Iliad, Bollywood-ishtyle

[toujours_nigel]

or, there's a meme going around that involves (re)casting your fandom: this has the most comprehensive links.

Being as how I'm a sheep, and this is an amazing idea, I've followed suit. Also, I'm being alphabetical, because I'm bad at organising, mkay.

So, er,


































Also, should you be unfamiliar with these actors, and wish to learn about them,

Achilles: Milind Soman

Agamemnon: Sanjay Dutt

Ajax: Salman Khan

Andromache: Konkona Sen Sharma

Cassandra: Kangana Ranaut

Clytemnestra: Sushmita Sen

Hector: Chandan Roy Sanyal

Hecuba: Shabana Azmi

Helen: Kareena Kapoor

Menelaus: Saif Ali Khan

Odysseus: Shahrukh Khan

Paris: Kunal Kapoor

Patroclus: John Abraham

Penelope: Tabu

Priam: Naseeruddin Shah

Comments

[dhobikikutti]

Sush for Clytemnestra is PERFECT!

(You already know my feelings about Kereena, so I guess I should just be glad you didn't stick Aish in there.)

Also SRK as Odysseus makes me LOL. He's such a ham! I would prefer someone more like, say, Ajay Devgan, who does stretched out and silent with grief really well.

[vehemently]

Oh holy shit that's Mikhail from Kaminey as Hector. That's versatility! I can totally see him taking off his helmet and putting it on the floor because it was scaring the baby.

(Also, having just seen Dhoom, I have John Abraham in my head as a [younger] Agamemnon: he's got that reptilian ego thing going on. I'm sure he's played nice characters since then, but, rowr.)

[copracat]

Odysseus: Shahrukh Khan

Yes. Exactly.

[jjhunter]

Perhaps I am biased by my love for these particular characters, but your castings for Penelope, Cassandra, and Priam have slotted neatly into my vague mental impressions of those characters and redefined them. Priam as weighed by his years; Penelope as pensive and lacking the coy, supremely confident sexuality of her cousin Helen; and Cassandra as glorious, posed between vulnerable/delicate and quiet strength.

In contrast, Milind Soman as Achilles is pretty hot, but he doesn't 'click' quite as perfectly for me; he won't become my dominant mental picture.

Anyway, as a die-hard Classics nerd and Homer fan I have so much love for this project. Part of what made the movie 'Troy' so horrible for me (well, besides the whole 'Sword of Troy' biz--whiskey tango foxtrot?!) was the historically inaccurate casting. Newsflash, Hollywood: historical/mythological Troy is in Turkey. And it's pretty obvious where the 'Greeks' are from. From whence the pasty European actors? The whole movie was whitewashing on an epic scale.

[wingstodust]

Duuuuuuuude imagining Illiad as a Bollywood move is the most fantastic thing evar!

I linked your post on my book blog =D

[esperante]

Ooh! I likes this cast! Now if only someone (Vishal Bhardwaj!) would make this movie... :D

[linkspam_mod]

Your post has been included in a Linkspam roundup

[kore]

I LOVE all I've seen so far, but this is very possibly the best idea EVER.