I love campy, over the top, totally preposterous films with a cast of thousands that can only come out of Bollywood and Sheshnaag is near the top of the list in this category. Two magical snakes who can become human (a la Sridevi in Nagina) and grant wishes, a beautiful woman and a drunken husband, a maharaj who wants to become an immortal god, an evil real-estate developer with an innocent daughter and a wise fool whose flute playing summons animals and who also falls in love with the aforesaid daughter... what's not to love?? The story gets lost in its own intricacies, the costumes are cheesy and shoddy, the special effects are horrific, but it's still just such implausible fun, although I don't think it was meant to be humorous originally. It's one of those movies that is so bad that it's good. (You get the feeling that director K. Reddy must have said "Let's see if this works...it couldn't hurt!" every single day of shooting.) Part of what saves Sheshnaag is the cast. Jeetendra as the magical boy snake is his usual earnest, heroic self and paired with Madhavi as his girl snake partner. (Madhavi's got mad snake dancing skills, but truthfully Jeetendra does not-part of the hilarity of that scene.) Rekha is, of course, the beautiful, poor woman married to Anupam Kher's character. Both of these actors always give a thousand percent in any film they do, and this is no exception. Rekha is always pure joy with her dignity and grace, her dancing breath-taking. Anupam Kher is in the surprising role of bad guy and this was made when he had hair, so it's worth it just for those two things. Rishi Kapoor is the wise fool who in love with Mandakini's character. And Danny Denzongpa absolutely ROCKS as the power hungry maharaj. He's a well-known Bollywood villain who actually, I think, gives Om Prakash a run for his money in that category. Don't watch this film for any depth ot lessons or even good special effects-because you won't find that. But you will find a absolutely classic example of masala film gone crazy, and that makes it really fun.
