Tuesday, September 9, 2014

Tum Mere Ho (1990)

For a long time, I thought Aamir Khan and Juhi Chawla only did two movies together: the classic Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak and the adorable Hum Hain Rahi Pyaar Ke. This is not true. There is also Tum Mere Ho. I was alerted to this absolute gem of a movie by the fellows at Pretentious Movie Reviews, which you should watch right this minute.




It’s got astonishingly regressive treatment of women, and that’s even for a 90s movie. The songs are mediocre, the soundtrack consists primarily of this annoying snake-charming tune, and the special effects are, well, they are very special and not very effective. It also has hilarious outfits. It is amazing in the best B-movie way, and I had to watch it all in one sitting. It’s actually pretty entertaining all the way through.



It starts with a man killing a snake with a bucket to get a nagmani (“cobra pearl”), and its sparkly shape-changing snake-lady mother swears revenge on him and kills his son. After the funeral, the boy is found by a Tantric magician guy who discovers that he’s alive, or at least only mostly dead, and raises him as a snake-charmer and teaches him black magic.
I assume this vest is the snake-charmer equivalent of that free polo you got at the company picnic.
The boy grows up as Shiva (Aamir), snappy dresser and flirty snake-charmer. He also has a magic bone with which he can levitate skulls. You never know when that might come in handy.
Also, here's Juhi dressed like a Christmas tree
He falls in love with Paro (Juhi), the daughter of a wealthy family, whose father sends a magician to kill Shiva. We know he is evil because he is wearing a black t-shirt with a skull and crossbones on it. No, really. That’s his costume.


Now, Shiva has the moves:
All the girls dig my stick
And the style:


But the real obstacle to their love is… Paro is already married! When she was three years old, her parents married her to the boy of a nearby family, who died of snakebite as a child and I wonder who in the world could that be. A widow before she even knew she was married, Paro dons a white sari and goes to her in-laws, pursed by Shiva, who likes to play his snake-charmer music below her window in a creepy sort of way. But it’s okay, because they find out they were married all along! This is uncomfortably validating of child marriage (seriously, this was in 1990), but nobody asked me.

Did I mention Shiva's smooth way with the ladies? Here he is on his and Paro's wedding night.
I dunno, what do you wanna do?
Once nagin-lady finds out that her bite hadn’t killed Shiva after all, she swears to finish her revenge and interrupts the happy couple.
Creepy snake is a creeper.
Luckily Shiva is able to defeat the snake lady with his magic bone, and they all (except the snake) live happily ever after.


I’m actually pretty impressed with how much of the plot and dialogue I was able to get without subtitles. I mean, it’s not a story with a lot of nuance, but armed with the plot summary from Kanan and Biswa you watched at the beginning, me and google translate were able to enjoy all the fantastic WTF-ery. Plus, I have a real soft spot for early-90s Aamir Khan.

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