Zinda

Zinda: Unauthorised remake… Absolute rip-off of Oldboy. Story-wise it’s an ‘Indianized’ version of the original; scene for scene – barring the first and last five minutes – but with all humour, taboo, acting, style (and everything that makes the original great & watchable) ripped out. The script is beyond terrible & drifted between Hindi and English, which is bizarre, stupid and very annoying. The main fight scene is totally lame-o. It looks like this was filmed in the 1990s, on a home video camera with all colour deliberately washed-out, leaving a depressing blue. The shitty distributor logo (Eros) keeps appearing on the top left. There’s a ridiculous soft porn scene and loads of close-up torture / wound stitching for no real reason. The ending’s still messed up, despite being completely different, hats off for that. If I’d never seen or heard of Oldboy I’d have thought the story was alright but poorly executed (perhaps a 4/10) but having seen, and love, Oldboy I’m going to have to make sure this one’s dead and buried. Shame on everyone involved!

Score: 0.5/10