Fed on the staple of candyfloss love stories, second generation of Indian Americans are getting their first glimpse of an epic romance in the born-again colourised "Mughal-e-Azam".

The film opened in New York April 1 and is to be released in dozens of theatres nationwide during the month. It will also run in Canada. It is not clear if the movie's legendary director K. Asif ever travelled to the US but his most cherished work being shown across the country would have been unthinkable in his time.

Over 150 people attended the New York premier. Many of them came out looking visibly overwhelmed by the experience.

An American woman could only say this: "I don't know what to say, I don't know what to say. Boy, that was awesome."

The film, which became the benchmark for movie making in India, has all the elements of a great classic - huge canvas, grandiloquent dialogues, brilliant performances, outstanding music and larger than life characters. Compared to the urbane love stories told in a modern idiom, "Mughal-e-Azam" seems like a reading of great literature.

When in a scene a magnificent Prithviraj Kapoor playing emperor Akbar tells an equally captivating Dilip Kumar playing son Salim, "Barkhurdar, hum mohabbat ke dushman nahin, usulon ke ghulam hain" (I am not an enemy of love but a slave to principles)", many in the audience had problems coming to terms with the loftiness of that philosophy.

"This film is known throughout Indian cinema as one of the greatest films," said Rohi Mirza Pandya, ImaginAsian director, theatre operations and acquisitions at whose theatre the premier was held. "It is amongst Hollywood greats such as 'Ben Hur' and 'Gone With The Wind'. And finally the film can be seen as the original filmmakers always intended it - in true colour and a new wide-screen format."

Nine years in the making from 1951 to 1960, Asif wanted to re-shoot the film in full colour when technicolour technology arrived in India in 1957. But constraints of time and money prevented him. The film cost $3 million then, an equivalent of about $40 million now, compared to the average cost of $200,000 for a normal film.

"It was terrific, an outstanding restoration job. I e-mailed 25 friends last night and told them the film was incredible. Every song is worth a million dollars," said Rakesh Bhargava after seeing the film at the New York premiere.

Sridhar Sreekakula, president of UTV, the film's distributor, said, "When we were young, our parents used to tell us that it was the best movie of that time. Watching it in colour on the big screen was a great moment in cinema history."