Author: Yogesh Gautam

War is never pretty, with civilians being the biggest casualty, and director Raja Krishna Menon puts it across engagingly in Airlift. It’s a tale of 170,000 Indian expatriates caught in the Iraq-Kuwait conflict in 1990 and their struggle to safety. Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar plays the suave and shrewd business tycoon Ranjit Katiyal. He has everything going for him: a beautiful wife (Nimrat Kaur), a lovely daughter, a palatial mansion, well-connected business associates … the works. But his life changes overnight as Iraqi soldiers go on a rampage, killing Kuwaitis and gunning down all those who oppose them. The...

China is rapidly becoming the largest market in the world for Hollywood movies, and figuring out how to appeal to the sensibilities of an audience whose tastes, sensitivities, and cultural histories often differ wildly from those in the West, has proved a challenge for many Hollywood studios. Disney and Lucasfilm, in particular, knew that they were facing an uphill battle in selling Star Wars 7: The Force Awakens to Chinese audiences, who have proven to enjoy American action films but do not generally share the powerful nostalgia for the Star Wars franchise their Western counterparts do. After all, non-local...