Indian erotica - its sentiments as simple as in Sabu's day. Yes, those bright turbans and opulent palaces are back, but welded to such a display of flesh as never was seen in Hollywood's account of the Arabian Nights. Two girls are raised as childhood friends and rivals. One (Sarita Choudhury) ensnares a king (Naveen Andrews), but he falls for the other (Indira Varma) at first sight, and she gives herself to him on his wedding night. Thrown out on her ear, Varma goes for strapping sculptor Ramon Tikaram while, back at the palace, Choudhury shies away from sexual contact, and Andrews sinks into an opium-induced haze and a sea of concubines. All might have been well had not Tikaram decided Varma puts him off his sculpting stroke. She becomes Andrews' chief courtesan and tragedy beckons. It's clear director Mira Nair means all this to be a feminist tract, but it hardly comes across that way. Soft-porn sex mingles with the fairy-tale elements and they make, like Choudhury and her king, uneasy bedfellows.

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