bollywood on S Anand

How isolated is Bollywood from world cinema?

Wed, 05 Jan 2022 10:05:45 +0000

These are the major group actors based on who they act with most.

Language. Not country. For example, the Spanish / Mexican group is across countries. But Indian actors divide into North Indian and South Indian. It’s language, not country.
Time period. Old American actors are a separate group from Hollywood. (Naturally. Brad Pitt was born after Humphrey Bogart died. They couldn’t have acted together.)
Genre. Hollywood Porn actors don’t act with mainstream Hollywood. Same with Japanese Porn, Hollywood TV, and Hollywood Horror actors.

How are these groups themselves connected? Do Chinese actors act with Hollywood often? How isolated is Bollywood from world cinema?

Hollywood is the core group

Take groups that act with other groups at least 5% of the time. Mainstream Hollywood acts with British and Hollywood TV/Horror actors. All other clusters are isolated.

Indian & Japanese clusters emerge

Let’s go more liberal. Take groups that act with other groups at least 2% of the time. Hollywood forms a big connected cluster. It includes most of Europe – British, German, French, Czech, Yugoslavian & Italian actors.

North & South Indian actors form the first non-Hollywood cross-language cluster.

The Japanese and Japanese porn actors form a cluster too. (Interestingly, it’s easy for a Japanese porn actor to act with mainstream Japanese actors. Hollywood porn actors find it far harder to act with Hollywood.)

Chinese & Korean cluster emerges

Chinese & South Korean actors form the first cross-country cross-language cluster.

Hollywood expands to act with Scandinavian, Spanish, Polish, Brazilian & Nigerian films.

Other film industries (Russian, Greek, Egyptian – even Hollywood Porn – are still isolated.)

World Cinema vs the rest

Among groups that act with other groups at least 0.5% of the time, we have:

Turkish & Iranian groups coming together
Indonesian actors acting with the Chinese
Hollywood expanding to cover Russian, Greek, Egyptian, and finally, Hollywood Porn. (It’s easier for Brazilian / Nigerian to act with Hollywood than to be a Hollywood Porn actor.)

At this point, there are 6 actor groups that act with each other at least 1 out of 200 times (0.5%).

World Cinema (Hollywood & friends)
Japanese (mainstream & porn)
Indian (North & South)
Chinese, South Korean & Indonesian
Turkish & Iranian
Filipino

One world of cinema

If we look at groups that act with other groups at least 0.5% of the time, we have a far more unified picture. Almost every actor group acts with another group at least 1 out of 400 times.

But even here, there’s an exception. Filipino actors – the most insular major actor group in the world.

So, how isolated is Bollywood from World Cinema? For its size, it’s one of the most isolated actor groups. (But not as much as Iranian/Turkish or Filipino.)

Comments

Dr Urmila 5 Jan 2022 7:36 pm: Hi Anand….i am not a technical person but I do use similar representations in my research as bibliometric, scientometrics etc…we use to understand the publication patterns… Any very interesting piece of information. I enjoyed reading
How to find a Chinese actor to cast in Hollywood - S Anand 20 Feb 2022 12:39 pm (pingback): […] For example, Hollywood actors act outside Hollywood just 10% of the time. Chinese actors act with non-Chinese actors just 1% of the time. […]

A R Rahman Hindi songs

Wed, 11 Mar 2009 18:24:32 +0000

By popular demand, here are interludes from 15 Hindi songs of A R Rahman. Can you guess which movie they are from?

Don't worry about the spelling. Just spell it like it sounds, and the box will turn green.

