There's just something about the way the reviews are written. It's not just that they have an indian sounding accent many times, with just a few words off of the American style, but I think it may be that these are done by business associates of the movie crew, or maybe their family? 8.5? Just under Dark Knight or Inception? I'm thinkin' maybe not!
Its a clear case of classic Indian mob mentality. None of them understand the movie, so feign intelligence.
shareHow about you watch the movie before deciding that all the rating are faked. I did and I loved it. It's childish to assume that a highly rated movie must have fake votes and reviews if it's from India. You seem surprised that most of the reviews of an Indian movie seem to be written by Indians and that most of the votes for a good movie are 9s and 10s.
At least watch the movie.
Yeah, it just doesn't ring true. Maybe it's a different cultural taste, or maybe it's jingoism on their part. Oh, maybe it's really really good, but I doubt it. Right next to Dark Knight? Just below the Godfather? Well, if you say so. I'm just saying I doubt it. It's on my list. But my money says these are faked votes by paid Indians to attract an American audience. We'll see. If I love it, I'll apologize for ever doubting you.
"Right next to Dark Knight?"
What's that supposed to mean ? I think the Dark Knight should not even be near the top 250 but hey, it's people's opinions, you gotta respect them.
I disagree with many movies' ratings but you don't see me going around Imdb shouting "the votes are fake" !!!
All Indian movies are overrated, they think they need to rate them all 10 as a matter of national pride. But this movie is D-grade, unwatchable. Call it my "Western taste", but if Easterners like the taste of crap I'm not going to be "open minded" by spooning it up
shareYou really do need to understand that a lot has got to do with which Eastern movies do get released to the general public. Sure we do have our tripe (name a country which absolutely doesn't?), but there are some hidden gems if you really know where to look. Being crowd funded, this movie might have had a lot of people voting in the higher side so that it gets a wider audience (heck, even them producers might be behind this). But to lambaste an entire country's worth by watching just a small (if not selective) portion of their produce? I'll let you answer that.
- an EASTERNER who's just as skeptical of this movie's rating as the OP and loved The Battery just as much as Mr. Timlin, but just couldn't sit by and take all the "Easterner/Westerner" debacle.
Indian movies, including major Bollywood hits like Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara (which I loved, BTW), tend to get way more 10 votes and way more 1 votes as well. Some people don't so shades of grey, and that may be more common in India.
Prepare your minds for a new scale of physical, scientific values, gentlemen.share
I watched the movie and it wasn't bad. If you watch a lot of foreign movies, and watch it with an open mind, you might like it. Also, this is a crowd funded movie, so most of the viewers might've left a positive review in hopes of earning some of their money back. Not sure how it works, but I don't really care to get any money back and I consider it well spent. Also, the ratings on foreign movies mean nothing - they are left by users and what is considered a great movie in one country may not be liked at all in another one...
Great movie. So far my favourite together with "Birdman" at the Zurich Film Festival.
shareCan you please explain why:
Guardians Of The Galaxy (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2015381/?ref_=chttp_tt_62) , Boyhood (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1065073/?ref_=chttp_tt_49),
are rated above some of the gems below that are timeless, on the imdb top 250 movies.
citizen kane, vertigo, aliens, oldboy, a clockwork orange, taxi driver, Reservoir Dogs, Braveheart, Requiem for a Dream, To Kill a Mockingbird, Lawrence of Arabia, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Full Metal Jacket, L.A. Confidential, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Raging Bull, Scarface, Chinatown, Die Hard, Pan's Labyrinth, On the waterfront, Good Will Hunting, The Elephant Man.
Now I can get extremely critical of some other films on the imdb top 250 chart that seems to be have beaten some of the other classics, But lets start off by answering my above question, then we can get onto the next level of filtering some films that don't deserve higher spots in the charts in comparison to certain classics.
After which, we can surely discuss the authenticity of the ratings on this film (Lucia).
exactly
shareOh Dear! Are we back in 60s now? with racists on the rampage again?
IMDB is accessible world wide and the rating of the movies are for people all over the world, not "to attract American audience". There is more to the World than the USA. Sun does not revolve around the USA, Earth revolves round the sun ;-) Serious, you can check it up in science books :P
The latest Super man movie Man of steel has 8+ rating, The crappest movie ever.
