Shah Rukh Khan and Kajol unveil DDLJ bronze statue in London’s Leicester Square

Bollywood icons Shah Rukh Khan and Kajol marked a memorable moment on December 4, 2025, by unveiling a bronze statue of their legendary characters Raj and Simran from the 1995 classic Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (DDLJ) at London’s famed Leicester Square. Despite cold, rainy weather, the pair captivated the gathered audience and media, recreating the film’s iconic pose with radiant smiles. Shah Rukh Khan looked sharp in a black suit, while Kajol radiated grace in a mint-green saree. The new bronze statue is the first ever dedicated to an Indian film at Leicester Square, placing DDLJ alongside global cinematic icons like those from Harry Potter, Mary Poppins, Paddington, Singin’ in the Rain, and heroic figures like Batman and Wonder Woman. The statue captures the film’s signature pose — a moment the duo lovingly recreated during the ceremony. Reflecting on the anniversary, Shah Rukh Khan said, “DDLJ was made with a pure heart. We wanted to tell a story about love — how it can bridge bar...

Napoleon review – Joaquin Phoenix makes a magnificent emperor in thrilling biopic

Ridley Scott dispenses with the symbolic weight attached to previous biopics in favour of a spectacle with a great star at its centre

Many directors have tried following Napoleon where the paths of glory lead, and maybe it is only defiant defeat that is really glorious. But Ridley Scott – the Wellington of cinema – has created an outrageously enjoyable cavalry charge of a movie, a full-tilt biopic of two and a half hours in which Scott doesn’t allow his troops to get bogged down mid-gallop in the muddy terrain of either fact or metaphysical significance, the tactical issues that have defeated other film-makers.

Scott cheekily imagines Napoleon firing on the pyramids in the Egyptian campaign as well as witnessing the execution of Marie Antoinette (but not the humiliation of Louis XVI by the Tuileries mob, which he might actually have seen). Out of deference moreover, Scott and his screenwriter David Scarpa suppress all mention of Napoleon’s reintroduction of slavery into the French colonies. But above all, there’s a deliciously insinuating portrayal of the doomed emperor from Joaquin Phoenix, whose derisive face suits the framing of a bicorne hat and jaunty tricolour cockade. Phoenix plays Napoleon as a military genius and lounge lizard peacock who is incidentally no slouch on horseback. Others might show Napoleon as a dreamy loner, but for Scott he is one half of a rackety power couple: passionately, despairingly in love with Vanessa Kirby’s pragmatically sensual Josephine. Scott makes this warring pair the Burton and Taylor of imperial France.

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