Check it out. Bollywood, as the Bombay-based Hindi film industry isaffectionately nicknamed, is the new cool in international cinema. Theworld’s most prolific film industry has always been regarded with dubiousinterest by Western critics, film professionals and movie-goers. Whatelse can you expect from a genre that requires every film to have a younggood-looking romantic lead couple, half a dozen or more lengthy songslip-synched by actors to playback singers, costume changes every fiveminutes and an utter disregard for most film narrative conventions? Inspite of these quirky peculiarities—or hell, maybe because of them—ithas come out of the kitsch closet and taken its place alongside the mostrespected ethnic films on the planet.Partly it’s a numbers game. India has the fastest population growth ratein the world, the second largest population (over 1.1 billion at the lastcount) and one of the highest percentages of youth between the ages of 12and 24. As any Hollywood mogul will tell you over his California champagne,that’s the magic age group that fills cinema halls and chews up themovie tickets and popcorn everywhere in the world.Look at some more figures... In 1985, a staggering 905 feature filmswere produced in India. This figure was split up into several different ethniclanguages, the majority coming out of the Tamil-, Telegu- and Malayalam-speaking states of South India. 185 of the films were in the Hindilanguage and produced in the sultry Western Indian city of Bombay. Itwasn’t the peak—that was in 1991 when a record 215 films rolled out ofBombay’s overworked processing labs—but it was still a mammoth output.More than the sheer number of films, it’s Bollywood’s impact which isimmeasurable. If you’re used to Hollywood’s slick, overproduced product,Hindi films will seem corny, kitsch, even crude at times. On the otherhand, if you like music with your movies, the way Australian whizkidBaz Luhrmann did in his spectacular Romeo+Juliet and Moulin Rouge,you’re in for a big treat. In fact, Luhrman flew to Bombay for the releaseof Moulin Rouge where he confessed candidly that the film was inspiredby Bollywood.