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Single-handedly taking on the challenge of rejuvenating the ailing Punjabi film industry, bhangra-singer-turned-actor/producer Harbhajan Mann, presents his latest project, Mitti Waajan Maardi. Roping in seasoned Bollywood director Manmohan Singh and enough cash to shoot on location in San Francisco and India, Maan plays an American-born graduate, who is forced to travel to his father's homeland when a family secret is revealed. Sadly, an unsophisticated script and lethargic supporting cast prevent this family melodrama from lifting the genre to higher heights.

Having raised Varyam (Mann) to be a doctor, widower Surjit Singh (Kanwaljit) is full of pride for his son, but remorse for the first wife and daughter he left behind in the Punjab before settling in America as an illegal immigrant. On his death, Varyam is left to honor his father's wish and perform the last ritual with his ashes. One long haul flight later and the young medic lands in the fatherland, on a mission to locate his stepmother and sister without revealing his identity. His path is, of course, littered with hackneyed obstacles, like vengeful relatives, a fair maiden (Japji Khaira) and village bumpkins who view his 'foreign' ways with comic suspicion.

"HARDLY ULTRA MODERN"

Although promoting itself as a new age Punjabi film, Mitti Waajan Maardi is hardly ultra modern when it comes to perspective or style. Besides superficially highlighting the issue of fake marriages amongst Indian immigrants in the west, neither Baldev Gill's predictable screenplay nor Mann's wooden performance makes this any different from the traditional fare to have come out of regional Punjabi cinema in past decades. Mann banks on the film being carried by the popularity of his persona and music, but unfortunately the gamble doesn't pay off.

Mitti Waajan Maardi is out in the UK on 14th September 2007.