started as a dance off yeah so like they're on a helipad which if you're gonna be practicing
dance don't do it on a helipad because like you're gonna fall off and die like that's a crazy dangerous
place to practice like flips and stuff they're at like a Tekken level where everyone's just kind of

(53:38):
around in like kind of blurry and they're just kind of like weird colored shapes behind them and stuff
and it's just a dance off that becomes like violent near the end and then like by the end they was
like he's holding the North Korean like off the ledge of the helicopter.
North Korean guy was about to slap the young kid from his team and then Charokhan was like

(54:01):
no corporal punishment is bad for kids and then that's why they start fighting.
Yeah but then it yeah so it becomes like a guy almost falling off a helicopter pad and dying.
It escalates really quickly.
I just think it's funny when Keely explained that it's like that's a sentence.
So then he has to fight the North Korean in a dance off to show the guy the corporal punishment is bad for children.

(54:28):
This is so stupid.
And he saves him from the helipad ledge.
So yeah that happened so another thing that I want to point out is that you know during that rehearsal
is like the kid almost fell and fell the North Korean kid during their dance routine almost fell
and that's going to play an important part later in the story.

(54:52):
They were this huge human pyramid like it looked like he is falling from like second floor or third floor of a building.
He was taking so long to fall for that little poor guy and yeah explain how the stage was.
Yeah so after that helipad scene we get to the like the first round or so.

(55:19):
It's like a big dance scene where India is pitted against North Korea and then you have that like gobbledygook song.
They literally just speak made up words even though again Korean is not a dead language like get a Korean to do it.
It's like it's like if they had like imagine imagine if they had like India and they're like gobbledygook.

(55:42):
You know what I mean.
What the fuck like that's a language that people speak right now.
That's what they do to Korea.
I think you should cut this.
It was like it was like.
I think they wrote a later to DPRK officials for sending one linguist but they didn't reply so they had to resort to this kind of.

(56:04):
It's not their fault.
No it's not.
K-pop or anything to learn Korean song sound.
I mean I'm sure the Republic of Korea and DPRK's language is the same.
Yeah it's South Korean and North Korean.
No it's the same.
It's the same.
I'm just kidding.
I'm just just it's just so bad.
The filmmakers don't do any stupid single research.

(56:25):
Because it wouldn't be too hard to find like a Korean language.
No K-pop and Korean cinema is like the largest like media export in Asia.
Like they know.
So you purposely just have them just spew made up words.
And again this was a huge hit in Asia.
This movie was not only one of the most popular movies at the time in India but worldwide it was like one of the highest grossing Indian films.

(56:51):
Yeah somehow it was like one of the top highest.
I wonder what it made in South Korea because honestly.
Indian film in Germany.
It's full of South Korean erasure basically.
I'm led to believe they got confused between North and South.
Like seriously I'm starting to believe in that IMDb groove thing now.
But they grow north.

(57:12):
I don't think so.
I think they choose DPRK to represent Korean culture.
That's a very difficult mistake to like go over so many people's heads during the movie production.
So yeah anyway they're fighting they're competing against the North Korean team in this like quarter final.
I don't even know.
Look the dance competition doesn't matter.

(57:33):
Like who's competing.
It doesn't matter.
It's just team India and team Korea competing.
And then the team Korea did the human pyramid thing again.
And of course what do you expect the kid falls ends up falling again.
I think this is the scene that sent us all because where the kid was falling there's like three spiky balls.

(57:56):
Oh yeah.
Huge spikes.
Huge, huge spikes.
Huge, huge spikes.
Huge, huge spikes.
No one else in the stage just there where they're standing.
And the kid is just about to fall on top of the spikes.
And of course Shah Rukh Khan in all his mighty glory just jumps in,
kicks the fucking balls and they shatter away and then saves his balls.

(58:18):
Yeah so the kid was seconds away from getting his head impaled on a spiky glass ball that they had around the dance area.
So they're doing a dance competition and they're putting basically glass landmines throughout the stage.
So if you accidentally hit it it will kill you instantly.
The kid falls, yeah he's gonna go eye first into one of the spikes and break the glass and his face.