Different people have different tastes.get over it.
Excellent movie by the way, The standard of Kannada movies has really improved.
Race had nothing to do with this. Until the next poster made it more clear, I wasn't thinking that the different groups would be using the same numbering system but with different meanings. It's wrong to call me a racist for not thinking of that.
And while an American 8.6 is apparently something different than a Kannadan 8.6, there is still the question raised by other posters that this was a crowd-funded movie, and that the crowd funders gave it a higher rating than they would have otherwise in order to make a profit on the movie. I don't know if they did, but if they did, then that's dishonest. American hegemony has nothing to do with that, and it's not racist to raise the possibility.
I think its wrong to compare an Indian movie (that too made in a regional language) with an American movie whose market and viewership is comparatively infinite. Indian film industry is very different from Hollywood. It consist of over 15 film industries each in different languages, namely Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Bengali, Malayalam, Marathi, Oriya, Punjabi and so on. It should be noted that only Hindi films gets a nation-wide viewership while others are limited to their own states. This situation is present only in India, I suppose. A Kannada film (which Lucia is) does not have the budget and market or viewership to make and sell huge films like Inception or Dark Knight or Shawshank Redemption. So there is no point in comparing them.
Also, here movies are rated by those who watch it. Lucia may be an average film for foreign viewers especially English, for they have a large history of cinema, and the industry can provide massive budget and market to realize the visions of the film makers. Lucia was made on a limited budget, screened to a limited audience. Undoubtedly, this is a well made film. When you rate a film, these parameters come automatically. When rated by its target audience, Lucia certainly deserves an 8-9 rating.
For others, feel free to rate and review the movies but I think its not right to question its quality even without watching it. And if you didn't like it, it does not mean that it is bad. It means there are other viewers who find it outstanding, especially for those this film was made.
Those are some good points. We are using one set of numbers for measuring, but they actually have different meanings. So, an 8.6 for Lucia is different than an 8.6 for Inception, because they had different votes and the voters had different meanings.
And, really, what I'm seeing in a lot of the defenders is clearly a sense of target market's pride, voting with their love of the film along with a "hey, this is one of ours" kind of local pride that I think boosts the scores. That's understandable. I was wrong to look at the numerical ratings as equivalents between movies. The boosters are not being dishonest, I assume, merely loving that which is close to them. (Although I am wondering about the crowd-funding charge, that those who funded it also boosted the score in an effort to make a profit. That point could be addressed.)
Anyway, one other thing, though: it is appropriate to question its quality before seeing it. I'm not judging it's quality before seeing it, but I only have so many hours in my life, and so I have to assess, question, the quality of things before I give them a couple hours of my time. If this movie makes it to Netflix streaming, I'll take a look.
Thanks for everyone's weighing in on this.
I am glad you understood the point. " an 8.6 for Lucia is different than an 8.6 for Inception, because they had different votes and the voters had different meanings."
But its not about the local pride. If you observe closely, you can see that most Kannada films does not have a rating more than 7. But as far as Lucia is concerned, I strongly believe it is a gem for the whole Indian industry. It is currently being remade into Tamil. And I am not defending this one because "hey, this is one of ours". I am from Kerala, where films are made in Malayalam language. Like you said, I spent 2 hours of my time watching this movie just because it was highly recommended (I don't understand Kannada, I watched it with subtitles), and I just loved it.
Also, I don't think boosting the imdb rating would make a difference in the box office collection. That's not the way things work in India. You can check the highest grossing movies of each industry and check their respective imdb rating.
And, you can surely doubt the quality of a film before watching it, but just saying its not so appropriate to jump to any conclusions without seeing.
Your points seem honest and intelligent, and based on your enthusiasm for the movie, I will make a point to see it someday. Thanks for responding.
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Lucia as 8.5 at 7,245 voters but to inception as 8.8 at 1,353,358.
as the voters increases the rating of movie decreases . if lucia gets 1,000,000 votes it would be around 7 or 7.5 .
So its not under dark knight or inception.
I know i m too late for the discussion.