Released in cinemas in 1985, Shiva ka Insaaf (SkI) was touted as the first Hindi 3D movie (since the 1984 Chota Chetan - which remains for most Indians in that era the defining 3D experience - was only dubbed into Hindi from the original Malayalam). While I never actually saw it in 3D at the cinemas, I did see it on VHS in that period.
SkI is a comic book type movie, with Jackie Shroff playing a masked vigilante hero called Shiva and his mild-mannered alter ego Bhola; of course in 80's Bollywood, mild-mannered translates. The obvious inspirations for Shiva are of course Batman (parents get murdered by a criminal, and hero trains for a life dedicated to crime-fighting) and Superman (mild-mannered employee at a newspaper).
SkI is all about broad strokes - locations are defined as "gaon" (village) and "shahar" (city). Shiva is brought up by a Hindu-Muslim-Christian triumvirate (while he is shown to visit all the religious shrines, the Hindu component appears dominant, given the avatar he dons and the batarang style mini-tridents he hurls at his enemies). Heroine Poonam Dhillon plays an editor that goes by herself to cover stories, which usually involves sneaking into a shady location, then getting caught and having to be rescued by Shiva. The evil mastermind villain (Shakti Kapoor) runs a poorly defined crime empire, and gets his jollies setting off bombs using a TV remote.
For the action scenes, 3D means there's a good bit of pointing guns, swords and sticks towards the screen, and in the climax Shakti Kapoor and his son (Gulshan Grover) inexplicably start firing flaming arrows at the hero. There is some hilarious use of toy cars, dolls/puppets and very obvious miniatures. Apart from one decent romance number, RD Burman's score is wholly forgettable. But for nostalgics of 80's action masala SkI is not a bad way of spending 2 hours.
SkI is a comic book type movie, with Jackie Shroff playing a masked vigilante hero called Shiva and his mild-mannered alter ego Bhola; of course in 80's Bollywood, mild-mannered translates. The obvious inspirations for Shiva are of course Batman (parents get murdered by a criminal, and hero trains for a life dedicated to crime-fighting) and Superman (mild-mannered employee at a newspaper).
SkI is all about broad strokes - locations are defined as "gaon" (village) and "shahar" (city). Shiva is brought up by a Hindu-Muslim-Christian triumvirate (while he is shown to visit all the religious shrines, the Hindu component appears dominant, given the avatar he dons and the batarang style mini-tridents he hurls at his enemies). Heroine Poonam Dhillon plays an editor that goes by herself to cover stories, which usually involves sneaking into a shady location, then getting caught and having to be rescued by Shiva. The evil mastermind villain (Shakti Kapoor) runs a poorly defined crime empire, and gets his jollies setting off bombs using a TV remote.
For the action scenes, 3D means there's a good bit of pointing guns, swords and sticks towards the screen, and in the climax Shakti Kapoor and his son (Gulshan Grover) inexplicably start firing flaming arrows at the hero. There is some hilarious use of toy cars, dolls/puppets and very obvious miniatures. Apart from one decent romance number, RD Burman's score is wholly forgettable. But for nostalgics of 80's action masala SkI is not a bad way of spending 2 hours.