(58:47):
And yeah Shah Rukh Khan kicks the glass out saving the kid's life.
The kid isn't just about to get bruised he's gonna die.
Yeah that happened.
And that kid was Kim Jong Un.
That's how they win people's heart.
Everyone starts cheering for Team India.

(59:08):
No no no so after that all that happened while waiting for the announcement of the winners,
the team actually finds out from Vicky Grover that...
Vicky Grover is like a Tekken name too.
Vicky Grover is my favorite Tekken fighter.
They find out that the diamonds aren't there at the moment and that they would be transported into the safe at New Year's Eve where the finals will be taking place in Dubai.

(59:39):
So now India team has to qualify for the finals otherwise they can't stay in the hotel and steal the diamonds.
And now this is the part that I still question at this very moment is that like when they were announcing the finalists they announced Spain, they announced UAE, Hungary, blah blah blah.
But then they say Korea wins over Team India which doesn't make any sense by the way because the kid fell down.

(01:00:03):
That is already like it's off.
India did so bad that even a kid falling off of a human pyramid doesn't...
Yeah it doesn't affect their standing.
Because it did so bad.
And they still pass over India and they're like that's it that's all the finalists.
But then we get one of the judges on stage and then she was like...

(01:00:26):
She says like today on this stage...
The judge grabs the mic like a Kanye from Taylor Swift moment.
She's like today on this stage we saw something that hasn't happened in our 10 year history of the world dance competition.
Every year a kid dies.
Every year a kid dies.

(01:00:47):
No one comes in safe then.
So stupid.
Every single year we can't we always put these spikes on the ground and someone always dies.
And no one has ever really been compassionate.
So we just have this pile of kid skulls next to here.
But this is the first year where we don't have to add a skull to this pile.

(01:01:08):
And that's how Team India qualified because of Shah Rukh Khan's heroism.
They passed not because of the stupid gobbledygook dance routine.
No nothing. No it was bad.
And not because India danced well.
So they didn't have to hack this time though. They still got popular votes.
Well the hack is don't let the kid die.
Okay so here I have to say one thing.

(01:01:29):
In this whole film like the most amicable like the most decent character I've found is Vicky Grover.
Like he's like this billionaire Marchand's son who owns the whole hotel where all the guests are.
And he's the nicest kid around the block.
And like he's most most modest.

(01:01:52):
He's the least misogynistic character in the movie.
He's the son of like a billionaire.
And he's like a playboy whatever.
He is incredibly nice and like respectful to women for no reason.
Like he's supposed to be the bad guy.
But they go out of his way to show him be like some girl like doesn't want to be with him.
And he's like totally cool with it.

(01:02:14):
He like is fine if like she goes and likes some other dude.
He's like very happy go luck.
He like why?
Like it's the easiest way.
Like the sons of billionaires are the easiest villains.
It's not hard to do.
And again the movie went with the opposite choice of making him less misogynistic than the main character.
A nicer guy all around.

(01:02:36):
And he doesn't seem to like cheat as much as these people.
Like I was rooting for him.
And the movie didn't have to do that.
And he ends up in the jail at the end of the film.
He was the best person though.
He was like the nicest guy.
He didn't even say that much.
Yeah, that's true.
He did nothing bad.
Yeah.
For Vicky.
Vicky Grover man.

(01:02:58):
Vicky Grover died first.
Our heart goes out for you.
For one out for Vicky Grover.
Down with Nandu.
Free Vicky Grover.
Three cheers for Vicky Grover.
Down with Nandu.
So now that they've entered the finals right.
So the team wanted Shahrukh Khan to tell that, to tell Mohini that they, she should be part of the plan.
Because at this point Mohini doesn't know that there's a heist happening.

(01:03:19):
Yeah.
And that's, this is the part where, again, here's another part that doesn't make sense to me because this is the part where we learned that
Shahrukh Khan's father initially did not, was not just framed and imprisoned but that he committed suicide.
He left out the suicide bid.
And then they asked him, why did you leave that bid out? He said, oh, it's because you might lose motivation.

