Hindi
OK Jaanu: …Live-in romance replayed!
MUMBAI: OK Jaanu is a contemporary love story which eventually settles about halfway between modern-day relationships traditions while conveying the eternal belief that love always triumphs. These kinds of films are made now and again but a love story is a love story and usually has its own appeal if supported by enough emotion and music.
The film is a remake of Mani Ratnam’s Tamil film, O Kadhal Kanmani.
The characters of Aditya Roy Kapur and Shraddha Kapoor have an odd first meeting. Aditya has just alighted from a train from Kanpur and watches Shraddha on the other platform threatening her boyfriend to leave her alone else she will jump on the tracks! Aditya warns her to back off.
They become friends soon after. Both find perfect companionship in each other.
Shraddha comes from a broken home and prefers to stay in a hostel despite having a wealthy mother — the character of Kittu Gidwani. Aditya stays with the character of Naseeruddin Shah and his wife, Leela Samson, both retired judges. Leela suffers from Alzheimer’s and Naseeruddin’s affection for her is exemplary and for the young lovers to emulate.
Both have one thing in common: they don’t believe in the institution of marriage. With no commitment, the friendship flourishes as they hop restaurants, clubs and make merry. But, a relationship between a man and a woman can’t always be platonic. The inevitable happens.
After that, both decide to stay together. Aditya sort of stretches Naseeruddin’s hospitality and asks his permission to let Sharaddha in with him.
Aditya, a video game designer, who dreams of going to the US to earn millions, and Shraddha, an aspiring architect, who plans to move to Paris to study further. Finally, it is time.
Being a remake, it retains a lot of its south flavour. Where it affects the most is in the later parts of the second half when some unnecessary melodrama takes place. In the second half, the film also starts losing much of the fun of the first half and the proceedings start dragging which the director could have contained.
The music may sound alright in the film but lacks the take-home quality. With a leisurely pace of narration, the editing sags. The cinematography is good and Mumbai is well exploited.
As for performances, Naseeruddin and Leela impress. Shraddha is a natural, inhibited. Aditya is passable.
OK Jaanu is a feel-good love story but the stretched second half and limited face value takes it down to an average level. The film’s hopes lie in solo run and an open second week for relief.
Producers: Mani Ratnam, Karan Johar, Apoorva Mehta, Hiroo Yash Johar.
Direction: Shaad Ali.
Cast: Aditya Roy Kapur, Shraddha Kapoor, Leela Samson, Naseeruddin Shah, Karan Nath.
Haraamkhor…an irrelevant enterprise
There seems to be emerging a new genre of films. It can be tentatively called weird cinema.
The kind of cinema where you give up on making sense of what is happening on screen but still wonder as to who thinks up of such ideas. And why? To what purpose? And, mainly, who backs them!?
The opening titles of Haraamkhor declare the film to be based on a true story. But, the makers forget to tell the story. For, there is none.
There is a small town somewhere in the Hindi belt where the character of Nawazuddin Siddiqui is a teacher with a glad eye for just about every girl, mainly his students. In fact, he is married to one of his students, the character of Trimala Adhikari, while also eyeing one of his underage students, Shweta Tripathi.
Shweta leads a lonely life as her father, a local cop, is often out on duty while her mother has left them both while she was a child. She is also attracted to Nawazuddin. Everybody in the town, including Shweta’s father, seems to be oblivious to the duo’s romance and rendezvous.
The only ones with in inkling to what is happening seems to Trimala and two of Shweta’s classmates, the characters of Mohd Samad and Irfan Khan, one of whom is in love with Shweta while the other one helps him devise ways to impress her. The duo is always chasing Shweta.
Shweta and Nawazuddin’s exploits take her to a gynecologist where Shweta is surprised to find the nurse is her father’s girlfriend. In her, Shweta finds a guardian angel. After that, what happens is not quite fathomable and, hence, not possible to report.
Haraamkhor is described as: 1. हरामकीकमाईनेवाला; आलसी; निकम्मा; मुफ़्तख़ोर 2. नमकहराम; पापकीकमाईखानेवाला। and none of the meanings apply here. In this totally irrelevant enterprise, besides miscast Nawazuddin, one sees decent efforts by Shweta Tripathi and the two young actors.
Producers: Feroze Alameer, Anurag Kashyap, Guneet Monga, Achin Jain.
Director: Shlok Sharma.
Cast: Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Shweta Tripathi, Trimala Adhikari, Mohd Samad, Irfan Khan.
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.
