Latest Bollywood News

Bollywood is the name given to the Mumbai-based film industry in India. It is considered to be the largest in the world in terms of number of films produced.

The films it produces are mostly in Hindi. They are generally lively, energetic musicals. Bollywood films often have their own sense of internal logic and can be as surreal as any musical produced by American or European studios. The music is generally pre-recorded, sung by a core group of singers, with actors miming the words (known as playback singing). Generally, professional playback singers provide the voices but of late there's a trend of the actors singing for themselves, like Aamir Khan in Ghulam. Bollywood films are often engaging spectacles that tell timeless stories of love and turmoil.

Bollywood films usually feature caucasian looking indians (Aryan as opposed to Dravidic), usually from the northern regions of India. The dancing usually involves very strong and quick body movements, and large groups of dancers.

During the period that Bollywood was not known outside of India and the various Indian communities, a lot of licences were probably used without permission.

Currently due to increased visibility and increasingly large audiences, some Bollywood films can have fairly large budgets, allowing them to use famous film sets such as Hatfield House and Blenheim Palace in the United Kingdom. In modern Bollywood films, location shooting is quite important and good sceneries are sought after. However, funding for Bollywood films remains hit-and-miss. There are no large studios which fund films. Often funding comes from private distributors. In 2001 the Central Bureau of Investigation, India's national police agency, seized all prints of Chori Chori Chupke Chupke after the movie was found to be funded by members of the Mumbai underworld.

Another problem facing Bollywood is piracy of its films. Often pirated DVDss arrive before the print for the picture.

The term Bollywood was created by conflating Bombay (the city now called Mumbai) and "Hollywood". Mumbai is a major centre for the production and editing of Indian films.

Latest Bollywood news are widely watched in South Asian countries, such as Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Many Pakistanis watch Bollywood films, as they understand Hindi (due to its linguistic similarity to Urdu). Pakistan banned the legal import of Bollywood movies in 1965. However, a thriving trade in pirated DVDs and illegal cable broadcasts ensured the continued popularity of Bollywood releases in Pakistan. Exceptions were made for a few films, such as the 2006 colorized re-release of the classic Mughal-e-Azam or the 2006 film Taj Mahal. Early in 2008, the Pakistani government eased the ban and allowed the import of even more movies; 16 were screened in 2008. Continued easing followed in 2009 and 2010. The new policy is controversial in Pakistan. It is opposed by ardent nationalists and representatives of Pakistan's small film industry; it is embraced by cinema owners, who are booking large profits after years of poor receipts.

Bollywood movies are also popular in Afghanistan due to the country's proximity with the Indian subcontinent and certain other cultural perspectives present in the movies. A number of Bollywood movies were filmed inside Afghanistan while some dealt with the country, including Dharmatma, Kabul Express, Khuda Gawah and Escape From Taliban. Hindi films have also been popular in numerous Arab countries, including Palestine, Jordan, Egypt and the Gulf countries. Imported Indian films are usually subtitled in Arabic upon the film's release. Since the early 2000s, Bollywood has progressed in Israel. Special channels dedicated to Indian films have been displayed on cable television. Bollywood films are also popular across Southeast Asia (particularly the Malay Archipelago) and Central Asia (particularly in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan).

Some Hindi movies also became big successes in the People's Republic of China during the 1940s and 1950s. The most popular Hindi films in China were Dr. Kotnis Ki Amar Kahani (1946), Awaara (1951) and Two Acres of Land (1953). Raj Kapoor was a famous movie star in China, and the song "Awara Hoon" ("I am a Tramp") was popular in the country. Since then, Hindi films significantly declined in popularity in China, until the Academy Award nominated Lagaan (2001) became the first Indian film to have a nation-wide release there in decades. The Chinese filmmaker He Ping was impressed by Lagaan, especially its soundtrack, and thus hired the film's music composer A. R. Rahman to score the soundtrack for his film Warriors of Heaven and Earth (2003). Several older Hindi films also have a cult following in Japan, particularly the films directed by the late Guru Dutt.