TL;DR – This is a frustrating film because you can feel there is a good narrative in there, but it is held back by a love triangle that doesn’t work and production issues that pull you out of the film.

Post-Credit Scene – There is a mid-credit scene.

Disclosure – I paid to watch this film.

Jay Ho Review –

Today, I went to my local cinemas and decided to pick something I knew nothing about, and one of the films on offer came from Nepal. I have never reviewed a Nepalese film before, so this was my entry, which made it frustrating when the film was a bit of a mess at times.

So to set the scene, Sajina (Keki Adhikari) is struggling. Her now ex-boyfriend Ashok (Arpan Thapa) started showing off his new woman only two weeks after the breakup. Her parents are constantly fighting to the point when they don’t even realise that she has left the car they are in and some creepy guy was taking photos of her without her permission. This leads her to the bottom of several bottles, and Sajina tries to get a bus in the middle of the night. Taking pity on her, a couple on their way to Mustang for their wedding pick her up to make sure she is fine, where she discovers the other passenger is their photographer Jay (Salon Basnet), who was the dude with the camera and that getting away from the city might be the best thing for her.

Unfortunately, I feel like I will be a bit negative here, and to be clear, I think a lot of these issues are just not having the budget they needed. However, that is not to say this film was a disaster because there was a lot here I liked. Firstly, the couple to be married (Nisha Adhikari & Maotse Gurung) are fantastic. Every time they are on screen, they fill it with warmth and good nature; they are the film’s heart, and you absolutely champion them going forward. The setting that they used was stunning, with the filmmakers making the most of the mountainous landscape they were using. I loved the interplay between humanmade and natural textures we see throughout. Finally, the action scenes and dance numbers slap, and it was a bunch of fun to watch.

However, there were two main issues with this film that ended up taking me out of the production. The first is the love triangle between Sajina, Ashok, and Jay. They are both terrible options for Sajina, with both potential suiters showing their hands early in the film and only one side really looking to work to improve that first impression. [SPOILERS] There is a moment where she goes ‘I choose none of you.” I was like, ‘Right on, you need to work on yourself. This is good self-reflection’, and then the film dropped the intermission bomb. From the moment those words appeared on screen, I knew this was not the outcome the film would stick with. I just kept feeling bad because these kids are ruining that nice couple’s wedding, and they have been super nicer about it than I would have been.

While the narrative has some issues, the production side of things really created some barriers for me. Going into the film, I knew there would be some cinematic language of Nepalese Cinema that I would not pick up on or would have to get used to. For example, the use of slow-mo in dramatic moments. Or the warnings that appear at the bottom right of the screen whenever there is smoking or alcohol present [there were also a couple of other times when I could not work out what the warning was for, so if you know. Please let me know in the comments below].

However, when we work through those cultural issues, some lingering production problems are on show. I am not sure if this was an issue with the original cut, the cinema set up, or both, but this film desperately needed another editing pass regarding the sound mixing. You could tell when the sound was captured on location and when it was added via ADR in post because there is almost an uncanny valley effect. It is so loud that it picks up all the breathing vocalisations that would usually be edited out, which could feel more authentic if they were lip-synched better. Combined with some limited foley and a musical score that feels overbearing in places, this kept ripping me out of the film.   

In the end, do we recommend Jay Ho? Well, if it was following the escapades of that married couple, absolutely. But the rest of the film, unfortunately not. I struggled to stay engaged for the film’s second half, which is a shame because I also very much want to visit where this film was shot one day. If you liked Jay Ho, I would recommend to you 10 Things I Hate About You.

By Brian MacNamara: You can follow Brian on Twitter Here, when he’s not chatting about Movies and TV, he’ll be talking about International Relations, or the Solar System.

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Credits – All images were created by the cast, crew, and production companies of Jay Ho
Directed by – Tek Paurakhi Rai
Story by –
Music by – Shambhujit Baskota & Sagar Ale
Cinematography by – Saurav Lama
Edited by – Banish Shah
Production/Distribution Companies – OSR Digital
Starring – Keki Adhikari, Arpan Thapa, Salon Basnet, Nisha Adhikari, Maotse Gurung, Sumin Gurung, Prem Pandey & Sushant Kumar Shrestha
Rating – Australia: PG;