Masala film

When watching any masala movie, there is this incorporation of elaborate set design, choreographed musical dances, colorful visuals, and costumes.

"A central premise of the masala genre is that viewers derive pleasure by being taken through a series of moods or emotional states: being angry or disgusted with the villains; being moved (often to tears) by some sort of loss, usually death; laughing at a clownish character; being amazed or seduced by elaborate song sequences; and being happy for the couple and their eventual union".

Even though Masala does not have an exact plot or genre, specific themes pop up in the film, like myth, legends, or family.

Their narratives easily play out over several centuries or even millennia, featuring the family lives of dynasties both divine and mortal".

According to several critics and scholars, the masala film was pioneered in the early 1970s by filmmaker Nasir Hussain,[14][15][16] along with screenwriter duo Salim–Javed, consisting of Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar.

[15] Yaadon Ki Baaraat (1973), directed by Hussain and written by Salim-Javed, has been identified by many as the first masala film.

[15] A landmark for the masala film genre was Amar Akbar Anthony (1977),[19][16] directed by Manmohan Desai and written by Kader Khan.

Ramachandran, Rajinikanth, Kamal Haasan, Ajith Kumar, Vijay, Suriya Sivakumar, Vikram, Dhanush, Raghava Lawrance, Sivakarthikeyan, in Kollywood; NTR, Krishna, Chiranjeevi, Mahesh Babu, Allu Arjun, Jr. NTR, Balakrishna, Prabhas, Nagarjuna, Ram Charan Tej, Venkatesh and Pawan Kalyan in Tollywood; Jayan, Mohanlal, Mammootty, Jayaram, Dileep, and Prithviraj Sukumaran in Mollywood; Rajkumar, Vishnuvardhan, Ambareesh, Darshan, Puneeth Rajkumar, Sudeep and Yash in Kannada cinema and others have all experienced success in this format.

[21][22] This style is used often in Hindi (Bollywood), Bengali (Tollywood) and South Indian films, as it helps make them appeal to a broad variety of viewers.

Famous masala filmmakers include David Dhawan, Rohit Shetty, Anees Bazmee and Farah Khan in Bollywood; Shaji Kailas and Joshiy in Mollywood; Shakti Samanta, Pijush Bose, Prabhat Roy, Raj Chakraborty, Srijit Mukherji, Rabi Kinagi, Anjan Chowdhury, Swapan Saha, Haranath Chakraborty, Raja Chanda, Sujit Mondal and Rajiv Kumar Biswas in Bengali cinema; K. Raghavendra Rao, S. S. Rajamouli, Puri Jagannadh, Trivikram Srinivas, Boyapati Srinu and Srinu Vaitla in Telugu cinema; S. Shankar, Hari, Siruthai Siva, Pandiraj, AR Murugadoss, K. V. Anand, N. Lingusamy and K. S. Ravikumar in Tamil cinema; and in Kannada cinema it was V. Somashekhar and K. S. R. Das in the 1970s; A. T. Raghu and Joe Simon in the 1980s; K. V. Raju, Om Prakash Rao and Shivamani in the 1990s; and K. Madesh and A. Harsha in the 2000s.

Beyond Indian cinema, Danny Boyle's Academy Award–winning film Slumdog Millionaire (2008), based on Vikas Swarup's Boeke Prize winning novel Q & A (2005), has been described by several reviewers as a "masala" movie,[23] due to the way the film combines "familiar raw ingredients into a feverish masala"[24] and culminates in "the romantic leads finding each other.

[26][27][28][29] According to Loveleen Tandan, Slumdog Millionaire screenwriter Simon Beaufoy "studied Salim-Javed's kind of cinema minutely.

[30] Aamir Khan (Nasir Hussain's nephew), who debuted as a child actor in the first masala film Yaadon Ki Baraat,[31] has been credited for redefining and modernising the masala film with his own distinct brand of socially conscious cinema in the early 21st century.

Sanskrit dramas were known as natya, derived from the root word nrit (dance), characterizing them as spectacular dance-dramas which has continued in Indian cinema.

These regional traditions include the Jatra of Bengal, the Ramlila of Uttar Pradesh, and the Terukkuttu of Tamil Nadu.

The fourth influence was Parsi theatre, which "blended realism and fantasy, music and dance, narrative and spectacle, earthy dialogue and ingenuity of stage presentation, integrating them into a dramatic discourse of melodrama.

The Parsi plays contained crude humour, melodious songs and music, sensationalism and dazzling stagecraft.

The thing about these films that Hollywood inspires is that they are not parodying or blatantly copied; they borrow those details to craft their own story.

"[39] The reason for masala film being glocalized is that the world is becoming more globalized and that everyone has the opportunity to watch movies that do not originate from their own area.