This weekend marks the release of two of the most anticipated films of the year in Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Saawariya and Farah Khan's Om Smanti Om. Yesterday we took a look at Saawariya (to read that article, click here), and today we will take a look at Om Smanti Om.

Om Smanti Om is Farah Khan's second directoral venture after 2004's hit Main Hoon Na, which also starred Shahrukh Khan in the lead. The film also stars debutante Deepika Padukone and Arjun Rampal. Rampal is playing a villain in the film, the second time he's done that after 2005's Ek Ajnabee (54%). This film reunites Rampal with Shahrukh Khan, as the two also starred together in Don (58%) as well as Rampal appearing in a special appearance in Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna (65%) and Shahrukh appearing in a special appearance in Rampal's I See You (39%).

Farah Khan's second film was originally scheduled to be titled Happy New Year and she planned to have Amitabh Bachchan and Shahrukh Khan lead the cast. The project was dropped (Shahrukh stated in a recent interview that it was dropped due to Mr. Bachchan's illness) and Om Smanti Om came up, with Farah Khan penning the screenplay in two weeks. Incidentally, Farah has roped in Mr. Bachchan and son Abhishek for special appearances in the film.

Speaking of special appearances, the film features a who's who of Bollywood making special appearances in the film including Hrithik Roshan, Rani Mukherjee, Preity Zinta, Rekha, Jeetendra, Ritesh Deshmukh, Aftab Shivdasani, Shabana Azmi, Kajol, Priyanka Chopra, Shilpa Shetty, Arbaaz Khan, Amrita Arora, Vidya Balan, Juhi Chawla, Saif Khan, Sanjay Dutt, Salman Khan, Mithun Chakraborty, Dharmendra, Tusshar Kapoor, Karisma Kapoor, Tabu, Urmila Matondkar, Sunil Shetty, Govinda, and Bobby Deol. Most of the stars feature in the song Deewangi, which Farah modeled after the John Jani Janarthan song in the Amitabh Bachchan superhit Naseeb. That song featured Bachchan, Dharamendra, Rajesh Khanna, Randhir Kapoor, Raj Kapoor and many others. A few actors declined doing special appearances in Om Smanti Om, including Dev Anand (who stated that he doesn't do special appearances), Sridevi, Aamir Khan and Anil Kapoor.

The music for Om Smanti Om has done vey well with the critics. On our music reviews page, the soundtrack for the film is at a 73%, which is 'Very Good'. With 17 reviews counted, it has 16 positive reviews, 1 average review with no negative reviews. In fact, it ranks as the second best reviewed soundtrack of the year, behind the soundtrack for Life In a Metro 75%. For all reviews for the soundtrack, or to listen to it, click here.

The film is already off to a great start with critics, as the first major review has come in and the film is at an 80%. Of course, that number can go up or down drastically as more reviews for the film come in, so make sure to keep checking this space often as more reviews come in. For all current news and reviews for the film, click here.