I am not much sure about the Nepali viewers but, in India and Hollywood, viewers first read the reviews of newly released movies in newspapers or websites before going to theaters. The movie with good rating and reviews help in its promotion. That is one of the reasons review writers enjoy huge respect in the film industry. Many of the movie promos and advertisements also feature ratings and newspaper reviews. A review serves the viewers to spend their time and money wisely in the movie they prefer to watch.

Review writing is not an easy task. Before writing a review, the reviewer needs to know some basics of movies. Although, there aren’t any standards, rules or formula for review writing, some of the basic concepts. I once had a chance to chat with an Indian review writer, Taran Adarsh, of India Fm. I am indebted to Taran for the short and sweet tips on review writing.

I asked, “What are the necessary things to write movie review? And, what do you try to find on the movie when you go to watch?”

Taran replied, via email:

• The first thing, the reviewer should have contacts with the film makers to ask how they have made the movie. They would give the information about how they are doing the publicity of the movie. The reviewers will also know the expectations of the film makers from their viewers. Knowing the history of the crew members might be unnecessary as the reviewer should be writing about the movie not about the crew members.
• The second thing, the reviewer should watch the movie. While watching, the reviewer should judge if the movie fulfills its theme or not. The movie should have all those stuffs as said by promos and the crew members like directors.

The rating is based on the above two factors. If the movie is made according to the claim of the film makers it should be given a good rating, if not a bad rating. As a cross-check, I went through a few other reviews and found that the reviewers have done the same thing. The reason  behind asking Taran Adarsh about review writing is because, I have found his reviews helpful in deciding on which Hindi movies I should go to watch.

This shows that the review writers should be aware about the matters they write about. But, in Nepal, movie reviews are not done properly and hence people tend to ignore them. A lot of readers read Nepali movie reviews to “review” the article itself.We have witnessed a lack of such media where we can get a proper review of the movies. Another, most alarming reason is: Nepali viewers don’t trust on Nepali reporters who write movie reviews in National Dailies.

To be continued…
In the next article we will talk about the movie reviews in Nepali media.