(01:03:41):
I'm like, dude, if I hear that your friend's father died, of course you'd be like, it would instill more motivation, more anger.
Like, what is that?
Like, why wouldn't you say that?
Like, if, if you said, yeah, my father's dead, I'd be like, I wouldn't be like, oh, fuck this story.
Like, I don't care anymore that he's dead.
He's dead now.
Well, now who cares?

(01:04:02):
Why let the revenge?
Yeah, people never do revenge over dead people. That's absurd.
But I think that, that, that reveal right there is what made me join the team, I guess.
I don't know.
So they, they find out that, you know,
But there was no English involved in this, in this convincing.
I think that's only the romantic ink.

(01:04:23):
That's only if you call her a whore, then you can use English.
Otherwise you can speak.
But again, she confront, at that very, that same scene, she confronted the guys about it.
And she's like, you lied to me.
And there's always this kind of, this kind of back and forth between Shah Rukh Khan and Deepika is that like,
he's always lying to her.
Another thing is like, remember when she was like, saying that a, she was saying like, oh, why do you need to use the green room?

(01:04:50):
And then he was like, oh, I'm meeting the.
Some other girl.
Some other girl.
Yeah.
And it's like, he's, and she's always, he's always like doing these like.
He's a liar.
Cheater.
And stuff.
And it's like, like what Adam said before is like, you just, you're not rooting for this guy at all.
No, he's a piece of shit.
He's an asshole.
Anyway, the high scene.

(01:05:11):
So fast.
Like the, so the finals are happening.
There's the high scene.
And the plan is that like Abhishek Brachan's character has to be in disguise as Vicky Grover.
And they have, he has to go through another funny bit.
The black cat commandos.
Who were trained by Mossad and KGB?
Yeah.
Like they're just standing there near the vault.

(01:05:33):
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
Just the context.
So it's like 12 dudes on each side of a very long.
So you're, imagine like a safe, you know, like admission impossible or something.
And there's a very long hallway to get to the safe that's underground under this big casino,
Oshas 11 style.
And in this long hallway, it's just like, yeah, 12 dudes on each side staring at each other,
hands behind their back.
I don't know if they take shifts.

(01:05:55):
If they're just staring at each other the whole time, if like one of them farts, what happens?
Do they make small talk?
Why are they staring ahead?
You only kind of need one guy there.
Cause if he sees, if anyone walks in the hall or not, you know, right, you just hit a button.
I don't know why they need 12 guys permanently standing there the whole time.
And like, I just, do they have doors that go in and out?

(01:06:18):
It seems like a big security risk to be honest, but they just stand there probably like winking at each other.
Seeing if they, you know, catch eyes with each other and then they go in the break room.
And like the weird part about that whole bit is that you would expect at least,
you would at least expect an action scene with these guys, but no, it's just.
That would make sense.
Masat agents fist fighting perhaps would be nice.

(01:06:41):
But no, he just walks right in the disguise work and that's all you see of them.
No Krav Maga, no nothing.
I don't understand what the point is.
Again, the worst is you set up this thing, there's no payoff.
It's the worst decision you can make when you have a room full of like bodyguards to just do nothing with them.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's like the filmmaker flipped Chekov's gun on its head.

(01:07:05):
Right.
Every gun they introduced is it doesn't go off.
They die by stepping on a nail.
So what that's happening while Abyshek's character is parading around as Vicky Grover,
the others are going through the sewers, right, where you see like Jag's character is just like managing the pipes in all his topless glory.

(01:07:28):
Shahrukh Khan is ripped by the way.
And it looks like his abs are painted on like literally like we did things like I think they added definition to his abs.
Eight back abs.
He is ripped for how old he is like he is in incredible shape.
I did not like his facial hair though.
The vault is vault closes down in five minutes.

(01:07:52):
In five minutes.
They waste the time right.
It closes and then like, you know, all seems lost but then you know, Shahrukh Khan and all his might,
he pointed up to the vault, the top of the vault and it's like apparently the vault is under a manhole cover or something.
Yeah.
It's like all all Jack, all they had to do is let Jack like turn this valve and then like what what happens that the vault will be filled with water so that that will propel them onto the top of the vault.

