Hindi
Murder 2: Ample thrill and skin
Producer: Mukesh Bhatt.
Director: Mohit Suri
Cast: Emraan Hashmi, Jacqueline Fernandez, Prashant Narayanan, Sudhanshu Pandey, Sulagna Panigrahi
MUMBAI: Murder 2, like the recent Bheja Fry 2, has nothing to do with the makers‘ earlier film, Murder, but it solves the trouble to look for a fitting title while also adding a certain degree of brand equity to the film.
Bhatt brothers, Mukesh and Mahesh, work on a sort of studio system of the Hollywood of yore, choosing the film‘s hero and director from their own lot; hence the film is directed by Mohit Suri with Emraan Hashmi as hero.
In most cases, the inspirations for Bhatt films are from some odd films abroad, which are then duly well incorporated for local acceptance. The location too is the convenient Goa, which never wears out no matter how many films are shot there.
Emraan Hashmi is an ex-cop making a living by doing odd jobs for the local gangs. He gets this new assignment where he is asked to solve the mystery behind the missing live-stock of a man in flesh trade. Girls from his roaster have been going missing lately and he needs Emraan to find out as to who is behind this.
Emraan Hashmi‘s love angle is Jacqueline Fernandez, a model. Realising this to be a case of serial killing, Emraan Hashmi embarks on the trail by finding a scapegoat for the killer and this happens to be Sulagna Panigrahi, a college student turned prostitute.
The film has two peculiarities and that is – all its characters have a bad past for whatever reason and that the film is as sordid as the writers can make it to be; there is nothing pleasant about anybody or anything. The script may create a situation but usually does not know how to get out of it and just takes the viewer for granted.
The film‘s USP is thrill element and ample skin show.
Having sent a scapegoat to the suspected killer‘s place, Emraan Hashmi soon learns that she too has vanished like other girls earlier. Meanwhile, he stumbles across the villain of the piece, Prashant Narayanan; they fight, end up in a lock-up till; and finally, they meet at a temple to sort things out.
Such a film would need a strong villain to also elevate other characters and Prashant Narayanan does a spending job here, playing a self-castrated eunuch. Emraan Hashmi sticks to being his usual self. Jacqueline Fernandez gets to display only her sex-appeal in this film; rest of the cast supports very well.
Direction is fair, sticking to basics. Musically, two songs, Haal e dil…. Aa zara have popular appeal. Photography is good and adds to the thrill value of the film.
Murder 2 has taken a bumper opening response all over and that assures its recovery during its first weekend run from most circuits.
Producer: Ronnie Screwvala, Salman Khan
Director: Nitesh Tiwari, Vikas Bahl
Cast: Irrfan Khan, Sanath Menon, Rohan Grover, Naman Jain, Aarav Khanna, Vishesh Tiwari, Chinmay Chandranshush, Vedant Desai, Shreya Sharma, Divji Handa.
MUMBAI: Chillar Party is a children‘sfilm, after a long time. Nothing caters to the entertainment for the children of India except a few TV channels, which try vainly to Indianise their content with language usually; even the Government sponsored Children‘s FilmSociety has just proved to be a money guzzling machine.
There is not much in the name of imagination used to make Chillar Party no adventure stuff; it is about right and wrong and children Vs elders. In fact, the story could have been an episode from the popular TV Serial Tarak Mehta Ka Ooltah Chashma.
In this hugely family-planning-conscious housing society called Chandan Nagar, where between 60 flats there are just about eight children who go to the same school, play together and generally stick together all the time. Each of them has an idiosyncrasy or trait because of which he enjoys a pet name.
However this bunch of kids, known as Chillar Party among the residents, have a cause for concern soon as a replacement car washing boy, Irrfan Khan, comes along with a dog, Bhidu, in tow. The boys have a problem with the dog since the one dog, which is already there in the society has been using their cricket pitch for poo.
In the process of separating Irrfan and Bhidu, the boys become friends with both and soon find them to be worthy of friendship too. The dog then happens to step on a wrong toe, that of a local politician who is in the vicinity to inaugurate a park. The story, as such, begins when the politician makes it his mission to get rid of Bhidu in the guise of cleansing the city of aggressive stray dogs and the Chillar party devises ways to save the dog from being taken away.
