CHANDNI CHOWK TO CHINA boasts to be one of the first Bollywood/Hollywood collaborations to reach North American screens.  The film stars Bollywood’s biggest action star Akshay Kumar and model/actress Deepika Padukone as his love interest.  With famed director Nikhil Advani and an experienced stunt and martial arts team, one wonders what could ever go wrong with such a project.

The answer is everything.  For one, the clichéd story is told in its total boring entirety.  A food stall cook (Kumar) from Chandni Chowk escapes from his weary existence believing in the divinity of a ‘smiling’ potato.  But believe me; this is not as funny as it sounds.  (Stupid, it is!) He travels to China to help villagers get rid of thugs under the evil Hojo (Gordon Liu) who force them to work against their will.  The villagers believe Sidhu to be the reincarnation of a local hero, Liu Sheng.  The plot gets more and more nonsensical with subplots involving lost twins, a Kung-Fu Master with amnesia (Roger Yuan) and a father/son relationship.

CHANDNI CHOWK TO CHINA contains elaborate musical dance sequences and martial-arts fight choreography.  Though most make no sense in terms of place or logic, die-hards might still be amused.  The soundtrack is as silly as the ‘twinkle twinkle little star’ jingle heard from start to finish.

Bollywood fans are probably used to their lengthy epic adventures and romances.  Still running at 2 ½ hours, CHANDNI CHOWK TO CHINA is very tedious to watch.  The film has a few laugh-out loud sequences, but these are very few and far between.  In one scene, Sidhu claims that when he asked his Divinity Lord Garnesh for the way, he got the whole map instead.  Ironically, viewers expecting a tight comedy got the whole full unedited undisciplined film version without any shortening cuts.  CHANDNI CHOWK TO CHINA which is best described as stupid, loud and unfunny makes THE LOVE GURU look like a masterpiece.