Kacha Ghotay (1999)
Starring: Tariq Shah, Sunita Khan, Nayab, Asif Khan, Neimat Sarhadi

Director: Saeed Ali Khan

Synopsis: From the proud makers of Haseena A Bomb comes another lurid shocker.
Review by Omar Ali Khan

The film arrives bearing the unmistakable stamp of quality that accompanies the involvement of the uncrowned king of Pushto cinema, the incomparable Saeed Ali Khan. The man boasts a proven track record with gargantuan classics such as the immortal Haseena Atom Bomb and the sublime Gringo. His latest magnum opus, Kacha Ghotay, promises to transport audiences into an altogether new cinematic dimension.

Khan's latest offering arrives as an utterly mouth-watering prospect, and it is with trembling anticipation that one inserts the video cassette, settles comfortably into one's chair and presses the play button.

The action opens with a quintessential Saeed Ali Khan moment. A bodacious jungle beauty discards her clothes and wanders off for a leisurely skinny dip. The fabulously sculpted, thunderous curves are instantly recognisable as belonging to the voluptuous Sunita Khan—glamour queen, pin-up fantasy and worthy successor to the divine Mussarat Shaheen as the undisputed goddess of the Wild Frontier.

Having spent several minutes rubbing herself here and there while sensually sampling the strangely hosepipe-like raindrops with her tongue, she stumbles across a bundle of filthy rags stained with what appears to be blood. Instantly overcome with emotion, she drifts into a flashback revealing how her father, an honest police officer, once had the audacity to tell the dreaded Haibat Khan to shut his trap.

Nobody insults Haibat Khan and escapes unpunished.

The deranged villain promptly slices the unfortunate policeman's tongue clean out in front of his horrified children. One of them flees into the forest, where she eventually blossoms into Jungle Babe Sunita Khan.

As you do.

One sweltering afternoon, Sunita and a fellow jungle siren become embroiled in a magnificent catfight when, without warning, a man in a bear suit appears from nowhere and begins enthusiastically beating his chest, seemingly forgetting that he is supposed to be portraying a bear rather than a gorilla.

One beauty flees in terror and, just as it appears the ursine menace is about to have his wicked way with Sunita, salvation arrives in the unlikely shape of Super Blimp.

Super Blimp (Tariq Shah) is an absolutely monumental specimen of humanity who could easily have enjoyed a distinguished career as a sumo wrestler had fate not called upon him to become the Avenging Jungle Hero. Possessing a voice that reverberates like distant thunder, he also understands exactly how a gentleman should treat a lady—principally by grabbing her firmly by the hair and dragging her into the correct position.

Naturally, Sunita falls hopelessly in love.

It soon transpires that Super Blimp also carries deep emotional scars, his own parents having likewise suffered the traumatic removal of their tongues at the hands of the beastly Haibat Khan. Together, these two magnificent mountains of cellulite become an irresistible force for justice. Before long we discover that almost everybody else in the film is similarly seeking vengeance for the loss of a relative's tongue.

Although Kacha Ghotay fulfils every sordid expectation one could reasonably have of a Saeed Ali Khan production, it never quite attains the dizzy narrative heights of Haseena Atom Bomb. Even so, Khan once again demonstrates that he is a filmmaker of extraordinary vision, a man from whose every pore cinematic inspiration appears to ooze.

He rewards his audience with an endless parade of thunder-thighed, Lycra-clad, panty-flashing jungle beauties who indulge in no fewer than three gloriously savage catfights. The martial arts sequences are equally spectacular, reducing Bruce Lee to the status of a limp-wristed pensioner by comparison. The unforgettable catfight that unexpectedly develops into a full-scale bear attack is worth the price of admission on its own and deserves recognition as an instant classic of world cinema.

Special praise must also be reserved for the film's costume designer, whose outstanding contribution to the advancement of Lycra deserves formal recognition from the Pakistani film industry. Never before has so magnificent a collection of synthetic fabric been assembled in a single motion picture. These shimmering creations achieve their full splendour when draped over beauties as magnificently bulbous as Sunita Khan. "Breathtaking" scarcely does them justice.

Saeed Ali Khan appears to have been born with a zoom lens permanently attached to his face. Once again he demonstrates complete mastery of the art by repeatedly plunging his camera into every conceivable crevice and contour of the female anatomy with unwavering determination.

There are what feels like fifteen songs, each somehow managing to outdo its predecessor in sheer glorious obscenity. Khan even surpasses himself during one unforgettable production number in which an enormous wooden phallus is rhythmically thrust up and down the body of an undulating dancer. Charming.

If that were not enough, we are later treated to an enormous, almost permanently exposed backside being enthusiastically wiggled and thrust directly into the lens, while the camera itself continues its now-traditional descent into complete zoom-induced hysteria.

Saeed Ali Khan stretches the accepted boundaries of vulgarity beyond previously uncharted frontiers, firmly establishing himself as the undisputed Sultan of Sleaze—the true King Khan of mutated local cinema. How one man consistently discovers such astonishing camera angles remains one of the great mysteries of modern filmmaking.

As icing on this magnificent cinematic cake, the finale serves up a genuinely spectacular burst of gore. Asif Khan finally exacts his revenge by sinking his teeth into Haibat Khan's neck, tearing away flesh and sinew before triumphantly spitting chunks of half-chewed meat onto the ground. It is a glorious moment that evokes fond memories of Midnight Express and Herschell Gordon Lewis's Blood Feast.

For those who appreciate their bad taste scraped from somewhere far beneath the gutter, Kacha Ghotay cannot possibly disappoint. It is pure, mind-altering sleaze from another dimension—stunningly grotesque, magnificently perverse and unlike anything else on Earth.

Be warned.

Life may never quite look the same again.