About

"Bollywood" is the nickname given to the Hindu Film Industry, and is the counterpart to the more well known "Hollywood". Bollywood not only includes films, but also includes, Hindi songs, dances, and theatrics, and can be dated back to times like 1913. Bollywood is so huge that it has become a part of the Indian culture.

History

The term "Bollywood" itself is a play on words, as most of the films produced were from Bombay (Mumbai's old name). So they replaced the "H" in "Hollywood" with a "B", but unlike Hollywood, Bollywood itself is not a physical place. The earliest known Indian film was a silent film called "Raja Harishchandra"^[1] (1913) directed by Dadasaheb Phalke^[2], but the first Indian movie with sound was called "Alam Ara"^[3](The Ornament of The World)(1931), which was a major commercial success. Many of the Indian made movies include a singing segment (Like Disney), to make use of the sound technology that was granted to them years ago, and to this day, song segments are still popular, and commonly used in almost every Indian movie.

Weird Action Scenes

What really makes Bollywood stand out from the rest is it's over the top fighting scenes in certain movies. The most popular being "Dabangg"^[4], "Singham"^[5], and "Ghajini"^[6]. Where almost all laws of physics are disregarded. This trend had started long ago by the famous Tamil actor "Rajinikanth"^[7], who is considered to be Chuck Norris of India, and many jokes in similar fashion to Chuck were made about Rajinikanth.

Literal Translations

Due to the fact that India has over a hundred different languages, so some languages are hard to pick up on. Which is why "Literal Translations" started popping up on YouTube^[8]. Literal Translations are adding english subtitles to foreign songs, most popularly Indian songs. (as shown below)

Various Examples

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External References