Various Artists: Bombay The Hard Way: Guns, Cars & Sitars

The films produced by India's massive Bollywood movie industry—and, with its incessant, factory-like release schedule, it is very much an industry—are like products of a parallel universe. Obviously indebted to Hollywood's fluffiest fluff, including such drive-in filler as beach flicks and generic action movies, Bollywood is hampered in many ways by cultural checks: Nudity is a no-no, sex generally subliminal, and frequent giddy song-and-dance numbers the norm. That's the reason popular Indian films haven't caught on in America the way Chinese films have: Indian movies suck. That said, many do have their kitschy charms, not the least of which are some truly wiggy soundtracks. Bombay The Hard Way compiles some of the best themes from India's Masala movies (also cannily dubbed "brownsploitation"), which aren't all that different from their blaxploitation brethren. Much of the music was composed by Kalyanji V. Shah and Anandji V. Shah, brothers who take Shaft-derived soul and dress it up with distinctly sub-continental Asian embellishments. But, sitars or not, this is truly the stuff of pimps, players, and private eyes. Overseen by Bay Area DJ Dan The Automator, such smarmy songs as "The Good, The Bad And The Chutney" and "Fists Of Curry" exude street-smart cool, even if they evoke the streets of Bombay instead of New York.