Issaq

This is the story based on two land mafias of Banaras: Kashyaps and Mishras. They have a throat-cutting competition to gain control over the land and fight brutally over it. The film was promoted in TV serial . The producers promoted the movie through paan at the leading malls in . composed the songs while the background score was composed by . The movie received generally negative reviews. Piyasree Dasgupta, in a review for , summed it up as: “One wonders … what is a greater tragedy— or what made of that classic love story.” of find it to be “without a singular voice of its own” and that ultimately “it drowns in its own noise.” The review in calls out the poor acting by Babbar and Dastur’s lack of charisma. “Manish Tiwary’s lacks vibe, soul or depth needed for a classic love story. With incoherent narrative, unsketched characters, wispy (sometimes embarrassing) dialogues, one good melody in the whole ditty (Issaq tera); pointless shooting (mostly in the dark), gold-plated bandooks and bombs galore—Tiwary misses every target. There are movies beautifully adapted from Shakespeare’s works in the past, but none that tragically assault your creative, poetic or cinematic senses.” Sarit Ray, writing for the , thinks “seldom have [Shakespeare movie adaptations] been associated with as nonsensical a mess as Manish Tiwary’s Issaq” and that “It’s a pity that Issaq joins remarkable films like , and on the list of Bollywood adaptations of Shakespeare. In a time when works of literature are judged by their TV and film versions, it could even give the Bard a bit of a bad rep.”