Tota Roy Chowdhury's films to stream on OTT before Special Ops Season 2 releases
Catch Special Ops 2 and other similar spy thrillers on JioHotstar like Red Sparrow, Madras Cafe, and more via OTTplay Premium now!
Tota Roychowdhury's films on OTTplay Premium
Chokher Bali
Tota Roy Chowdhury plays Behari, a close friend of the lead character Mahendran (Prosenjit Chatterjee). The film Chokher Bali is adapted from Rabindranath Tagore's namesake novel, published in 1903. The story centers around widow Binodini (Aishwarya Rai Bachchan), and her complicated relationship with Mahendran, his wife Ashalata, and his friend Behari.
Sasurbari Zindabad
Tota Roy Chowdhury plays Prashanta Mitra, a pivotal character in the Prosenjit Chatterjee-starrer. The Bengali drama follows a young couple, Somu and Rupa, getting secretly married despite their respective families' disapproval of their relationship. While Rupa belongs to a wealthy family, Somu is a middle-class man. Rupa's mother tries her best to break their marriage throughout the film.
Ranokhetro
Tota Roy Chowdhury plays Noni Roy, the MLA's son, and the leader of drug peddlers. He is the main villain in this 1998 action thriller. In the film, college student Santu gets murdered by Noni when he protests his drug peddling on the college campus. This leads to his elder brother Raja taking the matter into his hands to bring justice to Santu when the law failed to do the same.
Aborto
Tota Roy Chowdhury plays Shyamal Sen, who is seen as an ambitious man working at a multinational company. The film explores the middle-class man's journey as he chases career goals, but he becomes increasingly detached from his family, including his teenage son and wife. He focuses fully on his ambition for a successful career.
Te3n
Tota Roy Chowdhury plays Peter Roy in this Amitabh Bachchan-starrer. Peter is the father of the young girl Angela, who gets kidnapped and murdered. The film follows the desperate quest of her grandfather John Biswas as he seeks answers to such a heinous crime. Teaming up with a police officer, the 70-year-old grandfather goes to any lengths to catch the killers in this investigative Hindi thriller.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Hindustan Times
4 minutes ago
- Hindustan Times
Sarzameen review: This Ibrahim Ali Khan, Kajol, Prithviraj Sukumaran snoozefest has a lot going on, none of it works
Sarzameen review Cast: Ibrahim Ali Khan, Kajol, Prithviraj Sukumaran Director: Kayoze Irani Rating: ★.5 Where to watch: JioHotstar At one point in Sarzameen, I gave up trying to make sense of what was happening on screen. It was a high-stakes scene, with time ticking and lives hanging in the balance. Think Main Hoon Na's climax… except the Khan here isn't Shah Rukh, and the thrill is completely MIA. Sarzameen review: Ibrahim Ali Khan fails to leave a mark in this drama. Iggy-boy Ibrahim Ali Khan is back with another OTT venture after Nadaaniyan. He's ripped and styled to perfection, and I finally understood why the girls swoon. But then he speaks (all ten lines, give or take)… and you start wondering if modelling was the road not taken. The story revolves around Colonel Vijay Menon (Prithviraj Sukumaran, who almost never takes off his uniform. Does he sleep in it, too?). He is posted in Kashmir and lives with his family. Vijay is ashamed of his son Harman (Ibrahim) because he stutters. His wife, Meher (Kajol), tries her best to make him understand their son. One day, Harman is kidnapped by terrorists demanding the release of two of their own in exchange. Vijay almost gives in, but his duty to the nation comes first. Harman is presumed dead… until one fine day, a boy claiming to be their long-lost son returns. Is it really him? Could things be so simple? Watch the film to find out. Sarzameen is a perfect fit for OTT: rushed storytelling, weak performances, but hey, it's got popular names. Chalta hai na? The biggest letdown here is the acting. Prithviraj gets a hollow role, and there's barely a centimetre of difference between his character here and the cardboard villain he played in Bade Miyan Chote Miyan (2024). He switches between only two modes: angry or teary-eyed. Directed by Kayoze Irani, the film doesn't tap into its emotional potential. It could have been a patriotic tearjerker. What's there not to cry about? A story about parents losing their only son should hit hard. But here, there are zero emotionally resonant moments. There's no spark between the cast. Prithviraj, Kajol, and Ibrahim never once feel like a real family. Kajol was phenomenal as the heartbroken mother who loses her son in My Name Is Khan (2010), directed by Sarzameen's producer, Karan Johar. That Kajol is sorely missed, because here, she's not even a fraction of her former self. Blame it on the amateur screenplay, written by Kayoze himself. The first half builds up curiosity about who this grown-up boy indeed is. Many might be able to guess. The second half is unintentionally funny, stretched, and badly acted. Boman Irani, in a special appearance, leaves no mark. Mihir Ahuja does what's asked of him. Ibrahim has a lot of homework left to do in the acting department. He's a misfit in this role and doesn't know what to do with his face as a tough scene plays out. The music by Vishal Mishra is forgettable. Sarzameen is one of those films where the poster does more talking than the script. It's packed with familiar faces, music, and dialogue- but none of it sticks. If you're looking for emotion or a breakout performance, you're better off rewatching Main Hoon Na. At least there, the Khan delivers.
