麻豆社

With six directors, twelve writers, and 25 actors telling a whapping ten stories, it's a miracle Dus Kahaniyaan was even completed. A massive undertaking, even by Bollywood standards, it's all down to Sanjay Dutt and Sanjay Gupta's teamwork as co-producers that this collection of short films has made it to the big screen. Nevertheless it's a clear case of too many cooks spoiling the broth. Ghosts, mobsters, philanderers and desperate housewives are just a handful of the characters fighting for space in this crowded ensemble piece.

Showcasing ten stand alone stories, Sanjay Gupta and his team of directors hurtle down the highways and byways of contemporary India. A world far removed from the land of maharajas and snake charmers, their country is full of college junkies, warring mafia and rowing middle classes. Interestingly, it's not the sexually charged youngsters who shock, but the risque behaviour of the veterans. In Rohit Roy's 'Rice Plate', a fiercely religious Hindu grandmother (Shabana Azmi) places hunger before beliefs when pitted against a timid Muslim gent (Naseeruddin Shah). While a young Punjabi girl pays the price for her mother's (Amrita Singh) sexual yearnings in Meghna Gulzar 'Pooranmashi'.

"DISCONNECTED BATCH OF TALES"

Bollywood's growing obsession with size and scale is evident in Dus Kahaniyaan, with Gupta and Co assuming the bigger the star cast the better the chances of striking box office gold. Sadly quantity is at the detriment of quality here. Merging the visions of six directors is an ambitious move, but one laced with obvious pitfalls. With less than ten minutes for each story to be played out, and no theme or narrator to bind them, Gupta's gang of storytellers produces a disconnected batch of tales. The fact that only a couple of them have anything of merit to say underlies the problem.

Dus Kahaniyaan (Ten Stories) is out in the UK on 7th December 2007 2007.