Magic Moments

Empress Ki Poster (behance.net) Empress Ki is the most elaborate, gripping, and thrilling series I have watched this year. And at 51 episodes , it is the longest Korean drama series I have ever watched. Even though the number seems daunting and too much, it’s worth it all. If you like period dramas, you won’t want to give this one a miss. It was in 2016 that I first read about Empress Ki, the historical drama that had garnered much praise and accolades from the audience and critics alike. Most Korean dramas are just 16 or 20 episodes long. So 51 seemed never-ending to me then. It wasn’t until 2017 that I decided to at least try the first episode. And I was hooked. But owing to the various circumstances I didn’t continue watching it. It was just last month that I remembered this epic story and watched it to completion within just a few days. Believe it or not, midway through it, I was almost literally pulling my hair out, in anticipation of what would happen next. I wou...

   I welcome Arun Kumar of Passion For Movies whose reviews have an identity of their own and shows his undulated love for movies. I thank him for finding time and agreeing to do a guest post in Magic Moments. It's a huge privilege. So here's a guest post by him on one of his favorite movies.   “The Fall” [2006] – A Tribute to the Power of Stories   Sometimes, you make an emotional bond with a film and dissect or interpret its vision in different ways, while a fellow movie-lover would pan it by using the most loathful words. Tarsem Singh’s visually exuberant movie, “The Fall” (2006) falls into that category. Many critics deemed it as a self-indulgent, vanity project; or as a preposterously intolerable, childish story. Does Tarsem have abundant directorial ego that drove the likes of Jodorowsky, Lynch or Gilliam, who all persistently came up with outlandishly inventive visuals? I would say yes. As a movie-lover, this so-called ‘directorial eg...

The first movie 'The Invisible Guardian' begins with the killings of several teenage girls and elaborate staging of their bodies by the river in the damp valley of Elizondo. Amaia Salazar, our protagonist, returns there, her hometown, as the Chief Investigator for the case. She heads the homicide department. The serial killings seem aimed at young girls who don't uphold the traditional norms and have begun exploring their sexuality. Through the case, Amaia grapples with her own demons, her relationship issues and traumatic memories of abuse from her past. We get to know that her mother had abused her, being seemingly senile herself, and was then admitted to a facility. The setting of the damp valley where it rains all hours of the day, the cloudy scenery, the fog covered thick forest maintain a sinister vibe throughout the movie. It is an apt backdrop for a crime thriller, with supernatural undertones. The mythical beast  basajaun , the big hairy beast of the forest, seems ...

‘Autumn in my heart’ is a tragic love story. It has tears in almost every episode. It is one of the four ‘Endless love’ season themed dramas- Spring Waltz, Autumn Tale, Winter Sonata, and Summer Scent. Two babies are born on the same day- Eun suh and Shin ae. By mistake, they are exchanged by their families. While Eun suh’s childhood is a happy one spent with the parents and the brother Joon suh, Shin ae’s is a tiring one spent working in the restaurant and dealing with a thug of a brother. After 14 years due to an accident to Eun suh, the parents come to know that their blood types don’t match and that Eun suh is not their daughter.  After huge emotional turmoil and numerous heart breaks, the children are switched back again, disregarding what will become of Eun suh and Joon suh. Both are never used to living without each other, and miss the childhood days immensely. Joon suh’s family leaves for the US for 8 years. The separation is heart wrenching. After 8 years, Joon suh...

Last weekend I chanced upon Netflix's first Icelandic series released this month. The trailer was what hooked me in. Set in an intriguing yet beautiful landscape, a remote Icelandic village Vik, with the ocean on one side, a river nearby and an active volcano named 'Katla' on the other- the area a juxtaposition of black volcanic soil and white snow, this 8-episode series weaves together several mysterious happenings to form its creepy enigmatic narrative.  The volcano has been erupting for over an year making the place almost uninhabitable. Most of the residents have evacuated or permanently shifted to other places, except a team of volcanologists and scientists, rescue workers, essential service providers, and very few common folk who don't want to leave the place. The mysterious happenings start when a woman is discovered in the restricted area near the volcano- naked -the black mud covering her being entirely. She resembles a lady who used to live in the area 20 year...

I had expected to be bored thinking it to be some over-the-top comedy and quit watching this midway. I had not expected to be sucked into their lives, in upstate Manhattan, and feel their life change over the ten seasons so personally. Ten years in the lives of these characters. And this attachment to that apartment. I had not expected that this sitcom that had been airing globally for ten long years, to not at all be ‘over-hyped’. I wish I had set aside my judgement and for once watched this during my college days. It would have been such a cherished experience. It would have validated all the emotions of those days. Watching the six friends’ personal trajectory from Season 1 to 10, over the ten years, through ten Thanksgivings and Christmases and Hanukah, was such a pleasure. I never knew I could enjoy comedy, and in comes Chandler. I remember how in the first few episodes, I couldn’t even remember their names, and now they feel as real and relatable as any other person. We all h...

‘Dongri To Dubai-   Six Decades of Mumbai Mafia’ by Hussain Zaidi is the first of its kind book based on years of crime reporting, police documents and numerous interviews, on Mumbai underworld, the gangs of organized crime who started out small as smugglers and went on to become violent most wanted criminals in the modern history of the country. And it is most importantly the narrative of the making of Dawood Ibrahim, the don and the now declared global terrorist. It encompasses the story around the mafia before Dawood- big names like Haji Mastan, Karim Lala, The Pathans; the Mumbai police using the then street thug Dawood to control the menace caused by the other gangsters; the rise of the son of a head police constable to unimaginable ranks in Mumbai mafiadom; the clout and network of the don extending from the police to the political insiders; ingenious ideas in smuggling that was replicated in the then Bollywood storylines; onslaught of terrible violence and gang wars, plott...