No one saw this coming till a fortnight before the release of 'Yeh Saali Zindagi'. Despite actors like Irrfan Khan and Chitrangda Singh in the film, not many were aware about the existence of this film for long. A patchy promotion further resulted in limited visibility for the film. However, this Sudhir Mishra directed film sprung a surprise, and how. Turning out to be a hardcore commercial film which was as massy as it gets, 'Yeh Saali Zindagi' also saw universal acclaim coming its way with critics handing it three and four stars on a platter.

Resultantly, after an expected poor opening (in 20%-40% range) due to lack of awareness, the film grew with word of mouth and ended up netting around 5 crores over it's first weekend. An adult film made on a medium budget, this romantic thriller had masses in frenzy as a result of which word spread soon that this was one dark horse that deserved a dekko for sure.

Of course there isn't much in it for family audience and definitely not for kids due to which a major success is ruled out. Still, if the film manages to hold on well till the second weekend, 'Yeh Saali Zindagi' may well turn out to be a small success hence adding on to flurry of successes that 2011 has seen so far.

None of the other four releases of the week can hope of any such outcome though. Vinay Pathak and Mahie Gill starrer 'Utt Pataang' was another well made film which released alongside 'Yeh Saali Zindagi' but was marred by absolutely zero publicity. In fact one wonders what made Warner Bros. release this film in such a manner despite having a good product in hand. A smart comic thriller which again saw good reviews coming it's way, it had a opened to a mere 10% response. If not for 'Yeh Saali Zindagi' which turned out to be the first choice of audience, 'Utt Pataang' may have managed some good word of mouth to help it sail through but alas, this didn't quite turn out to be the case.

Dev Anand's 'Hum Dono Rangeen' didn't find any takers either despite releasing on minimal screens. Still the occupancy was abysmally low (again in 20% region) which means the film would find it difficult to survive beyond a week. Jackie Shroff starrer 'Tum Hi To Ho' arrived out of nowhere and didn't even find an all-India release. Ditto for 'United Six' which again failed to find any takers. The films are total washouts.