Indian Express
an hour ago
- Indian Express
Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi 2, Traitors, IPL, Kapil Sharma: How streaming is replicating television, the very beast it wanted to tame
When streaming first began in India in the early 2010s, the audience was still getting used to YouTube and the phenomenon of a 'web series,' a television show that could be watched anytime, anywhere on your smartphone or laptop, and could also be paused, rewinded, and forwarded. It was Tata Sky+ yet in a completely new medium, that gave rise to faces and brains who were struggling to get noticed by the Hindi film and TV industry. The Jio revolution in the next few years allowed the masses to access even new international streaming apps like Netflix and Prime Video, which entered the domestic market in 2017. Netflix India's first Original, Sacred Games, and Prime Video India's first original, Inside Edge, also dismantled the confines of television and demonstrated how streaming could push boundaries of what Indian entertainment came to be known as till then. Then came the pandemic in 2020-22 when India, confined to its homes, warmed up to streaming to such an extent that it'd be an ordeal to bring them back to cinemas even when the lockdowns ended. Streaming became a habit, and the Indian audience its slaves. The victim was not only cinema, but also television. Cable television and direct-to-home services, once a household necessity, were replaced by smart TVs and fire sticks. Streaming turned out to be for satellite what satellite was for VHS (Video Home System) and Doordarshan in the 1990s. But now, as cinemas and other avenues of entertainment open up after the pandemic, streaming can't sustain the skyrocketing growth it once registered in India during a couple of years. So, 2023 brought a shift in direction — the streaming, once known for being a substitute to television, started to embrace parts of the latter that appealed to India's masses. It was no longer the rebel kid, but that backbencher in a classroom who wanted to get away with the exam by peeping into the class topper's papers. Smriti Irani, former I&B Minister, recently claimed that last year, the television industry and the streaming industry accounted for a revenue of Rs 30,000 crore and Rs 24,000 crore, respectively. She rallied for the two industries to unite and generate content together instead of competing with each other. This month, she's set to reprise her iconic character of Tulsi Virani in Ekta Kapoor's landmark daily soap Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi, which will be available for viewing on both its native home StarPlus and its streaming counterpart, JioHotstar. Sameer Nair, who was the head of programming at StarPlus back in 2000 when Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi first premiered, believes the show can still work as well as it did back then, but only if the story has adapted to the times and the audience it's catering to. 'Honestly, it's not got so much to do with streaming or TV. On JioHotstar, their strong, long-performing show has always been Anupamaa. On SonyLIV, for the longest time, Bade Achhe Lagte Hain used to be their #1,' argued Nair, in an interview with SCREEN. Not every TV show with an immense recall value would fare as well on streaming, as one saw in the case of Sarabhai Vs Sarabhai – Take 2. 'I think the streaming of daily soaps allows more flexibility to its primary audience — the homemakers, the mothers, the elderly women. They get the option to access it any time of the day, something they wouldn't be able to do when it aired at a very late slot of 10:30 pm on TV,' said a former StarPlus official, who's also worked with JioHotstar. 'At that time, these women used to wait for their husbands and kids to fall asleep after watching Kaun Banega Crorepati so that they could get their guilty hour of Kyunki. But now, they can stream it anytime, without guilt! It's not just Ekta and Smriti Irani, but also the streaming that's empowering them this time,' they added. Nair, who's now the Managing Director at Applause Entertainment and collaborates with a host of streaming platforms, saw this televisionization of streaming coming from a mile. 'Streaming is just settling down now. It just means they're going for a wider audience by catering to the largest common denominator. But streaming can also cater to niches. The good thing is both can co-exist on streaming. So you can do both a Kyunki and an Adolescence. The technology allows you to do that. On TV, you could be either a GEC or a niche channel,' he reasons. Why does then an Anurag Kashyap then blame Netflix India for entering a partnership with Ekta's Balaji Telefilms instead of commissioning an Indian version of Adolescence? Why does he call Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos the 'definition of dumb' when he opines that they should've launched the platform in India with something 'more populist' than Sacred Games? 