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Salaam Bombay! (1988)
IMDb Rating 8.1
Front Cover Actor Back Cover
Shafig Syed Krishna
Sarfuddin Qurrassi Koyla
Raju Barnad Keera
Raghubir Yadav Chillum
Nana Patekar Baba
Aneeta Kanwar Rekha
Hansa Vithal Manju
Mohanraj Babu Salim
Chandrashekhar Naidu Chungal
Shaukat Azmi Solasaal
Chanda Sharma Solasaal
Shafio Syed
Rughubir Yadav
Plot
Shot on-location on the streets of Bombay, Mira Nair's Salaam Bombay is the gritty tale of Krishna (Shafiq Syed, a runaway discovered by Nair), a boy kicked out of his home, and abandoned by the traveling circus he had joined. In desperation, he uses the little money he has to buy a one-way ticket to the nearest city, which turns out to be Bombay. "Come back a movie star," the ticket agent tells him mockingly. In Bombay, Krishna joins a small community of street kids, and gets a job delivering tea. Soon, everyone in the downtrodden neighborhood knows him as "Chaipau" (tea boy). Krishna wants to save five hundred rupees, enough money to get back into his mother's good graces and return home. Chillum (Raghubir Yadav), a streetwise young man who deals drugs for the local kingpin, Baba (Nana Patekar), takes Krishna under his wing. The sly but cruel Baba has a mistress, Rekha (Aneeta Kanwar), who works as a prostitute. She has a young daughter, Manju (Hansa Vithal), who has a crush on Krishna, but Krishna only has eyes for the girl they call "Sweet Sixteen," a virginal teenager who is being forced into prostitution. Eventually, Baba fires the surly Chillum, and Krishna finds himself struggling to keep Chillum alive by supporting his drug habit. Many of the roles in the film are played by non-actors, including the street kids, and an actual madame who allowed Nair to film scenes in her brothel. The Harvard-educated Nair began her filmmaking career working on documentaries. Salaam Bombay, her narrative feature debut, won worldwide critical acclaim, and was awarded the Camera D'Or at Cannes. She and the film's screenwriter, Sooni Taraporevala, also collaborated on Mississippi Masala, starring Denzel Washington. — Josh Ralske
Movie Details
Genre Drama; Foreign
Director Mira Nair
Producer Mira Nair
Writer Sooni Taraporevala; Mira Nair
Studio MGM
Country UK
Language Hindi
Audience Rating PG-13
Running Time 114 mins
Movie Release Date 10/7/1988
Color Color
Personal Details
Format DVD
Seen It No
Index 320
Collection Status In Collection
Purchase Date 10/26/2004
Product Details
Edition Widescreen Special Edition
Region Region 1
Screen Ratio Widescreen 1.85:1 Color (Anamorphic)
Layers Single Side, Single Layer
UPC (Barcode) 027616884176
Release Date 3/4/2003
Subtitles English; French; Spanish
Packaging Keep Case
Audio Tracks HINDI: Dolby Digital 5.1
HINDI: Dolby Digital Mono
Nr of Disks/Tapes 1
Extra Features
5 Original Documentaries Shot In India: One Chance In a Million; A Color In the Hand Of the Painter; I Got Love; It Gave Me a Career; So Kids Like Us Can Learn Forever
Original Featurette No Guts, No Glory
Audio Commentary With Director Mira Nair
Second Audio Commentary With Cinematographer Sandi Sissel
Photo Gallery
Original Theatrical Trailer
Links
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