Half-a-dozen army helicopters are in hot pursuit of a blood red train hijacked by nuclear terrorists Amrish Puri and gang, hurtling through picturesque Jungfrau, a snow-bound town perched at a vertigo-inducing 14,000 ft on the Swiss Alps. But they needn't bother. raw superspy Sunny Deol is on board, fist-wading through the baddies, single-handedly pulling off the rescue in a sequence that cost the producers as much as Rs 10 crore.

Bollywood has always thought of money as the solution to all its problems. If the story doesn't work, buy an expensive star. If a star doesn't work, get a pricey designer. If that still doesn't work, take the movie to Australia. But thanks to last year being its worst in recent memory, with the industry losing over Rs 300 crore, money is no longer the solution. With even one-man hit factories like Karan Johar talking of a cinematic 1857, producers/directors have to-Godfather-like-go to the mattresses. Audiences have had enough of picture-perfect faces and postcard locations. They're also over and done with movies where the hair has more of a role than actors and muscles speak more than words. "In a content-free zone, what they are looking for is a soul," says lyricist Javed Akhtar.

Could it be found in the alien that an Australian special effects house created to befriend Hrithik Roshan-an 11-year-old trapped in a 25-year-old's body-in Koi ... Mil Gaya? Or in the hard-nosed courage that J.P. Dutta is trying to recreate in LoC-Kargil, during the high-altitude shoot of which two unit members lost their lives? Or the funny-sad dialogue Shah Rukh Khan uses to woo Rani Mukherjee in Chalte Chalte?

Eight movies, costing Rs 200 crore, will put to test just not Bollywood but several reputations as well. There's the falling star whose ever-protective father is hoping to play starmaker again (no doubt so that the happy family can play pass-the-cheesy-smile on Simi Garewal's show again). There's the boy wonder director whose hallmark is his Hallmark card sentimentality. And there is an over-articulate director who loves to put other people's money where his mouth is. Will his tagline (be scared) live up to its scary promise?

Expect: glossy, invariably imported special effects; spectacular Devdas-like sets; more babes; lots of Preity Zinta. Don't expect: an avalanche of brave new ideas; small personal movies; the death of Old Bollywood financed by distributors. But do, do expect a fightback, the last stand of an industry in the deathlike grip of a decline of imagination.

Pass the popcorn, Bollywood's biggest summer ever is here.

RUDRAKSH

10 CRORE The buzz Good battles evil in paradise Release July Director Mani Shankar

God is like the Internet,'' pronounces Sanjay Dutt, pointing to US scientist Bipasha Basu's Blue Tooth laptop. Dutt logs frequent flier miles into Swapnakash, a wish-and-it's-granted paradise. But what if a roguish Neanderthal, Sunil Shetty, knife-edge sideburns, contact lenses and all, hijacks it? The spiritual thriller mines Indian mythology and Einsteinian thought to explore terrain alien to Bollywood. Over 30 animators are working in Mani Shankar's studio in Hyderabad to realise Shetty's genetic mutation. The film has accumulated close to 20 terabytes of special effects data-laid end-to-end, those many disks could reach across 40 football fields.

THE HERO

55 CRORE The buzz Gadar meets James Bond Release April Director Anil Sharma

Having tired of lifting water pumps, Sunny Deol now dangles off a 11,000-ft drop with a single cable in order to woo audiences. Even a cretin would be able to see through Deol's 15 disguises but that hasn't stopped Time producers Pravin and Hasmukh Shah from hyping The Hero as the movie most likely to succeed Devdas in the spot-where-the-money-went stakes. Deol plays a globe-trotting spy with a penchant for variable facial hair who thwarts rogue isi general Amrish Puri and wins the affections of Preity Zinta and her goat. How is it different from what father Dharmendra did in Aankhen? How about a Rs 55-crore (going up to Rs 65 crore) mega-bill?

When the Shahs signed on Sharma, he was a director who had made his last hit when most of Bollywood's current crop was still in their shorts (and they weren't DKNYs). Deol was a star in the throes of a midlife crisis whose macho films, including the spy flick Himmat, seemed to work only in the high testosterone film territory of east Punjab. Then Gadar, with a Rs 80 crore box-office take, became one of the most successful films of all time. Overnight, Deol morphed into one of the industry's highest paid stars.

Can the Gadar team do an encore? Without the earthy edges and crude camerawork? Let the front benches decide.

BHOOT

15 CRORE The buzz Exorcist meets Stephen King Release May Director Ram Gopal Varma

Ajay Devgan and Nana Patekar in French beards, Urmila Matondkar without her 1980s curls and Fardeen Khan with a designer stubble? Varma hopes there's more to the film than that. Stock analyst Vishal (Devgan) moves in with his wife Swati (Matondkar) to the 12th floor of a Mumbai block. The previous occupant had plunged to her death from here. Haunted by ghosts, Matondkar now descends into an abyss of paranormal experiences.

In the last Varma horror flick, The Exorcist-inspired Raat, audiences were too busy yawning to feel scared. This time he promises more than just a "boo film". Drawing on our everyday fears-ghosts behind doors and the walk to get water from the refrigerator at bedtime-Varma hopes to scare people in the place they feel secure, the heart of a big city.

The movie also toplines the acting talents of Rekha, Nana Patekar, Seema Biswas, Khan and the rarely seen Victor Banerjee. After Road and Company, Varma needs a hit. Will Bhoot be his Raaz?

CHALTE CHALTE

10 CRORE The buzz Return of the king Release June Director Aziz Mirza

With Salman Khan roughing up Aishwarya Rai on the sets, this film is already famous for entirely the wrong reasons. Shah Rukh Khan's first release in a year, the co-production between the star's Dreamz Unlimited and UTV is a no-frills love story, the complete antithesis of Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Devdas.