'That's because if all the energies and resources are directed towards a populist form of entertainment, then a niche or a less mainstream show has to really elbow its way in to get the streamer's attention. Streaming was supposed to enable and empower these, and not really use them as a token to show how cutting-edge they are, whenever it suits their narrative,' says a screenwriter who's worked with both Kashyap and Netflix India. When asked, on Nikhil Kamath's podcast People by WTF, to react to the shift in programming of Netflix India with CID and The Great Indian Kapil Show, he played the diversity card — If it's not for you, it's for someone else. But a former Netflix India employee claims diversity is more of a buzzword than a thought-through corporate strategy. 'Reed Hastings is an LA guy so he really cares for the movies. He's the one who started Netflix as a DVD business. He's a true disruptor,' they tell us, adding, 'But when Sarandos took over, there was a change in direction. Since every country Netflix is in is culturally so different from each other, the only common point they could find between them was diversity. And that became their corporate strategy, so to say. But make no mistake, it was always made clear that the priority is numbers.' When SCREEN asked Tanya Bami, Series Head at Netflix India, why shows like The Royals, Rana Naidu, and Mismatched got renewed despite getting a large chunk of negative reviews from critics, she said, 'Love from everyone is critical. As a human being, you seek that affirmation. But in terms of a stack order, we're very clear it's the love of the audience that matters to us.' That became very apparent with Netflix India's programming in the last three years. 'We were never categorically asked to sell some shows more. They wouldn't say that because that doesn't go with their brand image. But you figured, with the kind of people they hired or the kind of shows they greenlit, that the focus had changed. There are so many ex-Balaji faces in Netflix India now,' added the former employee. Balaji has been a champion of broadcast, but it's also tried its hands at streaming. Ekta, who has straddled cinema, TV, and OTT, believes they serve different purposes — community viewing, family viewing, and personal viewing respectively. That's why the woman behind culturally rooted, sanskari daily soaps on TV churned out tonally divergent shows like Gandii Baat and Ragini MMS: Returns on her now-defunct streaming platform ALTBalaji. But with the advent of smart TV in Indian homes, families began to increasingly watch OTT content together instead of separately on their phones. That gave rise to The Viral Fever's family-friendly shows like Gullak and Yeh Meri Family. That also explains Ekta's pivot back to what she knows best — daily soaps, but those that can be positioned as effectively on streaming as they can be on TV. Many marketing executives, who enthusiastically joined streaming platforms, in order to promote the kind of alternate content, they believed in, have now gone independent to push middle-of-the-road cinema in theatres and indie films at global festivals, and fill the gaps that have long plagued India's entertainment ecosystem. They neither know 'how to sell a Kapil Sharma' nor do they believe a Kapil Sharma needs their selling. But this coexistence of Kapil Sharma and Vir Das on a platform comes at an interesting cultural juncture for India. Sample last year, for instance: audience of both the mainstream and niche turned up in hoards to attend concerts of Diljt Dosanjh, a grounded Punjabi popstar, as well as Coldplay, a British rock-pop band. That's also why an audience that once looked down upon Bigg Boss or similar reality shows are now lapping up The Traitors, the Indian adaptation of the globally resonant American show, on Prime Video. 'I think they've hit the sweet spot with that one. Unlike some versions in the West, they've taken a bunch of internet celebrities and made a reality show with them that just has high production value than say, a Bigg Boss,' points out an industry insider. 'Having Karan Johar to host it with all his campness intact is a masterstroke — he's one celebrity who gets equal attention from the classes and the masses, whether it's love or hate,' adds another. Instead of the crassness associated with Bigg Boss and MTV reality shows like Roadies and Splitsvilla, Traitors rolls out like a saucy game of chess — pretty much like a very expensive, lived-in version of board games like Shasn and Cards Against Humanity. 