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COLOURFUL and vibrant, this fascinating and joyful documentary sings and dances its way through a tour of the mega Bollywood film industry. India produces three times as many movies as Hollywood and sells more than two billion movie tickets. It has some of the wealthiest and most worshipped stars on the planet. In fact, one in seven UK films are made in India, but many of us have probably never seen a Bollywood movie.
Anita Rani is our guide here, throwing herself into the culture surrounding the magic of the movies. “I’ve been fascinated with Indian cinema since I was a kid,” she says.
She begins at Mumbai’s oldest multiplex, which is beset by screaming fans when one of its stars makes a surprise appearance. “Johnny I love you!” she shouts, turning into a giggling mess. The cinema experience is an insanely noisy one, with whooping, whistling and cheering all the way through. It will make you nostalgic for the days when we used to at least clap when the film started. Later Anita heads to a film set as one of Bollywood’s biggest stars, Anil Kapoor, takes on a dance number. Anita, who was in Strictly in 2015, also has a go at dancing. “I can just feel Craig Revel Horwood’s glare from here,” she says. She also meets an action hero who explains some fight scenes, meets a leading fashion designer to explain the importance of the costumes, and finally is roped into dressing a cast of hundreds for an epic battle scene.