Entertainment
Hate Story IV’: Engrossing tale despite its predictability
Film: “Hate Story IV”; Director: Vishal Pandya; Cast: Urvashi Rautela, Vivan Bhatena, Karan Wahi, Ihana Dhillon and Gulshan Grover; Rating: ***
For a change, this fourth edition of “Hate Story” series is a pleasant surprise. It is not a noir film but it certainly has a femme fatale who is impressive and who holds her own against characters that are bad.
Keeping with the theme of the franchise, revenge remains the core issue at the heart of this tale too. And there is ample skin show and frothy music which unfortunately does nothing to propel the narrative.
The story by Sameer Arora revolves around business tycoon Vikram Khurana’s two sons Aryan (Vivan Bhatena) and Rajvir (Karan Wahi). While Aryan is happily married to Rishma (Ihana Dhillon), Rajvir is a flirt whose girlfriends don’t last for over six months.
Rajvir stumbles upon Tasha (Urvashi Rautela) after he is assigned to find a fresh face to model for their company with the instruction, “Aisa chehra jo madhosh bhi kare aur hosh bhi uda de”.
Tasha is a dancer at a local club who aspires to be a model. And she certainly fits the bill for not only does Rajvir fall for her, but also his older brother Aryan and their father Vikram (Gulshan Grover) — who too has a roving eye but keeps it in check owing to his forthcoming mayoral elections — find her very attractive.
While Rajvir genuinely falls in love with Tasha, Aryan hoodwinks his brother to get closer to her. But what it results in is a web of manipulation, doubt, blackmail and ultimately revenge.
The plot, narrated in a non-linear manner, is skilfully crafted with a taut and neat screenplay. The first half of the film is racy and keeps you hooked and the second half gets into a preachy tone.
The dynamics between the actors are rock solid. With her oomph and floss, Urvashi Rautela as the femme fatale Tasha is impressive. She is the star attraction of the film.
Of the two male leads, neither Vivan Bhatena nor Karan Wahi have the on-screen charisma to counter-balance Urvashi. They deliver, but perfunctorily.
Gulshan, on the other hand, is slack and wasted in a stereotypical role.
The production quality of the film is superior and the visuals by cinematographer Sunita Radia are appealing. While the locales and scenes are matter-of-factly layered, the songs are cut like music videos. None of the songs stand out.
Overall, “Hate Story IV” is an engrossing tale despite its predictability.
Entertainment
Casino Days Reveal Internal Data on Most Popular Smartphones
International online casino Casino Days has published a report sharing their internal data on what types and brands of devices are used to play on the platform by users from the South Asian region.
Such aggregate data analyses allow the operator to optimise their website for the brands and models of devices people are actually using.
The insights gained through the research also help Casino Days tailor their services based on the better understanding of their clients and their needs.
Desktops and Tablets Lose the Battle vs Mobile
The primary data samples analysed by Casino Days reveal that mobile connections dominate the market in South Asia and are responsible for a whopping 96.6% of gaming sessions, while computers and tablets have negligible shares of 2.9% and 0.5% respectively.
The authors of the study point out that historically, playing online casino was exclusively done on computers, and attribute thе major shift to mobile that has unfolded over time to the wide spread of cheaper smartphones and mobile data plans in South Asia.
“Some of the reasons behind this massive difference in device type are affordability, technical advantages, as well as cheaper and more obtainable internet plans for mobiles than those for computers,” the researchers comment.
Xiaomi and Vivo Outperform Samsung, Apple Way Down in Rankings
Chinese brands Xiaomi and Vivo were used by 21.9% and 20.79% of Casino Days players from South Asia respectively, and together with the positioned in third place with a 18.1% share South Korean brand Samsung dominate the market among real money gamers in the region.
Cupertino, California-based Apple is way down in seventh with a user share of just 2.29%, overshadowed by Chinese brands Realme (11.43%), OPPO (11.23%), and OnePlus (4.07%).
Huawei is at the very bottom of the chart with a tiny share just below the single percent mark, trailing behind mobile devices by Motorola, Google, and Infinix.
The data on actual phone usage provided by Casino Days, even though limited to the gaming parts of the population of South Asia, paints a different picture from global statistics on smartphone shipments by vendors.
Apple and Samsung have been sharing the worldwide lead for over a decade, while current regional leader Xiaomi secured their third position globally just a couple of years ago.
Striking Android Dominance among South Asian Real Money Gaming Communities
The shifted market share patterns of the world’s top smartphone brands in South Asia observed by the Casino Days research paper reveal a striking dominance of Android devices at the expense of iOS-powered phones.
On the global level, Android enjoys a comfortable lead with a sizable 68.79% share which grows to nearly 79% when we look at the whole continent of Asia. The data on South Asian real money gaming communities suggests that Android’s dominance grows even higher and is north of the 90% mark.
Among the major factors behind these figures, the authors of the study point to the relative affordability of and greater availability of Android devices in the region, especially when manufactured locally in countries like India and Vietnam.
“And, with influencers and tech reviews putting emphasis on Android devices, the choice of mobile phone brand and OS becomes easy; Android has a much wider range of products and caters to the Asian online casino market in ways that Apple can’t due to technical limitations,” the researchers add.
The far better integration achieved by Google Pay compared to its counterpart Apple Pay has also played a crucial role in shaping the existing smartphone market trends.
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