Look, Ma, No Lungi

The New York Times has an article about the film Krrish, a film that showcases Bollywood’s first fully realized Superman-style hero।

"Krrish" is a sequel to the 2003 blockbuster "Koi … Mil Gaya" ("I Found Someone"), which was considered Hindi cinema’s first major science fiction film. In it, an E.T.-like alien descends to Earth and is befriended by Rohit, a good-hearted young man who’s not very bright. The alien waves a finger. Miraculously, the slow, stuttering, myopic Rohit is transformed into a hero who can dance, woo the beauteous heroine and defeat the bad guys.

"Krrish" is the story of Rohit’s son, Krishna, born with the superpowers the alien bestowed upon his father, and then some. Unlike Rohit, Krishna is superintelligent and has a handy sixth sense. He has great physical strength and is able to leap, like Spider-Man but sans web, among the trees.

After his parents are killed, Krishna is raised in an isolated village by his grandmother. But the pastoral idyll is disrupted when an alluring television reporter arrives in the village to learn hang gliding. He rescues her after an accident, and romance blooms. Krishna eventually follows her to Singapore, where he recognizes his special powers and also encounters the archvillain, a psychotic inventor who murdered his parents and is now plotting to create a machine that can see the future. Krishna becomes Krrish, a sleek, leather-jacket-clad flying machine, and, naturally, saves the world.