This Friday's fare is a ferocious battle of contrasts. A completely new director Jijy Philip has been pitted at the box office opposite veteran of mainstream cinema Suneel Darshan.

A song-less thriller and a 'song-full' extravaganza. How much more contrasting can our cinema get? That's the question audiences would be forced to ask themselves while watching "My Wife's Murder" and "Barsaat".

Says "My Wife's Murder" producer Ram Gopal Varma: "I think the film will shock and surprise. It certainly gives Anil Kapoor a new image. He's very comfortable with the role of a husband and father."

Like many of Varma's films, this one also tries to cross the border between audience expectations and the filmmaker's individual ability to break the barrier between convention and experiment. According to the producer, the film is at once a thriller and a tragic story.

Anil, who has done kitsch for most of his career, would be crossing over into experimental mode with Nandana Sen (fresh from her critically acclaimed turn as Rani Mukherjee's sister in Sanjay Leela Bhansali's "Black") and Suchitra Krishnamurthy (singer, actress and filmmaker Shekhar Kapur's wife).

At least one of the two ladies has secretly confessed that shooting with the finicky and over-concerned Kapoor wasn't a pleasant experience. But that should work to the film's advantage because Anil plays a man who's tormented by the feminine presence in his life.

Misogyny is one moral crime that Bobby Deol in "Barsaat" cannot be accused of. He has two women Bipasha Basu and Priyanka Chopra fighting for his attention. "Barsaat", with its massy melodramatic appeal, is bound to get a far bigger opening.

Says Varma wryly: "Let's put it this way. I'd never make 'Barsaat'. And I'm pretty sure Suneel Darshan wouldn't want to make 'My Wife's Murder'. But I love the idea of women getting wet in the rain. To that extent I love the idea of 'Barsaat'. But if there's a social drama attached to the wet bodies then I'm not interested." While one features a 45-plus leading man with two women who belong to a different generation, Bobby is well paired with Bipasha and Priyanka.

But "Barsaat's" USP, namely its familiar mass appeal, can also be its biggest downside. This year the audiences have repeatedly shown an affinity towards films that take a U-turn to swing away from the norm.

After "Page 3" and "Black", "My Wife's Murder" could be the third unorthodox hit of 2005.