What a freaking movie. So many twists and turns. Absolutely intense from start to finish.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Though I haven't watched the entire film, but I got to see one of the scenes which shows how poor is the imagination of J.P. Dutta. In an emotional scene when the protagonist comes back to her home and saw old things of childhood, she saw hand pump among other things and pumped it. But the scene's emotion were spoiled as hand pump shown was government hand pump introduced quite later. Had it been the old ones as there are in Indian villages, scene would probably have been worth feel. Give this same scene to any other sensitive director like Yash Chopra or Ashutosh Gowarikar, see the difference how they capture the emotion when a person returns home after many many years and after facing many sad events. This scene was enough to pull me off the film.

Despite being panned, I had hope that this film might be a fulfilling experience. The main problem with 'Umrao Jaan' is that it insists upon itself. It tries hard to be taken seriously, ergo, the script seems to be written by an eight grader who has just received a thesaurus and tries to impress his teacher by resorting to complex Lexis where simple words would do. Fact: J.P Dutta's version had all the makings of a grand tragedy: the ethereal main lead, her ashenly handsome love interest, haunting songs and magnificent sets and costumes. Furthermore,the length of the film is exhaustive...I actually had to get up and move about for a bit in order to shake the cobwebs lining the inside of my cranium. The songs, though melodiously rendered, are far too many in number and get on one's nerves after a while. Also Dutta has shown 'Umrao Jaan' to be a love story gone sour. Having read Rusva's original I can safely say that the broad outlook of the novel was to provide the reader an insight into the life of a courtesan...the love story was just a part of the text and not the novel as a whole.In conclusion, Umrao Jaan may be Aishwarya Rai's most powerful work till date and another feather in Shabana Azmi's cap but it is vaguely reminiscent of 'Memoirs of a Geisha' sans a true sense of tragedy.

Please stop making old themes ,it looks as if the first production wasn't upto the mark so something more has to be added, whereas the new productions are not as good as the old ones and the new cast doesn't add any thing extra in the themes which interest the public anymore ,there has always been an era of a subject ,first it was romance then historical themes of mughals ,then the dancing girls of India and Pakistan after that era of violence and sex and then again back to light movies like Mein hun naa .Ashwaria is a fantastic very pretty actress why should we put her in comparison to Rekha ,she can find roles of her own style she certainly doesn't give the look of a typical dancing lady of Lukhnow with very non eastern features and glowing grey eyes .It looks India is running out of stories ,first Devdas ,Don and then Umrao Jan ada .Well it 's making easy money with paying less attention to finding new stories and themes .

This movie is strictly for those people who have not seen the earlier Umraao Jaan. Because they will compare and this one would fail miserably.The script was badly written, the characters looked like they had not done any homework, especially suniel shetty, who seemed to be a character who was just taken in the movie for the sake of it. No attention was paid to the details like Suniel shetty's shoes. Aishwarya just danced well, and managed look well, a very good job done by the make-up artiste.The only actor who performed extremely well, in spite of those over decked up sets was Shabana Azmi. Her's was the only character, which made some sense. As neither did blow-in blow-out nostrils(Ash) nor the last moment entry(suniel) did. Abhishek was good, though his character didn't seem to be well-defined enough. Some of his scenes were longer than they should had been, however, he managed to portray them well.