I watched ''Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love'' 3 years ago, and it was the first Indian movie I watched in my life. Needless to say that I fell in love right away, but only now I can make a review about it. I found both actresses Indira Varma and Sarita Choudhury very beautiful(specially Indira) and after this film, I had more interest in watching Indian movies.

In the 16th Century India, Maya and Tara are friends,but they belong to different casts: Maya is a servant and Tara is a princess. The only reason why Maya can play with Tara, is because Maya's adoptive mother nursed both Tara and her brother Biki. But the time passes, and soon Tara becomes jealous of Maya's beauty, specially when she is going to marry a king and he prefers to look Maya than Tara. They split their friendship,and Maya as a revenge sleeps with the king Raj Singh. Bikki,who always was in love with her, asks her to marry him, but when she answers no, She is banned from the places she lives, going to find help with Rasa Devi, the teacher of the Kama Sutra who teaches all women to become courtesans. She lives there and learns the art of Kama Sutra. When she is ready, she goes to be Raj Singh's courtesan, and Tara gets very angry with her, as Jai Kumar, a man she once loved, but not cared about her very much when they were lovers.

To be honest, only the thought that it would have quite a bit of sex, and the leading actor in it was what made me want to see it, that's all. You'd probably expect the film to be about various positions during sex, but the title actually means "lessons of love", and there's nothing various about that. The story, as far as I understood, is set in the 16th Century of India, where Prince Raj Singh (Lost's Naveen Andrews) is bored, and to entertain himself wants a lot of women action, if you know what I mean. During this, there is betrayal, secret love, jealousy, and all the complications you can think of in relationships. And yes, a few sex scenes along the way. Also starring Sarita Choudhury as Tara, Ramon Tikaram as Jai Kumar, Rekha as Rasa Devi, Indira Varma as Maya, Pearl Padamsee as Maham Anga and Arundhati Rao as Annabi. As I said, just the sex and the leading actor were the only things that interested me. Okay!

I do confess that I have read the Kama Sutra and there's an awful lot of misconceptions about it . It is NOT some hot porn manual that will get your juices flowing , it's a very thick book about the art of love . If you've bought a copy simply to use as masturbation fuel then you've certainly wasted your money . Likewise if you bought the book to wave around during some moral crusade with a rather dubious agenda

The film is very similar to the book . Many people who have stated their opinion have obviously watched the movie either expecting to be shocked or to be brought to orgasmic ecstasy but that's their problem because like the book with the same name this film while being somewhat erotic is also rather dull . It's not an adaptation per se just a rather unconnected and tenuous example of a book and movie sharing the same name . The only reason it's called KAMA SUTRA is down to the fact that it's taught to a group of courtesans , the rest of the plot involves something of a love triangle . It's also a movie that's not well made with a visual look of something that appears to have been shot on very poor stock film

I will praise it on one aspect - The casting . For this type of movie to come close to any type of success the casting of the lead female must be right and Indira Varma as Maya simply steals the film . He is strikingly beautiful but he also oozes a type of pure innocence . It's very easy to see why Raj Singh has fallen in love with her . Singh is played by Naveen Andrews who everyone in the world will now know via a very successful American show but you'll never be reminded of Sayid Jarrah while watching this because Andrews is very convincing . I do feel slight sympathy for Sarita Choudhrey as the other pivotal female role of Tara because her part feels rather underwritten and understandably she doesn't have the same type of breathtaking beauty as Varma unfortunately

This could have been a very poor film and to be honest it's not a great one either , but some clever casting and fine acting make it worth watching at least once