Chunni, Munni aur Chudail !. Review on Makdee

Makdee is India's only children's film to be produced this year & with all my friends going ga-ga over a film meant for kids.......... I was quite curious to see what all the ''shor'' was about? I was really surprised to know that Makdee has a new story, good cinematography, excellent makeup & is good fun film to watch :)

The story :

Chunni & her twin Munni (Shweta Prasad) are motherless kids who live with their father & grandmother. Differentiated by the mole on her cheek, Munni is a seedhi-saadi girl who is liked by everyone in the village whereas Chunni is a much dislike brat who often impersonates Munni [she has a spare mole to become Munni], to escape from trouble, mostly created by her. She loves to tease the village butcher Kallu (Makarand Deshpande), who is a cruel man because he doesn't care about his the adopted son, Mughal-e-Azam (Alaap) & often makes him work hard but never gives him food to eat. So it is Chunni who looks after Mughal-e-Azam & makes him her partner in fun & pranks.

One day when Chunni again learns that Mughal-e-Azam has been kept hungry by Kallu, she decides to teach him a lesson. She let all his hens loose & Kallu is so furious that he hunts for Chunni with his butcher knife !! When he finds her, Chunni dons the disguise of her sister Munni & re-directs the butcher's chase - towards Munni! Kallu chases Munni, who is terrified and runs into the haunted mansion to save herself from the angry butcher.

Hence an harmless prank has lead Munni into a witch's haunted mansion. The story of this witch called Makdee (Shabana Azmi) is that she turns children into animals if they stray into her mansion. The villagers are terrified of this mansion & always tell their kids the stories about children who walked into the witch's lair and never returned.

When Chunni is told that Munni has entered the dreaded mansion, Chunni runs to everyone for help but all refuse to believe her. The cops, Ghanta & Banta, who do believe her, ask her to wait at the mansion but they turn up a little late. Worried to death, Chunni enters the haunted mansion to find her sister & here she meets the witch! A terrified Chunni confronts the witch Makdee to return her sister Munni. But the wicked witch has turned Munni into a hen! After Chunni's repeated pleas to the witch to make her sister back to normal, the witch agrees to do so but on one condition - Munni in return for a 100 hens. Chunni is now confronted with the biggest challenge of her life - 100 hens for Makdee, in return for her sister, without the villagers ever getting to know of it.

Can Chunni get Munni back? Will she be able to give the 100 hens to the witch? Will she be able to get out of makdee's web???? Yeh sab is film ka suspense hain :)

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The performances :

The child actor Shweta, who in her very first film plays the dual role of Chunni and Munni is simply adorable !! There are some child actors who get on to our nerves with their put-on acting of innocence but Shweta is a natural, has a great screen presence & her dialogue delivery is really good for a kid her age. Pitted against established actors like Shabana Azmi & Makrand Deshpande, Shweta manages to steals the show from them. She is a treat to watch alongwith the other kid Alaap who enacts the role of Mugale Azam, that kid is amazing too :)

As seen on the posters all around the city, Shabana Azmi plays a witch in this film. However, its her makeup - colored eyes, ugly chapped lips, dirty teeth, matted hair & huge ugly scales hands - that takes the cake! One cannot help but be amazed with the effort taken on her make-up & the camera tricks to make it look scary has been very successful. Shabana doesn't have to do much acting here but whatever chance she has got to act, she does it with her natural flair. The other actor worth mentioning here is Makarand Deshpande, who enacts the role of Kallu the butcher. Ofcourse, with his beard & ganji-lungi he looks exactly like a butcher & his role is a comedy one too making the audience burst into laughter everytime Chunni plays a trick on him.

Vishal Bharadwaj is a very talented music composer & with this film - which is written, produced, directed by Vishal - we can clearly see that he has great potential of making good films in future.

Being a vegetarian & a pet lover [I have a pet dog] I found the butcher scenes & his introduction song [well sung by Makarand] very disturbing but it suits the story so can't help but praise. The scenes where Mughal-e-Azam cries for his dog Alladin - who runs into the mansion after a ball, when Chunni cries for her sister & prays to her mom, she hunts for her sister Munni [now a hen] in Kallu's shop & many other such scenes are very touching. These contribute to make the film very different from the usual crappy bollywood films. This film is a must see for all kids & some of us too ;)

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Thanx for reading :)