'For every Traitors, there should be a Stolen. But the fact is for every Traitors, there's also a Khauf, a brilliant horror show that goes under the radar,' says a former employee of Prime Video India, adding, 'Streamers made quick money during the pandemic by not just having a captive audience, but also buying ready, big-budget films from production houses waiting to release their films in endless lockdowns. They've grown used to that licensing model. So they're just picking up anything and everything that's worked in the past, whether from films, sports or TV, instead of developing envelope-pushing content like they did pre-pandemic. Which is why you see how the slate of originals has gone down drastically. Licensed shows which happen to work in the first season are then adopted and then developed like it was their own baby to begin with.' If picking existing IPs from TV wasn't enough, streaming has also stooped down to advertisement revenue in order to sustain. Prime Video is the most recent platform to introduce ads and an ad-free premium version, as per the YouTube and Spotify revenue model. 'India is a price-sensitive country, so even if you give us the option to pay more and get rid of ads, we'd stick to the ads,' says a former Netflix India employee. They claim that commercials on streaming isn't new to India, but the hullabaloo is about the way Prime imposed it. 'At Netflix, there were designated employees for this job, who scientifically picked points when it could switch to commercial in a way that the audience don't lose interest. It was transparent and gradual, unlike the blindsiding that Prime has done now,' they add. Also Read — Sameer Nair feels Indian adaptation of The Office would do far better today: 'Market was smaller then, wanted to do 11 seasons like US' Is it really only about the transparency? Should streamers just own it that they want to go where TV did and accept that the daily soaps, broad comedy, reality shows, advertisements, and sports entertainment are their mainstays? The life-sized hoardings of WWE on the Mumbai expressways tell that very story. But is it a bad deal if IPL gets more consumers to subscribe to JioHotstar so they could watch a School of Lies that they otherwise wouldn't? 'I don't see it that way. Would I really count my show as a success story if it excels in the same months that IPL airs? It's a good way to show numbers and ask for an appraisal, but those who're doing this for creative reasons deserve better.' Going back to television is a disservice to the innovation of streaming. As iconic comedian Milton Berle so wisely put it, 'We owe a lot to Thomas Edison. If it wasn't for him, we'd be watching television by candlelight.'
Indian Express
3 hours ago
- Indian Express
Promote Bangla through films and TV series, Mamata tells Tollywood
Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday called for promoting the use of Bengali in film and TV productions in the state. Speaking at the 'Mahanayak Samman' award ceremony, held on the death anniversary of matinee idol Uttam Kumar, the chief minister said, 'Sob bhasai bhalo, sob gaan bhaalo (every language is good, every song is good), but we must make serious effort in promoting our mother tongue and make the younger generation respectful towards our culture.' 'Give space to films made in other languages, but please give priority to Bengali works,' she added. She also announced special medical insurance schemes for the Tollygunge artists. 'We have a health insurance scheme of Rs 5 lakh for artists and 4,800 people are covered under this scheme. If we include their families, around 20,000 people are benefiting. Through the Film Workers' Welfare Fund, our government provides help for the marriage of daughters of struggling artists and technicians, as well as support in times of death. I was asked to include the film sector in BGBS, and we have done that. Cultural activities shall also be included.' Remembering Uttam Kumar, she said: 'It has been 45 years, but we can never forget Uttam Kumar. He was so good at lip-syncing.' Ace director Goutam Ghosh was conferred the 'Mahanayak Srestha Samman' for his body of work spanning decades. Singers Rupankar Bagchi, Iman Chakraborty, Gargi Roychoudhury, production designer Ananda Adhya, and makeup artist Somnath Kundu were also conferred the 'Mahanayak Samman' for their contributions in their respective fields. 'Giving this small recognition to Goutamda (Goutam Ghosh), an iconic director, on our part was overdue. Also, we are privileged to honour other personalities who have made the state proud,' the chief minister said. Several prominent film personalities from Bengal, including Prosenjit Chatterjee and Dev, were among those present on the occasion. With PTI Inputs