Comments

Guru 13 Mar 2009 5:08 am: 8/15, seems to be the lowest so far …
Steve 12 Mar 2009 7:26 pm: Got 15/15 :D
Ashwin Krish 13 Mar 2009 2:06 am: got 14/15 stumped by 9. I do not listen to remake songs (as matter of principle)… so if this is a tamil song remade in hindi with different mix, I wold not know
Swapnil 12 Mar 2009 12:08 pm: Gr8 quiz…got it all right!Bingo!~
Lavanya 12 Mar 2009 10:18 am: can any one tell me no.9….i COMPLETELY forgot the answer!!
gowrishankar 12 Mar 2009 3:42 am: bang 15/15 expecting few more…
Jay 11 Mar 2009 10:50 pm: aaarrggh…. 9 is driving me nuts… and 12 is stumping me big time…. the rest i guessed it less than 3 seconds flat…
Aravind 12 Mar 2009 2:26 am: good quiz!! :D got 15/15… struggled a lot on 12, though!!
Rivjot 12 Mar 2009 8:31 am: 15/15 Yayy!!! I love myself :D
Jayram 13 Mar 2009 10:19 pm: Stuck in three songs 9,10 and 12. Overall score 12/15.. Good selection…
Srinath 12 Mar 2009 1:13 pm: 15/15.. yay!! :) the answer for 9th is saathiya. mera yaar mila de song :)
Rams 13 Mar 2009 5:31 pm: Yay… got all 15! good one dude!
subbu 13 Mar 2009 3:40 pm: YEAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!! 15/15 was stuck at 12 but made about 5 guesses to get it right. so , strictly speaking I don;t deserve that one point cuz I dont even know the song.
Fameeb 13 Mar 2009 7:22 pm: Ho!!! WoW! What a feeling !! Got 15/15 !! No.12 was a real tough one. It was troubling that am not getting this song. Obviously one of those albums which we heard a lot in Tamil but not in Hindi. Original is always original.Rest of them were all cool. Great Job by Anand. Really enjoyed this one ! Real Good work buddy. Long Live ARR !!
bujji 13 Mar 2009 1:16 pm: hey can anyone tell me 11….except tht i got evrythng
Ananth 13 Mar 2009 12:06 pm: 12/12… happy… 9 & 12 were thougheee… @Ashwin - nice principle… but this song is not there in tamil though the movie is there :)
Vijai Ananth 14 Mar 2009 3:21 am: Way to go…Got all right too…..RAHMANIA MALAYSIA
Dheepak Narsimhan 14 Mar 2009 4:41 am: Good quiz… Really gud job n its challenging.Got 15/15. yahooooooo….
Aditya Pai 14 Mar 2009 8:04 am: Yes…. scored 15/15. Good quiz.
Chandra 14 Mar 2009 6:14 pm: I dont know answers for the 9th, 10th, and the 12th songs. I know the 10th by-heart but am not able to get it… its stuck at the “tip of the tongue” as they say..!
Niranjan 18 Mar 2009 9:54 am: Am puzzled by 12……:-( not getting in any way…
rekha 28 Mar 2009 5:23 pm: got stuck on 1o and 12th…….please post answers
smriti 7 Apr 2009 12:14 pm: 14/15…..someone please helpme on 12…arrr!!! its eating me up! pls post the answer.
arun 15 Apr 2009 8:05 am: 15/15…yipee..feels great
rachna 27 Apr 2009 5:35 pm: got 14/15
Nihal 1 May 2009 7:22 am: wa super! fantastic and elastic and plastic
Shrikant, Aditi &Meera 15 May 2009 10:57 am: Struggled quite a bit on 9. All three of us. Separately. ;) I guess it falls into the li’l old-songs category now.. And to think, we work for a Bollywood Radio Station!!:D Cheers! Shrikant
sridharan 28 May 2009 9:45 am: 12song was very nice and arrahman was the maestro.jai ho
Viju 23 Jun 2009 4:25 am: Awesome one.. I still don’t get the 12 though! :(
Renuka 7 Jul 2009 11:56 am: 9/15. Bad! Awesome quizzes :-)
Anup 4 Nov 2009 11:09 pm: Hurray, I made it. 15 on 15 mate :)
Mohan 29 Nov 2009 5:54 pm: 13/15. unable to figure out 7 & :0(
Naveen 5 Mar 2010 9:14 am: Finally !!! 11 took me time !!! finally 15/15!!ufff!
tulsi priya 5 Dec 2011 4:17 pm: 12/15.. i really cant guess 3, 11 and 12
chethana jadhav 22 Nov 2011 5:57 am: 12/15… !!! took time to guess 10 th.. :(
Akila 12 Dec 2012 10:10 am: 14/15…. couldn’t get 9 right.

Bollywood actors jigsaw quiz

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 12:00:00 +0000

I've jumbled up pictures of 10 Bollywood actors. You can move the jumbled blocks around, like a jigsaw. Can you guess the actors?

Comments

sathya 23 Aug 2008 12:53 am: are you sure jigsaw 5 is right ? I guess it is A Kh. I entered the wikipedia spelling and it still says it is wrong. Sorry for the partial spoiler.
sathya 23 Aug 2008 12:54 am: are you sure jigsaw 5 is right ? I guess it is A Kh. I entered the wikipedia spelling and it still says it is wrong. Sorry for the partial spoiler.
S Anand 23 Aug 2008 4:15 am: @Sathya: Jigsaw 5 is not Aamir Khan, Sathya. He is on the list, though.
Saurabh 23 Aug 2008 5:20 am: Nice one, and was able to solve it as well within 5 mins :)
kay 24 Aug 2008 8:46 am: Any idea why the clues don’t open up for me? I’d be interested in knowing.
sathya 25 Aug 2008 2:30 am: I dint mean Aamir khan … but Ak Kh (son of an actor) … in case u r planning to post the answers, i’ll wait.
S Anand 27 Aug 2008 7:13 am: @Sathya: I used his name without the “e” after the first name. That seemed to have more results on a Google search that with. But you’re right – Wikipedia spells his name with the “e”.

