I love Awesome Threesomes. There's nothing quite like an emotionally charged menage a trois to ignite passions. And cinema provides the perfect vehicle for pumping up our fantasies to fever pitch as we place ourselves in impossibly risky romantic situations and wonder, "Was it good for you, baby?" One of the most sizzling love triangles in Bollywood was created by Raj Kapoor when he made Sangam. That movie was so ahead of its time, it knocked the socks off prudish audiences during that distant era. There was the luscious Southern sizzler Vyjayanthimala in a daring bathing suit, languidly swimming in a placid pool while a seriously besotted suitor (Kapoor, playing himself!) goofily crooned, Bol Radha Bol, sangam hoga ki nahi. The other man was played by a heavily pancaked, Mr. Sad Face, Rajendra Kumar. But how we swooned and mooned over this trio! Years later, we had another classic — a daring,romantic triangle created by Yash Chopra in Silsila with the incomparable casting coup of Rekha, Amitabh Bachchan and Jaya Bhaduri. This time, it was two women fighting for the love of one man. Bollywood had moved with the times, and Yash, as always, had the pulse of the audience with this doomed love poem on celluloid. For a while, traditional love stories fell by the wayside. Filmmakers packaged their threesomes in keeping with today's frenetic times. The frisson, that delicious chemistry, the magic of the unspoken, was totally missing. Which is why it is refreshing to come across a movie that adheres to the purana style of story- telling while injecting the narrative with enough modern day masala to give Mumbai's spicy pav bhaaji a run for its money.At the core of Ekta Kapoor's gangster film, Once Upon A Time In Mumbai Dobaara, lies a torrid tale of forbidden love and eventual betrayal. Of suppressed desire and overt lust. Of a possessiveness that refuses to recognise limits.

Of a beautiful woman caught between two men — one ruthless but not heartless. The other, impetuous but not reckless. Set against the backdrop of a Mumbai that was in the grip of Bhai-giri during the tumultuous 1980s, OUATIMD boldly ventures beyond the conventional parameters set out for movies of this genre and goes beyond dramatic shootouts and gory murders, to reach the troubled heart of the dark hero/villain, played by Akshay Kumar. When the inevitable happens (he falls deliriously in love with a starlet), he entrusts his faithful lieutenant (Imran Khan) to bring his lady love ( Sonakshi Sinha) to him. Oh, the folly of such a decision! No wrath can match the wrath of a powerful Don scorned. In a merciless world like theirs where undying honour and loyalty are all that keep you alive, the fate of the young lovers rests in just one man's hands. There is no back story to justify betrayal in such an unforgiving and hard world. As Sonakshi and Imran soon discover. This is a timeless tale of misplaced trust. Emotional murder supersedes the real one. Shoaib (Akshay) discovers that while he has absolute power over the lives of millions in a throbbing metropolis like Mumbai, he has zero control over the heart of the one woman he wants to own. He also discovers his own vulnerabilities and weaknesses along the way. Organising a hit on an enemy is one thing. It's simple. All he has to do is point. The man's dead. But what can he do to punish the cheating woman he loves... and the man who loves her back? Will eliminating her lover make her come back to him? And be his again? Was she ever his to begin with? So, does Bad Boy Akshay have a good heart, after all? Well... you'll have to find out for yourself! Once Upon A Time In Mumbai Dobaara, produced by Balaji Motion Pictures, released August 15.