Will Heroine be Kareena Kapoor's The Dirty Picture?

The story of the rise and fall of a leading actress - this could well describe both Kareena Kapoor's still-in-the-making Heroine and Vidya Balan's sleeper hit The Dirty Picture.

Silk Smitha biopic The Dirty Picture fetched Vidya both critical and commercial glory in the form of a National Award and the typically Bollywood-esque tribute of being dubbed the "fourth Khan."

Will Heroine do the same for Kareena? And will she be able to follow Vidya into the no man's land of heroine oriented cinema?

Perhaps it's early days to make comparisons yet, but though Bebo puts her sultriest face forward on the first poster of Heroine, it seems lukewarm next to Vidya's searing appearance on the poster for The Dirty Picture which literally took everyone's breath away when it was released.

Kareena herself calls Heroine a landmark film in her career: "I feel that Heroine is going to be a milestone in my career. I aim to make it one my career-best performances."

Maybe her words prove as prophetic as Vidya's did when she said: "I think the boys are just going to love The Dirty Picture because it is dirty."

Then again, maybe not. Kareena, suddenly struck dumb when it comes to answering questions from the press, seems to be letting the film's first look do the talking. But Heroine's poster hasn't been worth a thousand words thus far.

Looks like it's advantage Balan at the moment, but this will still be an interesting battle of the beauties.