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ShareEarlier this year, the unthinkable happened! Americans were shocked to discover that the economic downturn had hit Sylvester Stallone so badly that he couldn't afford a car anymore! As a result, he was spotted walking aimlessly down the streets of Los Angeles, mumbling Kambhakt Ishq and saving Kareena Kapoor from bad guys!
The year also saw Akshay Kumar going from Chandni Chowk To China and beating up Gordon Liu, who despite his training in The 36th Chamber of Shaolin, had earlier got similar trashing from a woman named Uma Thurman aka The Bride from Kill Bill flicks!
The point I'm trying to make is that Bollywood is slowly becoming like IPL, where you get to see retired international players springing back into action and reliving their past glory. But let's not take away credit from the earlier generation of filmmakers who tried hard to rope in phoren stars for our phillums.
Like, there was Shalimar 30 years ago where Dharmendra went dishoom-dishoom against the late Sir Rex Harrison. The movie was about our maa kasam hero stealing an invaluable diamond despite stiff competition from Americans John Saxon and Sylvia Miles. Some of you might remember Saxon from the cult Bruce Lee hit, Enter The Dragon.
Ironically, way back in 1988, audiences were wowed when Dharmendra beat up Bruce Lee in Khatron Ke Khiladi! Only to discover that it was actually a lookalike called Bruce Li who'd made a career out of what's known as Bruceploitation movies!
But if you think Kylie Minogue was the first pop diva to shake her booty in Bollywood, then let me remind you of busty Samantha Fox -- one of India's favourite poster girls in the 80s -- who did an item number in 1995's Rock Dancer, whose title song allegedly went something like this -- "We're freelancers, we're rock dancers, like Mickey Mouse, I'm gonna bring down the house!"
Unfortunately, the Indian audience has largely remained unimpressed with these imported items. For a very simple reason -- they are patriots! They don't understand why waste Rs 100 crores on an aging Aussie singer and underwater photography, when Lara Dutta in a bikini is the only paisa vasool factor in Baluee!
