It’s been a minute, so how’s everything? How was Dashain? I really hope you had a good one and if you didn’t, I hope things get better for you. Wish me the same, y’all.

To make sure you had an entertaining holiday, a bunch of Nepali films were released online. If you’ve got subscriptions to some home grown OTT platforms; that meant you have access to Jaari (on Cinemaghar) — which really is a lovely film, I must say; along with the recent releases Julebi and Jackie – I am 21 (on Kantipur Cinemas), and Chhakka Panja 4 and Jhinge Daau (on Video Pasal). I haven’t watched any of those yet so can’t really say if they are worth your time (and money).

Now on the other end — which definitely is our favorite end (because it’s freeee) — there were quite a number of releases on YouTube as well. Babari was the first release this Dashain — and I really didn’t like it. Apart from good music, nothing worked in that film. But thank god, ‘Fulbari‘ also got released and I really needed a good film to cleanse my soul again after watching Babari. It did feel like it’s inspired by Baghban as even the titles have resemblance — Baghban meaning gardener and Fulbari meaning garden. There are even some references of the 2003 Bollywood flick in the Ram Babu Gurung directorial film as Dayahang Rai’s character is seen crying while watching the film on telly and in another scene, Bipin Karki’s character calls himself Amitabh Bachchan while trying to cheer up his wife. Anyway, a sweet and emotional family drama over all.

Chhadke 2.0 — do we need to talk about this film? It’s so bad, even Anmol KC had to admit that it was a mistake. The only good thing about the film’s YouTube release was the 15-second clips of ‘Suna Suna Sundari’ song from Naango Gaun. But wait, who still is using the CRBT service??

Another film that I watched this Dashain was Romeo & Muna, which was quite surprisingly a better film than I expected. It’s also a small tribute to legendary Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh, which I liked. So yeah, it’s a watchable film, you just need to fast forward the Sushma Karki scenes. Shristi Shrestha has done a pretty good job.

Another YouTube release is Bhaire, which I am not really looking forward to watch but let’s see. All of these films that I just talked about have got at least half a million views — with a well deserving 4 million streams on Fulbari, topping the list. But more streams don’t really mean a better film, ‘cos even Babari is close to 4 mil now; and then there’s this film called ‘Chiso Ashtray’ which has 200k views — making it the most underrated film in this list. It’s a pretty good film, a lot different than all of the other films that I talked about earlier. It has a good cast with Divya Dev, Nikun Shrestha and Nabin Lamsal in pivotal roles. Also starring Shristi Shrestha and late rock legend Robin Tamang, the film is written and directed by Dins Palpali. The film didn’t have a good theatre run but it’s totally worth a watch.

Here, enjoy!