Roja (1992)

For starters, The movie name " Roja" brings goosebumps , such is the impact it had on me as a Cinema lover and made me understand and changed my perspective on how the perfect Movie should be : Engagingly showcasing both visually and with dialogues along with able support from songs, Bgm and Cinematography a story and drama that is unique yet both emotionally gripping and thrilling with a most relevant social theme.

Roja is the only movie or at least one of the very few which has all these and some. For once, it is a movie where the fullstop is not after a couple get married and the actual love is established post marriage and shown in the form of a thriller integrated with a national theme brilliantly.

The first half is a beautiful depiction of character establishment and drama between different relationships shown subtly with some of the best music and dialogues ever heard and best natural scenery ever seen.

The second half the story takes a tremendous turn both story wise and in terms of premise and feel of the movie...The wonderful part if how a national issue was dealt with perfect reality in an national integration form yet the interior layer was a true love story where the wife goes all out for her husband.

Its probably the first national integration movie ever and in locations seen for the first time with the lovely thoughts at present reflecting of scenes in the past format ( The one before kaadhal Rojave) , songs both visually and to hear off the charts.

So many movies since have used the templates set in Roja and yet none can match the greatest Indian movie ever made by the pairing then that has now conquered the nation as the best - Maniratnam and ARR!!

Final Verdict : The best Indian Movie!!

Fmovies: I watched this almost after 20 years of its initial release and I regret it that I watched it so late.

This is a masterpiece where terrorism is chosen as a topic and mixed up with a romantic drama. A political essence just adds to its panache.

Not only directing, the actors have done equally well. Not to mention A R Rahman, the stalwart initiating his glorious career and going on winning two Oscars. Now I know why he deserved that! :D

The plot is so cool that it binds perfectly with the realism that our world is experiencing right now (2012)

A must watch for everyone!

I saw this movie 3 times.. lovely songs and locations. The story line is too good..

Roja fmovies. The threat of terrorists in India meshed with mild romance is the summary of this movie. Roja(the rose) the heroine is an innocent girl whose newly wed husband gets kidnapped by Pakistani terrorists. The story revolves around how she runs from pillar to post to get her husband freed. The movie is quite intense in the later parts.

What a movie!!!! This is one movie that i can watch again and again. It was like a breath of fresh air in the stinking stench of typical Hindi movies. This movie gave me hope that Indians too can make decent movies!! But honestly, this movie was much much better then just DECENT!!! I love this movie. I love the guy's passion when he is trying to save the flag from fire!!! What a scene yaar!!!! forget that ..........i say what a movie yaar!!!!!!!!

Everyone who loves cinema and is a movie buff, should definitely have ROJA DVD in their collection! If they don't then they are liars and they don't love cinema and movies!!!!!!

Roja is a film that many feel has been a turning point in Indian cinema. The North, that usually gets all the media hype & coverage in spite of poor techniques and stories got a slap on its face when this Tamil movie was dubbed in Hindi, to enable the larger population to watch this film with a topical theme (of Kashmiri militancy). Movies from the South have always been better in content and form compared to the North. And this movie created that awareness amongst the public there, and its success encouraged many other films to be dubbed in Hindi.

And many a star was born:

1. Mani Ratnam (who had given better films like Mouna Ragam, Nayakan, Geetanjali and Anjali before)

2. A R Rahman aka Dileep Shekar: The man who brought in the New Sound to the Indian film music (lest they forget Music Maestro Ilayaraja's genius, with whom he was a lead keyboard player once) and threat to the copycats of yore: The Annu Maliks and the Anand Milinds

3. Santosh Sivan: The cinematographer, now-turned director

4. Arvind Swamy: The chubby-cheeked fair-skinned hero who appealed to the color-conscious Northies. And his patriotic fervour was well lapped up.

5. Madhoo: The ugly duckling as she was presented in her debut movie was transformed into a lovely and believable Roja- a village belle in awe of the city life and courageous when her life becomes hell with her husband's abduction.

What was interestingly presented in the Tamil Original (but lost completely in the Hindi version, as every character speaks Hindi) was the language problem she faces in the North.

I watched the film thrice.