(01:08:24):
Yeah, they're going to just swim up on the top and this just remove the lead and get out.
And then this this is another thing that I didn't understand because like when they get to the top.
So at this point, like the bad guys are aware that you know they're being they're being tricked right and then Shahrukh Khan brings out this like cover that like seals the vault right and the water just kind of like slowly.

(01:08:50):
I think the jungle like turns the valve and then the water is it's but it doesn't make sense to me because like when they step in everything is so dry.
No, that's because the it blew some air or something.
So my point being like why do all this like why don't just use that path to come in getting the vault.

(01:09:12):
Take the diamonds out.
Like why do you need to go from the other way like why don't you use your exit as your entrance as well.
And then if that is an easy exit from that vault how is it like the safest vault in the whole planet or something like that.
It wasn't like a fun like mission impossible style like physical feet that made sense right where it's like wow that's like incredible like a feet of strength or some like you know clever trick or anything like that you

(01:09:45):
didn't like even Ocean's 11 you know they were being really smart I think.
Oh, this doesn't happen is a very smart and well made film.
I think this is how they stole the money and get stuck in right so they came out they go out of that manhole and then.
I guess the plan the boys plan was to like go to international waters by boat but then suddenly the everyone except Shahrukh Khan has a change of heart they were like we need to go back there for Mahini you know she wanted the fame she wanted to win the competition right their

(01:10:17):
dance is up it's like their turn to dance but they're on a boat with the diamonds leaving.
Right and then you know you have your typical like finale dance number and one by one the boys come back to dance and Mahini and then ultimately Shahrukh Khan comes back.
And for whatever reason that sealed the deal for the competition that they ended up being the winners which by the way like maybe question things even more is like we didn't see anything else on that competition right the competition doesn't matter but like even though

(01:10:51):
they didn't they didn't have talent or anything this is this this one particular dance puts them as the winners of the dance to the India.
So India.
It's a very good one.
Yeah so they won't they win and the bad guys were framed the bad guys were framed and then like Shahrukh Khan just thinks that smuggling the diamonds in the he like he wanted the plan was to smuggle the drinks through the diamonds through the

(01:11:29):
airport with by just putting them in the drinks.
Yeah and everything was to all that was the most infuriating scene I've ever seen.
Okay we have to talk about that briefly. Yeah so like at first the plan was to like once they get the diamonds Shahrukh Khan Shahrukh Khan actually believes that by putting the diamonds in a drink going through airport security it will be a flawless plan.

(01:11:51):
No.
Yeah so the plan is he takes it and we've all been through it.
Okay but this is when we realize who the audience for this movie was by the way.
So.
So Winnie.
So here this plan. So there's this guy will have a drink with like ice cubes that are diamonds or something right.
The lids open he's drinking with the straw he goes through the x-ray machine with the drink that he sets the drink down on the table for them to like you know x-ray him then he grabs the drink and just keeps walking.

(01:12:27):
Do you think that that is a logical thing or do you think that's possible.
In Bollywood world anything is possible.
But like we've all traveled and we know that's the first thing they do get rid of that drink.
You cannot trick the security guard and by the way they just did a thing 95% of the test they do a TSA fail like it's very easy to sneak stuff through TSA.

(01:12:51):
They have a 95% failure rate but to but but the one thing they do not miss is you and drinks.
They will make you toss that instantly and you cannot just put it behind the security guy and then grab it once he's done and keep walking.
That's not happening.
Your diamonds are gone.
But then because they put so little faith into the audience and into their movie and so little research into even Korea.

(01:13:21):
They I think this audience is people that do not travel and would not even know that that is not the case.
How did it work so well in outside of because if you've traveled you clearly like that is just clearly bullshit.
So I found out that it was just you know sharkans plan but then at the end of the movie right they attempted that for real and it goes about as you expect it didn't go through like the security just asked them to throw away all the diamonds.

