My Name is Khan is impressive

The theatrical trailer for Karan Johar's upcoming film opens with shots of an autistic Tanay Chheda, the kid going from Aamir Khan's Taare Zameen Par to Danny Boyle's Slumdog Millionaire to playing the young Shah Rukh Khan in this film.

His mother tells him that there are only two kinds of people in the world, the good and the bad.

Cut to rain and tears on the grown Khan's face, and his voiceover calling himself different but not mad, very intelligent.

As he taps his forehead and calls himself 'very smart', SRK looks to be in fine form. The narrative continues as we see an increasingly romantic montage of shots of him and Kajol.

Then one day... cut to dramatically scored serious montage. Images of death, mourning, 9/11. And then a rather painful shriek from Kajol.

Then Khan is being racially profiled and strip-searched in an American airport, and ask why he wants to go to Washington. His answer? He has something to say to the President.

The next montage -- each is bigger than the next -- shows him trying to meet the President, a move the voiceover tells us will help him win Kajol back. He gets an elbow to the face, and is clearly going through a lot.

The shots are all heavily designed frames, and Ravi K Chandran isn't skimping on the spectacular. The promo ends with Shah Rukh saying, 'My name is Khan, and I'm not a terrorist.'

It's a big, impressive trailer showing off an ambitious film of great scale.

Shah Rukh, as said, is looking sincere and committed, but it's an easy role to really flub up. As is the director's.

My Name Is Khan is clearly the kind of film that will either be groundbreaking or groanworthy, and it's the biggest risk of Karan Johar's career. We hope it's the former.

Have you seen the trailer? If not, click here to watch!