Of course, all of this wouldn’t be a problem if I implemented a decent fuzzy search like my other quizzes. Will do that.
sathya 28 Aug 2008 3:26 am: yeah. fuzzy search is a good idea. Another approach could be to use the “did u mean” like functionality that search engines offer. Peter Norvig’s approach could be used for this (which you had also linked in one of your posts).

I would be curios to know which approach and how, you are going to implement the fuzzy search.
Kalpesh 14 Sep 2008 6:05 am: Hi Anand,

I dont know how I stubled upon your blo & since then has become a fan ;)

Solved this one in 5 mins.

The feed shows multiple posts for same title in bloglines. Is it because of you updating the same post?
S Anand 15 Sep 2008 12:43 am: @Kalpesh: That’s right. Every time I make a minor tweak to the post, it’s shown again, I’m afraid.
smrithy 1 Dec 2011 1:18 pm: hii, i found all actors except the 2nd ones.. can i get some clues for him???

Bollywood actress jigsaw quiz

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 12:00:00 +0000

I've jumbled up pictures of 10 Bollywood actresses. You can move the jumbled blocks around, like a jigsaw. Can you guess the actresses?

Comments

sathya 14 Aug 2008 6:52 am: the score says 10/5 for all correct answers. pls check :-)
ectp 14 Aug 2008 11:14 am: 10/10 :)
Had problems with the spelling in q.8.
Can’t complain, as the standard “Don’t worry about the spelling. Just spell it like it sounds, and the box will turn green.” was not there. :)
S Anand 15 Aug 2008 12:47 am: Yeah, this quiz is a bit finicky on the names. Sorry about that!
Malini 16 Aug 2008 2:36 am: me a fan of urs… crazy abt ur kannada song collection…
Neela 20 Aug 2008 1:51 am: 10/10 :). Amazing quiz. Amazing blog. Great job! How do you find the time to do all this?
warda 3 Nov 2008 12:11 pm: this quiz sux…all f d actreses were so easy 2 guess….wuff….i sure wasted my time
mehru 8 Nov 2008 2:38 am: nice quiz…i dnt agree wid warda d actreses were nt dat easy 2 guess…gud job s,anand
Senthilkumar.S 24 Mar 2009 9:19 am: got 9/10. interesting quiz…
Nivethetha 11 Sep 2009 3:20 pm: Hi Anand, I got 9/10. Amazing quiz. Keep quizzing
Juliet Rosalin Dash 21 May 2010 7:19 am: hey anand i have secured 10/10 keep going and publish this type of quizzes

SD Burman songs quiz

Tue, 20 Mar 2007 12:00:00 +0000

Here is the background music from SD Burman's songs. Can you guess which movie they are from?

Don't worry about the spelling. Just spell it like it sounds, and the box will turn green.

Comments

Kalpesh 20 Mar 2007 1:47 pm: Dude, it throws 404 (file not found). Moreover, I think it is copy-paste problem. All tje songs point to a.mp3 ;) BTW, I like your site & have subscribed to you in bloglines.
Sri 9 May 2007 8:11 pm: Cool ones…. could you give me answer to the SD Burman quiz please, I only I got 3 right :(

Hindi songs 1995s

Thu, 12 Oct 2006 12:00:00 +0000

Here is the background music from some Hindi songs between 1995-1999. Can you guess which movie they are from?

Don't worry about the spelling. Just spell it like it sounds, and the box will turn green.

Comments

Sarvadamana 13 Oct 2006 7:38 pm: 9/10 in the previous and 8/10 in this one. Is it possible to mail the answers for numbers 6 and 7 of this quiz and number-6 of hindi songs 2000s?
amitabh biyani 21 Oct 2006 5:28 pm: 10 on 10 here :) good quiz
sourish 21 Dec 2006 3:01 am: 10/10
deepak joshi 6 Oct 2012 5:49 am: thank you

Hindi songs 2000s

Sun, 08 Oct 2006 12:00:00 +0000

Here is the background music from some Hindi songs from the 2000s. Can you guess which movie they are from?

Don't worry about the spelling. Just spell it like it sounds, and the box will turn green.

