So the much anticipated Hrithik Roshan – Barbara Mori film has launched last week, and landed in the Top 10 list of films released in the US and has grossed over 65 crores worldwide in its first weekend.

To someone like me, who learned Spanish as an impressionable tween while watching Mexican soap operas (as well as the 10 o’clock news), the on-screen union of these two aesthetically endowed individuals makes complete sense, as it dawned on me one day that what first attracted me to Hindi movies in the late “˜90s were similar characteristics to my once beloved telenovelas (the drama, the romance, the industrial strength eyeliner and false eyelashes).

I eventually drifted away from the soaps, but I did get pulled back a few years ago by the spectacular Rede Globo’s Luso-Arab-themed sci-fi travelogue O Clone from Brazil, that was such a massive hit there, here and in Portugal.   Talk about your reverse colonization”¦.I was in Lisbon when it was still running on TV and the lead actors were doing ads in Portugal and being closely followed in the prensa rosa.

Now that la Mori (who got her start in the soaps in la D.F.) has been paired with Ol’ Green Eyes, and the two take stabs at communicating with each other in English, Hiñol and smoldering looks, telenovelas and Hindi cinema have collided somewhere over Nevada.

Even though Papa Roshan’s production, directed by Anurag Basu, is a seeming amalgam of my first love and my current one, you would think I’d have been there for the red carpet premiere that brought the handsome couple to NYC a fortnight ago, but I’ve decided to wait.

You see, this Friday, May 28th, Kites is releasing again, but this time, in the shorter, Brett Ratner remixed version that is edited by him for phoren (read: U.S.) consumption.   I wanted to see this 90-minute Kites with fresh eyes, and then, if I like it enough, I’ll check out the longer Indian version for the sake of comparison.

As they say, watch this space”¦..

From some online chatter of friends I’ve noticed there seems to be a bit of a divide in opinion between desis and non-desis and their amor for the movie, or lack thereof.

If you’ve seen Kites, what did you think of it?