Ki & Ka official trailer out; is Balki redefining gender roles or just switching them?

A few days back, we told you about the release of the motion poster of R. Balki’s upcoming movie Ki & Ka, starring Kareena Kapoor Khan and Arjun Kapoor in the lead roles. The poster showed Kareena tying a mangalsutra around Arjun Kapoor’s neck, while the tagline said that streeling (female) and pulling (male) is the same thing.

It pretty much gave us the idea that Arjun, who plays Kabir would be a house husband while Kareena, who plays Kia, would be the one minting money in the big bad world out there. Now, the official trailer of the movie is here, and we couldn’t be more correct about the storyline of the movie.

The trailer starts with someone asking Kabir if Kia is the man in their relationship, to which he says that even though in the Indian culture, a man means someone who earns the bread of the family, in their case, it’s just the opposite.

The scene then moves to Kia, who is the marketing manager of a big corporate house, and is expecting quick promotions in the near future. When Ki and Ka talk about their future, Ka, i.e Kabir reveals that he wants to be like his mom, who, to Ki, i.e Kia’s surprise was a housewife.
Kabir then clarifies that he is a normal man, who just wants to stay away from the rat race in his professional career.

We also meet Swaroop Sampat and Rajit Kapur, who play Kia and Kabir’s family. As the two get married, the famous mangalsutra scene arrives, along with some steamy scenes between the two stars.

That Kabir likes to cook is evident from the trailer, as he makes tea, breakfast and dinner for his working wife, while asking money from her to manage the house. However, he can beat some goons in pure macho style too, a stereotypical must for a Bollywood hero after all, but in the next scene, he wears red sandals as Kareena plays the lead in their couple dance.

Good, different and fun, but even the movie that talks about breaking the stereotypes somehow manages to establish them again, in a role reversal manner though.

Why does Kabir take off his wife’s sandals as she is too tired to take them off herself after a hectic day at work? Why is he the one who makes the breakfast as she sleeps soundly? Why doesn’t she care about his headache when she is in the mood to do it?

These questions make us think if Balki meant to just reverse the roles amongst genders and not show gender equality through this movie, which could have been path breaking, but sadly, isn’t?

Nonetheless, the chemistry between Kareena and Arjun looks sizzling, and it’s after quite some time that Kareena would be seen delivering a performance and not just being in the movie for the sake of glamour. Remember Singham Returns, Gabbar Is Back and Bajrangi Bhaijaan, anyone? Even though the first trailer didn’t give us any glimpse of the role that Jaya and Amitabh Bachchan would be playing in the movie, it does manage to raise the curiosity levels to some extent.

The movie releases on 1^st April, and you can catch the Eros-exclusive trailer here.

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