It has been a good start for 2021, what with first Nailpolish and now Maara as well as Kaagaz finding good appreciation from the audiences. While Maara arrived on Amazon Prime, Kaagaz is streaming on ZEE5.
Maara has turned out to be a heartening affair for those who believe in true and eternal love. A fairytale like love story with Madhavan and Shraddha Srinath in the lead roles, this one did show promise when its promo was released. However, the actual response from the audience has been all the more encouraging with all around positive feedback coming in. In the times when majority of offerings in the OTT space are related to crime or hardcore drama, it was a welcome change to see a soft outing in the web world which can be enjoyed with the family.
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Writer-director Dhilip Kumar has done well in this official adaptation of Malayalam film Charlie by producers Prateek Chakravorty and Shruti Nallappa who have done well to recreate a Tamil version which has its own 'sur' to it. In fact this one could well have done well in theatres as well and as a quality product, it has only added credibility to the OTT circuit.
On the other hand Salman Khan has made his OTT debut as well as a producer by backing Satish Kaushik directed Kaagaz which has been gaining good accolades all over. The film with Pankaj Tripathi in the lead was a long cherished dream of the actor-director and he made sure to deliver an entertainer while also passing on a social message. Expectedly, Pankaj Tripathi has rocked the show all over again and after an eventful 2020, he has started 2021 in style as well with an author backed performance in Kaagaz.
The film is seeing a positive response from all quarters and has turned out to be a winner for ZEE5 which has been backing quite a few films with a rural/small town backdrop [Mee RaqSam, Darbaar, Pareeksha to name a few]. With this film, there is an apparent increase in subscription base for the premium digital channel which has been finding strong footprints across India.
Coming soon
It is going to be a heavy week ahead for the OTT releases, what with as many as four arrivals on each of the four major OTT channels - ZEE5, Amazon Prime, Netflix and Sony LIV. These are Suraj Pe Mangal Bhari, Tandav, Tribhanga and Gullak.
The biggest release of the week is going to be Tandav. Given the kind of starcast, director and the sheer scale that it boasts of, one waits to see the kind of canvas on display here. A political drama, something which is a rarity in the Indian OTT circuits, this one is spearheaded by Saif Ali Khan, for whom this is his second web series after Sacred Games. Moreover, the series is also special since it has the biggest director to be making an entry into the OTT world, Ali Abbas Zafar, who has two 300 Crore Club films to his name [Tiger Zinda Hai, Sultan].
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Tandav appears to be a hard hitting entertaining drama that would boast of some credible performances too, courtesy the coming together of Dimple Kapadia, Sunil Grover, Mohd. Zeeshan Ayub, Kumud Mishra and Tigmanshu Dhulia, amongst others. With Himanshu Mehra of Offside Entertainment making sure that the production is top notch and gives an impression of a big screen affair in the offering, Tandav should indeed make Amazon Prime dance.
Tribhanga is special as it sees Kajol's entry into the web space. She has done a short film before [Devi] but Tribhanga is a full length feature film where she plays a top dancer. A family drama with some light hearted moments in there as well, which will keep the audiences engaged. An all-women affair, considering the coming together of Tanvi Azmi and Mithila Palkar with Kajol, hence representing the three generations, Tribhanga is directed by Renuka Shahane and produced by Ajay Devgn, Parag Desai, Siddharth P Malhotra and Banijay Group Asia
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Sony LIV has been churning out different content month after month and one looks forward to the family comedy Gullak which is now arriving in its second season. A light hearted web series by TVF, this one stars Jameel Khan, Geetanjali Kulkarni, Sunita Rajwar, Harsh Mayar and Vaibhav Raj Gupta. The promo gives an impression of some real life situations been recreated in the web series, which reminds one of another such offering from TVF, Yeh Meri Family, which had premiered in 2018 and is available on Netflix.
Suraj Pe Mangal Bhari is a Manoj Bajpayee, Diljit Dosanjh and Fatima Sana Sheikh starrer which was the first theatrical release and then arrived on ZEEPlex. Now the film would be streaming on ZEE5 and is expected to bring on laughter for a wider segment of audiences. The film is in fact still running at select theatres after being around for 50 days, and considering the fact that it's a clean family entertainer, one can expect good eyeballs on its OTT arrival.
Release dates
Suraj Pe Mangal Bhari - ZEE5 - 13th Jan
Tandav - Amazon Prime - 15th Jan
Tribhanga - Netflix - 15th Jan
Gullak - Sony LIV - 15th Jan
(Joginder Tuteja is a trade expert and film critic, and loves to talk and write about anything that is related to films. Views are personal)