(01:13:49):
Oh so in the end they had to throw away on the yeah yeah it was no but the dot I didn't get there yet I didn't get there yet yeah so it's like they had to throw away all the diamonds it's like I don't understand what the point that that is like the stoop like you come up with an elaborate plan and that is the only.
Like if you have an elaborate plan to steal from the most protected safe in the world and then you can't and you think you can then carry them into an open container through through security at the airport is crazy.

(01:14:19):
I don't like movies like that where like it's so frustrating to watch because they go through so much they finally get there you think that is a happy ending and then another stupid decision leads to another disaster.
But there is a silver lining at the end of it.
So they had to throw away the diamonds but the trophy that they want from the dance competition has more diamonds embedded.

(01:14:43):
No actually the trophy that has the diamonds they were not the actual diamonds.
Yeah so he replaced those those stone with diamonds he stole.
So that's how he actually smuggled that real diamond.
Oh so those diamonds that was thrown away with the water was not real.
They were from the trophies.

(01:15:05):
Oh my god.
So I think what this film was doing it kind of wanted to me make fun of itself and make a goofy film like a Borderlands roof or something but it fails miserably in that and becomes actual ISO and like.

(01:15:26):
Yeah it laughs at you like it laughs at you for even trying to watch this film like it's like oh you're stupid for watching me like like that way.
I feel really stupid questioning it.
Like what is even the point was there a countdown in the movie.
No it was not a countdown and there you go.
I think that's all you need to know the movie is called Happy New Year.

(01:15:48):
It was released in October.
There's no countdown.
There's no reason to watch this film for New Year.
It has nothing to do with New Year.
They don't give any resolutions.
They don't even mention it.
It's really weird.
There's no Happy New Year song.
You think there might be.
It would be a huge hit right.
Wouldn't they play a huge shower con song about Happy New Year when they play that every New Year.

(01:16:09):
They had an opportunity with the movie called Happy New Year.
They didn't do it.
Is there any point in the movie where they actually say the phrasing Happy New Year where they wish each other Happy New Year.
The host the whole actually the hosts leading up to the finals.
The host was like this is going to be one Happy New Year.
That's it.
So no it had the same amount of screen time as someone saying North Korea.

(01:16:31):
North Korea probably got more screen time.
Then Happy New Year.
Like why did they choose that name?
Well because nobody would watch a movie named North Korea.
I mean sure I don't know if those are the two options.
Call it anything else but like if you're good call a Happy New Year.
Commit slightly.
You know make it a reason to watch it for the countdown.

(01:16:54):
Have a countdown song perhaps.
Think about the number of people who watched the movie.
The same reason we did just because of the fact that it's called New Year.
Happy New Year.
You didn't have to trick them is my point.
Like you can and everyone has a bad taste in their mouth.
When you have this huge cast in this film.
Like Farakhan does this thing like right.
Like she does this match up of many multi-star films.

(01:17:19):
Like she makes this multi-star films.
And which are all like very goofy, very over the top fun, stupid, idiotic characters and stuff like that.
But this is good.
Like this trumps all of them.
Like this is like the weirdest thing I've ever seen.

(01:17:42):
No, not the weirdest thing.
Like this is really weird.
This film is like why did it even exist?
Like this film would grow consciousness and like have existential crisis one day.
I think so.
Like it's so, so blatantly weird.
So the fact that this movie is one of the highest grossing Bollywood films when it was released.

(01:18:05):
What does that say about us?
Us?
I didn't watch it.
It doesn't say anything.
You said you watched it.
You were lying the whole time.
I knew that.
You were saying that just now.
I torrented it or something.
Like I never paid money to watch this film.
So I didn't contribute to its revenue.
I think people just, you know, they see the cast list.

(01:18:27):
It's called New Year, right?
Like I mean anyone would see that cast.
And then I think the name just because it is English probably did made it do well overseas and tricked a bunch of other people as well.
We should read the Wikipedia page like the reviews that people gave.
I love the reviews.
They called it Ocean's Eleven written by baboons.