Starring Rani Mukherjee as a rich girl and Shah Rukh Khan as a truckdriver (with a fleet of trucks, no less), it focuses on life after marriage. Jas Arora has a role but don't hold your breath for this two-bit actor's two-minute part. Polished character actors Lillete Dubey and Satish Shah bring up the rear.

After the political treatise of Phir Bhi Dil Hai Hindustani, Mirza (ably assisted by son Haroun) returns to the familiar urbane territory of Raju Ban Gaya Gentleman and Yes Boss. Shot by maestro Ashok Mehta mostly in Mumbai and Malshej, discount Mukherjee's Manish Malhotra outfits, which look like, well, Mukherjee in any other movie.

If you want real-speak, listen to the dialogue Shah Rukh Khan uses to woo Mukherjee: "I had a dream. We would grow old together. I would even do the kids' homework," says he. "No, your maths is awful," says she.

KOI... MIL GAYA

35 CRORE The buzz ET, Zinta meets Forest Gump Release August Director Rakesh Roshan

Three years after he went from being superdude to superdud, Hrithik Roshan hopes papa's potboiler instincts will work for him in Bollywood's first sci-fi film-not counting Mr India and an obscure 1960s B-grader about Dara Singh's moon shot.

Sitting in one of the film's Gothic sets, Rakesh Roshan prefers to call it a "fantasy film". "Why does anything with flying saucers and aliens have to be called sci-fi when our mythologicals mention spaceships?'' he asks, sounding suspiciously like Murli Manohar Joshi. Differently abled Hrithik-doted upon by mother Rekha-isn't the same again after he befriends an alien.

Rakesh Roshan spent close to a third of the film's budget on special effects, roping in Independence Day and Godzilla's special effects wizard Mark Kolbe. The animatronic alien (something like a Yoda meets R2D2), courtesy Australia's Bimmini special effects house, was dragged from Nainital to Banff in Canada to Mumbai.

Will papa's 11th successive film beginning with the 11th alphabet restore Hrithik's halo? Or will he have to depend on his looks-which changes from a geeky, bespectacled kid to an Armani-clad hunk?

ARMAAN

50 CRORE The buzz Pretty Preity as vicious vamp Release May Director Honey Irani

Scriptwriter Irani turns director with her own script. Amitabh Bachchan gets a silver wig, Gracy Singh, who plays the anaesthetist, exchanges her village girl look for designer Arjun Bhasin's smart chiffons, Preity Zinta, daughter of the 10th richest man in the world, goes for an Avan Contractor fringe and off-shoulder evening gowns. But the film hopes for more than just superficial gloss-marrying Irani's old style smarts with bratpack filmmaking, courtesy her son Farhan Akhtar's Dil Chahta Hai team.

Shot in sync sound by Lagaan and Dil Chahta Hai 's Nakul Kamte, with music by Shankar Ehsaan Loy, it is set in a hospital designed with loving detail by Chetana Prabhu. Bachchan and Anil Kapoor play father-son doctors. It is the first time they share screentime-in Shakti, they never did. Those who love to do these things can watch out for telltale signs of tension in Bachchan's scenes with almost in-law Randhir Kapoor, last seen on screen in 1998's disaster Mother-98.

For producer Dinesh Gandhi (Tezaab, anyone?), the most riveting moment in Armaan is when Zinta (in a role that Rani Mukherjee rejected because it was too "negative") asks Gracy (in a role that Tabu thought was too minor) to act as a witness in her marriage to Kapoor (who has just jilted Gracy). Confused? Don't be. Just keep your three hankies handy.

MAIN PREM KI DIWANI HOON

25 CRORE The buzz Lass charge of NRI romance Release June Director Sooraj Barjatya

You could get the prime minister to talk about where he keeps the nuclear button sooner than you could pry details of an under-production Rajshri film. The conservative Barjatya joint family epitomises old-world Bollywood. They don't socialise and never attend parties. Little is known about their films except that it is the first Barjatya film to be shot overseas and it has taken three, not two years.

Reclusive director Sooraj Barjatya-like his great admirer Aditya Chopra, he rarely gives interviews-is among the top five in the industry. He reinvented the teeny-bopper film with Maine Pyar Kiya and revived the saccharine-sweet family social Hum Aapke Hain Koun!, Bollywood's biggest hit which grossed a titanic Rs 100 crore. He didn't do so well on Hum Saath Saath Hain, the shooting of which was dogged by Salman Khan's little encounter with blackbucks.

Now with Main Prem Ki ..., a love triangle and reportedly a ramped-up remake of Rajshri's 1970s Amol Palekar-Zarina Wahab starrer Chit Chor, Barjatya makes Rajshri's costliest film to date. Prancing in the vales of Lord of the Rings country, New Zealand, are Hrithik Roshan, Kareena Kapoor and Abhishek Bachchan. The dream starcast, of 1999 ...

Can Barjatya not make it look like Yaadein or Mujhse Dosti Karoge? Last but one chance to see Hrithik before he gets a crew cut this month for a start-to-finish shoot of Farhan Akhtar's Kargil war saga Lakshya.

Will Main Prem Ki ... prove that audiences understand emotional language more that slick technology? If it does, expect the Barjatya formula of Karva Chauth-meets-Kwality Walls to acquire more devotees.

LoC-KARGIL

40 CRORE The buzz Border on the high mountains Release June Director J.P. Dutta

With the largest starcast ever assembled for a Hindi film-over 40 actors ranging from Sanjay Dutt to Saif Ali Khan to minnows like Arman Kohli and Amar Upadhyaya-Dutta is back at the frontlines. Appropriately, it has the longest song in Hindi filmdom, a 14-minute long patriotic ditty composed by Anu Malik.