Ladki – Enter the Girl Dragon, Review: Girl, drag on

It will take some jogging of the memory to recall any film wherein the auteur has showcased his heroine and/or his muse from the beginning till the end. While at it, you could also try and recall any film in which the lead actress is seen in the skimpiest of bikinis, and keeps splashing water or wading in it all through the film. Ladki - Enter the Girl Dragon, an Indo-Chinese co-production, by writer-director Ram Gopal Varma, is ostensibly the tale of a female Bruce Lee fan who has mastered several martial arts and keeps either practicing them or striking incredible poses representing them. Reportedly smitten by Urmilla Matondkar beginning with Rangeela (1995), for a few years, he now seems to have been (be)mused by Pooja Bhalekar enough to go the whole hog – the full 133 minutes.

A martial arts champion, Pooja sees a photographer take on a bunch of eve-teasers, and getting beaten-up in the bargain. When she cannot stand it anymore, she jumps into the fray and knocks the daylights out of the uncouth youth. Naturally, she befriends the photographer, Neel, and they start getting close over time. Since she is also a model, Neel takes some fabulous pictures of her. One day, he asks her what made her take up martial arts. She reveals that she was an eye witness to the rape of her elder sister, who committed suicide after the ghastly incident. Then she discovered a Chinese martial arts instructor, and became his disciple. Also, she is crazy fan of Bruce Lee and has learned many of her moves by watching his films.

On her birthday, Neel takes her to Foshan, in China, the home town of Bruce Lee, where there is a huge statue of his installed and a park named after him, and Pooja is delighted. There, they meet her master’s lookalike brother, and his daughter, with whom she has an exhibition match, in water. Pooja and Neel get even closer, and Neel suggests that they get married. He proposes to her with a diamond ring. Half seriously, he asks her whether she would still prefer to be his if Bruce Lee were to be reborn, and she chooses Lee over Neel. This leads to a heated argument, and she beats Neel. Meanwhile, the real estate Mafia, led by B.M., wants to take over the property where the martial arts school is housed. He is also into the sex estate, keeping young women prisoners, and enjoying them to his heart’s content, before releasing them, or killing them. When Master refuses to play ball, B.M. has him killed, and kidnaps Neel, and it is now left to Pooja and her colleagues at the school to try save the school as well as Neel.

With almost single-minded devotion, the script has Pooja on every page. The few lines in between, allotted to characters like Neel, the Master, his daughter, his brother, Neel’s mother, Pooja’s colleague Wang, Pooja’s love-hate sparring partner Musharraf, the minions of B.M., the eve teasers, and a few incidental characters, are allotted to give the film a semblance of a story. You could well edit out 33 minutes from the film and make it a 100-minute Pooja Bhalekar show-reel. Some viewers, the 33 minutes notwithstanding, might still subscribe to the view that it is a Pooja Bhalekar show-reel. They might also notice that though Pooja’s mother is mentioned, she is never shown. Her, father, we are told, died when she was young. Interestingly, Neel tells her that he has no father wither, but clarifies that he has divorced Neel’s mother and remarried.

How one wishes Varma had thought of another angle to further the story, rather than the beaten track of a land Mafia boss trying to usurp the school property. Neel’s character is very poorly written, beginning with his foolish bravado, which is partly justified by dialogue a little later. Ditto B.M. and his chief minion. Why does Pooja need Neel to take her to Foshan? As a famous model, she would be able to afford a trip herself. And how is it that a ‘beauty’ photographer of some standing, like Neel, has never heard of Pooja? Why do the Master brothers have to be look-alike twins, when this is not germane to the story at all? Were they saving on the cost of one more actor? Almost everything that the Master says is a quote, never a statement. Then there are the Bruce Lee quotes, painted all over. Varma take pains to point out repeatedly that Bruce Lee’s fighting technique was Jeet Kune Do, not Karaté. That’s fine, but who can tell the difference, except experts? So a line or two telling us what Jeet Kune Do (JKD) was all about would have helped understand the art. In the film, it is only spoken about, so we do not even know how it is written.

Instead of one antagonist, Varma (and co-director Jing Liu) brings in 100. At least thrice, these goons attack either Pooja or Neel, in batches of 5-15. We see elaborate fights, including slow-motion at all the wrong times. After she knocks down all of them, they flee, and Pooja runs after them, felling some and losing some along the way, returning disgruntled. This shows that she could not run as fast as them, and it also lack of imagination on the part of director Ram Gopal Varma. Almost all these fights are identical. Then there are those visits by B.M.s hirelings to get the school vacated and the Master silenced. Believe it or not, all three are so similar that they seem to have been shot on the same day, in a hurry. The remaining 55 or so baddies are in the den of B.M., who has very conveniently captured Neel and put him to the knife. Since this is getting into the climax, I shall not say anything further.

With 26 titles/degrees under her belt, Tae Kwan Do (TKD) expert Pooja was the ideal choice for this role. She started as an athlete, went into Yoga and then Tae Kwan Do. Then came the call from Ram Gopal Varma, who is obsessed with Bruce Lee, and Ladki was the result. Pooja’s rubber figure and riveting moves do captivate, and you do not expect her to emote like some of the greats. It’s a voyeur’s delight, for Pooja is buxom and womanly, not Butch by any standards. Pooja herself seems not in the least bit conscious about exposing her body a hundred times over. Maybe with a better plot and some more soft skills training, we might have found the first real girl action star (with no apology to Kangana in Dhaakad). These days, anything can be created with VFX, but, somehow, most of Pooja Bhalekar’s scenes, if not all, have a lot of authenticity about them. Parth Suri as Neel is soft and sedate, and almost always at the wrong end of the stick. One cannot see this film doing a lot for him.

Others in the cast are Miya Muqi, who makes a good impression as the Master’s niece, Rajpal Yadav, who goes over the OTT is trying to make an impact, and surprisingly, does make some impact, as B.M.’s pint-sized ‘negotiator’. B.M. is played by Abhimanyu Singh, and there have been countless stock villains like him. The only other Chinese actor identified is Tianlong Shi, who is the Master, in a double role. He just about passes muster. It might be doing injustice to the Chinese actor as we are assessing their performances that have dubbed Hindi dialogue.

Ladki – Enter the Girl Dragon has been delayed inordinately in finding release. Its 8 min. 38 sec. marathon trailer was released in November 2021. As the first full-fledged Indo-Chinese production, we expected much more out of the film. But an indication of the shape of things to come was provided by the Censor Certificate, which certified it for adults only, and imposed cuts as well. Add to that so many beeped and muted sentences, and you will realise that you are watching a sanitised version. Yes, the music is a highlight and the songs are well tuned and well sung. Contrast this with the animal shrieks that have been added to the sound-track in dozens of places to enhance the sound effects of fights. With a screenplay packed with faulty film grammar and uninspired screenplay writing and direction, Ladki – Enter the Girl Dragon, a Big People and Tiger Company production, is too much of the same. It’s as if the writer and director had a license to drag- on, and on, and…

Rating: **

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YSaUmmlZ2I