Comments

Mihir 13 Mar 2009 6:44 am: Hey, Anand.Great work !!! Keep it up… One question, from which song is the 1st piece ?
Dhar 8 Oct 2006 9:29 pm: A friggin 0 outta 10. :(
S Anand 9 Oct 2006 7:13 am: You really need to start watching Hindi movies, buddy ;-)
Dr. Atul Garg 9 Oct 2006 10:56 am: Pretty good quiz. I scored 5/10 and I think I recognised a few other tunes but couldn’t guess the movie. I couldn’t even cheat from the page source code, couldn’t be bothered to go into JS scripts to get the answers. Thanks. Nice one !! Good website too.
S Anand 9 Oct 2006 12:04 pm: Thanks! (I did go to some pains to encrypt the answers, so the JS scripts wouldn’t have helped either :-)
Venkatesh S 12 Oct 2006 12:17 pm: Hi Anand, This is Venky, Batch of 2000 from IIMB…good to connect after ages! Great Quiz..I got 6/10..let’s keep in touch. Cheers!
S Anand 12 Oct 2006 8:12 pm: Hi Venky! Great to hear from you. Will mail you.
Sandeep 20 Oct 2006 2:16 pm: 9/10 mate. But could not guess the first one.
amitabh biyani 21 Oct 2006 5:37 pm: 9/10 here too. don’t know the 1st one
Rajesh 1 Nov 2006 3:00 pm: 9/10: Whats the first one?
SHAMIT 27 Apr 2007 1:36 pm: First one is Swades ;)
sonu goyal 20 May 2007 3:13 am: aaaa
anusha 8 Oct 2006 12:00 pm: I scored 9/10…whats the 4th one….
nabanita 8 Oct 2006 12:00 pm: hehehhh it was gr8….!! nice test..!! hav sum more??
Anson 22 Nov 2008 11:09 pm: Scored 9/10… the 4th audio is a bit difficult. Anyway, good work, Anand… Keep it up.
Rivjot 12 Mar 2009 8:57 am: 10/10 too easy, should have made a little harder appreciate the efforts for putting the quiz though, i love ur blog :D
Anup 4 Nov 2009 11:13 pm: 10 on 10. Very easy ones.
Anil 8 Jul 2010 3:59 pm: got all ten.. 1st one confused me for a while though..
nirmala 18 Dec 2010 8:34 pm: 5 n 10 coulndt find…help pls

Aamir Khan blog

Fri, 12 Aug 2005 12:00:00 +0000

Aamir Khan’s blog? Is it really him?

Comments

sekhar 6 Sep 2005 3:58 am: supposed to be …………

Bollycat

Mon, 14 Mar 2005 12:00:00 +0000

Bollycat: a list of Bollywood films plagiarized from Hollywood.

Top 10 Hindi movies ever

Tue, 20 May 2003 12:00:00 +0000

Inspired post by Aashish on the top 10 hindi movies ever.

Sholay
Lagaan
Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge
Anand
Deewar
Roja
Aandhi
Golmaal
Khamoshi
Pyaar to Hona Hi Tha

Comments

Manoj Saraf 16 Jun 2009 8:36 am: Pyar to hona hi the should be exclluded from the list
sudhir 11 Mar 2010 4:41 am: Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge & Pyaar to Hona Hi Tha should be removed….instead Dil Chahta Hai and Swades should be included
Sachin 16 Aug 2010 5:39 pm: I agree with Sudhir…instead Pyassa (Guru Dutt) and Guide should be included.
munish 6 Oct 2010 5:08 pm:
1. Guide, 2. Mugal e Azam, 3. Mother India, 4. Sholey, 5. Anand, 6. Deewar, 7.Lagaan, 8. Jaane bhi Do Yaaron, 9. Paakija, 10. 3 idiots
Chinmaya 18 Nov 2010 4:20 pm: 1.3 idiot 2.kaho naa pyar hai 3.solay 4.ram teri ganga maili 5.dhoom 6.andhi 7.ddl 8.lagan 9.dil chahta hai
Thakur 6 Jan 2012 1:59 pm:
1. DDLJ 2.Kuch Kuch hota hai 3.Devdas 4.Sholey 5.Sangam 6.Mughl-e-ajam 7.Guide 8.Kagaj Ke Phool 9.Chak de India 10.Anand
Oolala 12 Jul 2012 7:47 pm: 1 hum apke hain kon 2 mother india 3 sholey 4 3 idiots 5 anand 6 kuchh kuchh hota hai 7 do bigha zameen 8 guide 9 mughal-e-azam 10 kranti

ASCII art of Bollywood heroines

Wed, 02 Apr 2003 12:00:00 +0000

Impressive ASCII art of Bollywood heroines. via Rajneesh

Hindi songs copyright

Sun, 25 Aug 2002 12:00:00 +0000

The flip side of copyright: Hindi songs featured in albums.

Hindi movies online

Sun, 02 Dec 2001 12:00:00 +0000

Watch Hindi movies online

Bollywood links

Fri, 13 Jul 2001 12:00:00 +0000

A good collection of Bollywood links.

Animated spoof of Mohabbatein

Sun, 28 Jan 2001 12:00:00 +0000

An extraordinary animated spoof of Mohabbatein.