Aint No Singing And Dancing In This One. Check the Trailer For Ram Gopal Varma's Shiva.

Ram Gopal Varma is like Andy Warhol. He has a Factory full of assistants who turn out movies at his command, almost like Film Workshop in its heyday. The best place to start for Varma jumps between movies he's directed and movies he's produced:

COMPANY - the ultimate RGV film. A gangster epic where cell phones are as deadly as guns, and featuring two musical numbers that get into your blood and stay there forever because no one has found an antidote.

EK HASINA THI - is there a trope of the "woman in peril" movie that Varma doesn't beat within an inch of its life? No musical numbers in this flick about a woman wronged by her boyfriend (check), who gets sent to prison (check), who becomes a jailhouse psycho (check), and then escapes to seek revenge (check and check).

AB TAK CHHAPPAN - Nana Patekar dominates this tale of "encounter specialists" who are basically police-sanctioned hitmen, officers with an itchy trigger finger who get pointed at the bad guys and then everyone closes their eyes until the dirty work is done.

SATYA - one of the movies that kicked RGV up a notch and turned him into a major Indian moviemaker. A crime story that looks somewhat dated these days, it's packed full of musical numbers that look a little out of place but the acting is first rate and the story is as black as blood.

If you like those, then here's some stuff to try from a little further afield:

MAST - my favorite RGV musical. This is a sick, sick story that is shot like a typical Bollywood romance. So sly you can't always tell if Varma is joking or not, it features a lead character who's a stalker, a riff on ET, a famous celebrity who's kept in check by a bullwhip-wielding uncle, and a truly twisted sting in its tail.

KSHANA KSHANAM - one of Varma's earliest films, this feels like ROMANCING THE STONE, and if you can't stand a lot of sugar in your coffee it's not for you. But I'm a sucker for this story of a good-hearted criminal helping a pretty young thing escape the clutches of a gaggle of evil crooks.

I can certainly vouch for COMPANY - great gangster film set in Mumbai, Mombasa and Hong Kong. Loved it totally.

COMPANY is indeed a great one. Very intense and involving, light on the singing and dancing, and what's there is well integrated into the story. Definitely a must-have for any international gangster film fan. SHIVA looks like something I need to see as soon as possible. The trailer slightly reminds me of THE LONGEST NITE, which is a good thing.

The folks at my local Indian grocery/vid-store have been mentioning 'Company' every time I'm in the store looking around. Might just have to pick that up.

I dig this director.I'd recommend checkin out his crime trilogy..Satya...Company...Sarkar..very cool flicks.

you should definetly watch BOOTH