(01:18:49):
Well, when I read the description, I was hoping it would be something like step up.
Maybe step up meets Ocean Eleven.
But then kind of like what you said Adam, where at no point in the movie is the emphasis on them actually getting good at dancing.
They never approve.
They just do homophobic ballet jokes and then still suck at it.
The only reason they win is yeah, because they saved that kid.

(01:19:11):
So it doesn't really teach you anything good.
It doesn't have good dance.
It doesn't have anything to do with New Year's.
Because of that, I'm going to have to say I don't recommend.
What about you, Nikki? Would you recommend?
So there was one thing that we missed in our first viewing is that the end credits has like this after credits post credit scenes where Farrakhan is actually giving out awards to the cast and crew.

(01:19:41):
And like the person that like she was saying like third place goes to the dance choreographer second place goes to our editors first place goes to our camera crew.
It was literally like that.
It was like circle jerking like self congratulatory like bullshit.
Look at how good we did.
And like, you know, my the very last scene actually sums up my thoughts of the movie. It has it's a scene where Farrakhan has her children push her into the vault and the children use the vault and locks her in.

(01:20:14):
That's how it ends.
And my thoughts is that Farrakhan should just stay in the vault.
That is so stupid. That is literally the stupidest thing ever.
We forgot to at the very end, like there was a scene where post credit scene where she was giving out awards to the cast and crew of Happy New Year.

(01:20:40):
And it's like at the very end, it's like her children just push her into the ball and then the children just locks locks the ball and then starts dancing and then the end comes across and then you can hear Farrakhan say, are my children outside dancing.
It was literally there. You can go check it right now. It's just so it's just there.
Do you think this is an admission of the fact that they know the movie is terrible?

(01:21:01):
Yeah, that's what I'm saying. They wanted to make a spoofy like a goofy film, but it ended up being like they're not successful in that.
It became like a stupid idiotic thing. It's not like, oh, I'm laughing at it because it's it's making fun of Bollywood by being smart or like, you know, it's a spoof.
It's not like I mean, first, first definitely the film, those the scary film is a spoof film. Like it's funny because it's making fun of the crops of like the horror films and there are spoof films in India as well.

(01:21:36):
But this is this is a spoof that doesn't work. It's a spoof of itself.
I mean, basically funny for all the reasons.
It's not a spoof because they don't they're not funny. It's not trying to be. I just think they don't care.
And zero lessons were learned because the gigantic box office success.
So is it kind of a movie kind of like what's that Michael Sarah film?

(01:22:00):
No, no, Michael Sarah like against the superheroes or something where there's all fighting and it's very cartoonish.
Yeah, Scott Pilgrim versus the world. So is it kind of like that because I remember watching when I the one hour I watched it was all like cartoonish fight scenes, like smoke coming out of the ears, little bubbles with like Pam and things like

(01:22:25):
that. So I think that Pilgrim is a much better film. This brings me to one of the reviews. I open the Wikipedia to read it. So me here for the novice first post said the movie looks and feels like a home video project that was intended for appreciation by precisely
two people in the entire universe. Farah and Shahrukh Khan.

(01:22:47):
That's really nailed it. Yeah. Well, I but again, this is the benefit of not listening to Kelly for movies. Sometimes we would have never found this if it was up to him.
So I'm looking forward to having more films not chosen by him in the future. We'll see how this power struggle continues.
We should have once doomed. Okay, do you guys regret watching this movie? Not at all. So thank you, Winnie. I want to say like I this is really honestly me speaking is like I never was able to discern what makes a good or bad Bollywood movie.

(01:23:24):
But after watching Happy New Year, I can now finally see what makes a bad Bollywood movie. I understand that.
It's my pleasure to deliver the worst of Bollywood for you. Thank you. We're going to use your Google skills in the future for more movies.
Thank you, everyone. Any closing thoughts? Yeah. Farah Khan, please stay in that hall.

(01:23:49):
Yeah, I have like I wish you all of you guys a very happy new year and stay tuned for more and amazing film analysis and very, very knowledgeable discussion on Indian films. Yeah, thank you guys.
Yeah, it's not it hasn't happened this year, but next year for sure we'll start doing that.

(01:24:11):
All right, bye. Bye.

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