REVIEW: LADKI: DRAGON GIRL

Producers-Ramgopal Verma, Naresh T , Shridhar T and Jing Liu

Director- Ramgopal Varma

Star Cast- Pooja Bhaelkar, Rajpal Yadav, Abhimanyu Singh, Miya Muqi and Tian Long Shi

Genre- Martial Arts Thriller

Platform of Release-Theatrical

Rating- **

Old Wine Repackaged!

Jyothi Venkatesh

Ladki: Dragon Girl, an Indo-Chinese co-production revolves around a girl Pooja Karnik (Pooja Bhalekar) who is a huge admirer of Bruce Lee (the master of martial arts).

RGV's film is inspired by Lee's 1976 action-flick 'Enter The Dragon,' This 136-minute-long drama is as old and predictable as the hills from the start and includes some role reversals, as in the story, a fearless lead protagonist defends men from the bad guys.

The only difference is that the character of Lee is played by debutante Pooja Bhalekar, who is seen confidently beating up the baddies with her Taekwondo and Jeet Kune Do skills (both martial arts, one of which became famous for Bruce Lee's style).

Though the USP of the film is the well designed and hot action sequences credited to both Pooja Bhalekar and Ramgopal Varma, unfortunately the lay men in the audiences will be certainly distracted from the gravity of the plot to a large extent by the close-up shots of Pooja's body, steamy scenes and skin-showing elements in almost all of the dance sequences, including the scenes where her boobs start gobbling especially when she sprints on the other hand.

The screenplay leaves a lot to be desired as the girls who have been kidnapped by the builders goons do not seem to get rescued by the cops in the climax.

Pooja Bhalekar is indeed a delightful newcomer who is seen kicking and punching hard while flexing her muscles and stretching herself to impress viewers.

She can easily be compared to Tiger Shroff and Vidyut Jammwal, two of Bollywood’s popular action heroes. Although emotional scenes are not her strength, to be frank, the girl is good as far as raw action is concerned and is flawless in all action sequences.

Pooja's and Chinese actress Miya Muqi fight sequence, in particular, turns out to be a highlight of the film. Tianlong Shi as Pooja’s master has plenty of screen time to show his fighting skills.

While Rajpal Yadav is good and endearing in all his semi comic villain scenes, Abhimanyu Singh plays just a supporting role as the builder who lustfully eyes Pooja in the movie and is just about passably fog with his beer glass and bevy of beauties around him in almost every scene.

With its high octave adrenal raising kicks and slick fight sequences, though the film sets out to pay an honest tribute to the iconic Bruce Lee.

The biggest problem with the film is that you just cannot get the sparkling good old Ramu of Satya or Sarkar, if you just scissor out the incessant fights in the blue lagoons, with the babe in bikini in almost every one of them, the film ends up just as yet another old wine repackaged as a sexy martial arts oriented vendetta film.

Does it have the same intoxicating effect when you come out of the cinema house after 136 minutes? You bet!