September 27, 2022
by Carla Hay
“Prem Geet 3”
Directed by Chhetan Gurung and Santosh Sen
Nepali and Hindi with subtitles
Culture Representation: Taking place in the ancient Khazakh Kingdom in the Beyul region of the Himalayan Mountains, the action film “Prem Geet 3” features an all-Nepali cast of characters representing the working-class, middle-class and royalty.
Culture Clash: A noble young prince, who is set to inherit the Khazakh Kingdom, falls in love with a woman in a romance that both families disapprove of, and he could be disowned, while his jealous younger brother plots to become the next king.
Culture Audience: “Prem Geet 3” will appeal primarily to people who don’t mind watching very predictable action flicks with no imagination and mediocre-to-bad acting.
The action flick “Prem Geet 3” is an overload of dull fairy-tale stereotypes and shallow characters. The movie’s ending is a silly cop-out to keep the possibility open to have more sequels. Any number of modern video games can offer better entertainment than “Prem Geet 3.”
Directed by Chhetan Gurung and Santosh Sen, “Prem Geet 3” is the first movie to be released worldwide simultaneously in Nepali and Hindi. Unfortunately, there’s nothing extraordinary about “Prem Geet 3,” which is just a boring rehash of many other plots in many other action-adventure films, with a love story thrown into the mix. Gurung and Mandip Gautam co-wrote the terrible “Prem Geet 3” screenplay.
The movie is the third in the “Prem Geet” series that features a different romantic story about two lovers named Prem and Geet.” The first “Prem Geet” movie (released in 2016) is a romantic drama. 2017’s “Prem Geet 2″ is a musical romantic comedy/drama.” Unlike the previous two films, which are set in the 21st century, “Prem Geet 3” is set in an unspecified ancient time. Pradeep Khadka has the role of Prem in all three movies, while a different actress has portrayed Geet in each movie.
“Prem Geet 3: has a simplistic plot that audiences have seen many times before: There’s the handsome hero, who’s a prince set to inherit his father’s kingdom. The prince has a jealous younger brother who wants to be the next heir in line for the throne. (They are the only two children of the king.) There’s the forbidden romance that pits two tribes of people against each other. You all know where this is going and how the movie is going to end.
Set in the fictional Khazakh Kingdom in the Beyul region of the Himalayan Mountains, “Prem Geet 3” shows Prem, who is the prince and future king, falling in love at first sight with Geet (played by Kristina Gurung, no relation to filmmaker Chhetan Gurung), who comes from a humbler background than Prem’s royal heritage. Not long after Prem and Geet begin dating (with some sappy musical numbers to chronicle their courtship), Prem finds out that Geet comes from a village that Prem’s Dargah people had invaded and plundered.
Needless to say, Prem’s father (played by Shiva Shrestha) and Geet’s father (played by Sunil Thapa) disapprove of this romance. Prem’s father thinks that Prem should marry a woman of a higher social class. Geet’s father thinks that Prem’s courtship of Geet is some kind of trap to invade their village again.
It turns out that Geet and Prem met each other before, when they were children of about 7 or 8 years old. During this childhood meeting, Geet gave Prem two special gold bangles (which are large and gaudy) that he kept for all of these years. Prem gives the bangles back to Geet as a loving gesture and for another reason explained in the movie.
Prem refuses his father’s demands for Prem to end his relationship with Geet. In fact, Prem makes it clear to everyone that he wants to marry Geet. Does this mean Prem will be disowned?
Meanwhile, Prem’s younger brother Aman (played by Manish Raut) has had a long-simmering jealousy of first-born Prem, because Aman wants to be king. Prem has saved Aman’s life on at least one occasion, as shown in the movie. Prem and Aman were in the woods when Prem thwarted an axe that was thrown by an unknown assassin in attempt to kill one or both brothers.
Just because Prem saved Aman’s life doesn’t meant that Aman will feel forever grateful and loyal to Prem. As soon as Prem and his father become estranged, Aman sees it as an opportunity to become next in line for the throne. It leads to a very predictable “brother versus brother” war.
Everything about “Prem Geet 3” looks like a movie that spent most of its money on production design and costume design and didn’t put enough thought into crafting a good story. The action is formulaic and often stale. The music in “Prem Geet 3” is forgettable. The dialogue is atrocious. The hairstyling (with cheap-looking, fake wigs, especially for the Aman character) is almost laughable. “Prem Geet 3” also has than one “fake death scene,” where someone is presented as dead by a murder that’s shown in the movie, but then surprise! This person isn’t really dead, after all.
The “Prem Geet 3” cast members’ performances range from very bland to downright horrible. And because so much of “Prem Geet 3” has been done so many times already in other movies, there’s no suspense. For an action movie, the pacing actually becomes tedious, especially during the very hokey musical numbers, which look like a parody of Bollywood musical numbers. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter how many languages “Prem Geet 3” can be released in simultaneously, because it is still a very uninspired and vapid movie.
Madhu Entertainment & Media released “Prem Geet 3” in select U.S. cinemas on September 23, 2022, the same date that the movie was released worldwide.