The Indian way to achieve Fanservice.
Bollywood-specific trope of wet clothing played for sexiness.
In Bollywood films, it's pretty much a cliche that if an attractive woman is wearing a sari, she will get soaking wet at some point in the movie (getting soaked in the rain is considered especially romantic).
India has a legally enforced nudity taboo, so this is Fanservice without the nudity (even if you do see breasts, but not nipples).
Sub-trope of Sexy Soaked Shirt. See also Sexy Surfacing Shot.
Wet Sari Examples:
- Dil Se..: Shah Rukh Khan's character and the leading lady end up drenched in the opening scene. He is in another song with the other love interest where they dance in a river and get very wet.
- Fanaa: Features a scene where the blind heroine writhes in the rain with the soon-to-be-terrorist hero.
- Hercules Returns: Lampshaded when the women go for a swim in their togas, the Gag Dub has them practicing for a Wet T-Shirt Contest.
- Kabhi Kushi Kabhie Gham: Particularly gratuitous example is one song which features both the hero and the heroine dancing in the surf - which they've been conveniently transported to after dancing in front of the pyramids of Gizeh just seconds before.
- Main Hoon Na: Shah Rukh Khan and Sushmita Sen spend the last half of one of the songs dripping wet. SRK's shirts are so hilariously see-through that they were obviously sheer even before they got wet.
- Shah Rukh Khan is quite the man when it comes to those scenes, considering that he also ends up drenched by torrential rains in Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna, Veer-Zaara and Asoka.
- Mujhse Dosti Karoge!: Everyone at first goes "oh crap it's raining!" and heads back inside, but the Jerkass hero decides to pull the heroine out into the yard and sing a soaked, steaming, sexually-charged ballad in front of everyone including HIS fiancee and HER soon-to-be-fiance. It's awkward for all of ten seconds and then everyone's like "YAY! RAIN!" and they all dance together like nothing happened.
- Om Shanti Om: Shah Rukh Khan's character emerges from a pool which seems set in LSD-Land and jumps around in slow motion while the camera focuses on water dribbling down his back. Then he opens his arms and someone off-screen throws a bucket of water at his chest.
- The Simpsons: Lampshaded in My Way or the Highway to Heaven. Lisa imagines herself as Princess “Siddmartha” - a female version of Siddhartha Gautama, the founder of Buddhism - and seeks out the wisest scholars in the kingdom on her road to enlightenment. Arriving at Kathmandu University, she finds it’s really a party school, complete with a Wet Sari Contest.