The story has little in form of exciting moments and moves on expected lines considering which more than two hours of running time is rather telling. Direction is passable. Music lacks that one number, which would become a children‘s anthem. While all kids have done a reasonable job, the weakest link is the central character, Irrfan Khan, and the one who shines in the lot is Naman Jain.
Chillar Party has had an uninspiring opening and will find it hard to sustain through the weekend.
Hindi
Jio Studios unveils AI-powered Krishna teaser at NAB Show 2026
Global first look of Krishna uses Galleri5 AI pipeline on Azure, Historyverse slate as Jio’s Dhurandhar crosses Rs 3,000cr worldwide.
MUMBAI: Krishna has just dropped a divine teaser and this time the gods are powered by silicon, not just scripture. Jio Studios and Collective Studios’ Historyverse stole the spotlight at the NAB Show 2026 in Las Vegas with the world’s first teaser for their upcoming theatrical feature Krishna, directed by Manu Anand. The big reveal happened during Microsoft’s keynote “Powering Intelligent Media, From AI Experimentation to Real-World Impact,” where the film’s AI-native production pipeline took centre stage alongside Collective Artists Network’s in-house platform, Galleri5.
At the heart of this mythological spectacle lies a fresh cinematic workflow built by Galleri5 on Microsoft Azure’s advanced AI and cloud infrastructure. Forget bolting AI onto traditional VFX or animation, this is an end-to-end, production-grade system woven into every layer: world-building, character creation, shot design and final output. Yet the storytelling remains firmly director-led, emphasising emotional depth, stillness, music and performance rather than pure spectacle. The result? Large-format theatrical cinema rooted in Indian history and culture, but conceived in ways that were simply not possible before.
Collective Artists Network runs Galleri5 natively on Azure, leveraging Microsoft Foundry and cutting-edge AI tools to handle film, episodic and advertising workflows in a secure enterprise environment. Microsoft highlighted Collective as a “Frontier” organisation successfully moving AI from pilot projects to real production-scale deployment in cinema. The technology is also on display at Microsoft’s NAB booth in the West Hall (Booth W1731).
Jio Studios (Media & Content Business, Reliance Industries), president Jyoti Deshpande said the project advances the studio’s mission to take Indian stories global with scale, ambition and authenticity, “With Krishna, we are embracing cutting-edge AI-led filmmaking while democratising these tools to make them more accessible, intuitive and cost-effective for storytellers everywhere.”
Collective Artists Network founder & group CEO Vijay Subramaniam added, “We’re using technology developed in India to carry our culture and history to audiences worldwide at a scale never seen before.”
Microsoft, vice president for telco media & entertainment, gaming Silvia Candiani noted that the media industry has reached an inflection point, “AI is no longer about experimentation but delivering real impact at production scale… By building AI-native creative systems on Microsoft Azure, Collective exemplifies how storytellers can unlock new formats, move faster and realise a true return on intelligence while keeping human creativity at the centre.”
Krishna forms part of Historyverse, Collective Studios’ ambitious slate of history and culture-driven IPs. The slate draws from iconic figures and traditions that shaped the Indian subcontinent, including stories inspired by Kali, Karna and Durga. It builds on the already-released Mahabharat: Ek Dharmayudh series, showing how ancient narratives can be reimagined for modern screens.
Jio Studios, India’s leading content studio and the media and content arm of Reliance Industries, continues its blockbuster run. The studio’s Dhurandhar franchise led by Dhurandhar and Dhurandhar: The Revenge has become the first Indian film series to cross Rs 3,000 crore worldwide. It also delivered three consecutive years of India’s highest-grossing Hindi films: Stree 2 (2024), Dhurandhar (2025) and Dhurandhar: The Revenge (2026). In just eight years, Jio Studios has assembled a library of over 160 films and series, with more than 60 titles winning over 500 awards. Other notable successes include Laapataa Ladies (India’s official Oscar entry 2025), Stree, Article 370, Shaitaan and Mrs.
The NAB unveiling marks another step in Jio Studios and Collective’s push to blend Indian storytelling talent with frontier technology proving that the future of cinema may well be both ancient in spirit and thoroughly modern in execution. For audiences who love epic tales with a fresh twist, Krishna promises to deliver divine drama, this time with a little help from the cloud.
