Baazigar (1993)

Baazigar (English: Gambler) is a 1993 Indian crime thriller film directed by Abbas–Mustan starring Shah Rukh Khan and Kajol in the lead roles. It is a contemporary thriller about a young man who stops at nothing to get what he wants. This was Shah Rukh Khan's breakthrough role as the sole lead and Kajol's first commercial success. Actress Shilpa Shetty was supposed to debut with Gaata Rahe Mera Dil, however, it remained unreleased and this became her debut movie. Baazigar was the first film in which Shah Rukh Khan played the role of an anti-hero and the first which earned Khan a Filmfare Award for Best Actor. Initially this movie was offered to Armaan Kohli and Salman Khan to play the lead role, but they all rejected it as the role had negative shades .


Baazigar was a major commercial success at its release and the first film of the famous Shahrukh Khan-Kajol pair.
It was remade in Tamil as Samrat with Ramki; in Telugu as Vetagaadu with Rajasekhar; and in Kannada as Nagarahavu with Upendra.


The film brought actors Shah Rukh Khan, Kajol, Shilpa Shetty and composer Anu Malik to the limelight. It is an adaptation of the movie A Kiss Before Dying.

Contents

• 1 Plot
• 2 Cast
• 3 Soundtrack
• 4 Box office
• 5 Awards and nominations
  • 5.1 39th Filmfare Awards
• 6 External links

 

Plot

A boy named Ajay (Master Sumeet) asks a doctor to come see his mother Shobha (Rakhee), who is unconscious. Ajay promises Shobha that he will get revenge on the people, who are responsible for making them cry. The deaths of Ajay's father (Anant Mahadevan) and his baby sister have made Shobha fall unconscious.


Years later, Ajay (Shah Rukh Khan) meets Madan Chopra's (Dalip Tahil) daughter Seema (Shilpa Shetty). Ajay cozies up to Seema, and she falls in love with him. Meanwhile, Ajay pretends to be Vicky Malhotra to create a good impression in the minds of Chopra and his younger daughter Priya (Kajol). Ajay keeps his affair with Seema a secret, under the impression that Seema too doesn't let anybody know she is in love. When Chopra decides to get Seema married, she decides to elope with Ajay. Ajay takes advantage of the opportunity and tricks her into writing a suicide letter.


Later, on premise of getting married secretly, Ajay calls Seema to the office for marriages in Bombay. He takes her to the terrace and suddenly pushes her down, using her suicide note to close the case as suicide. Chopra hastily has the case closed to prevent any further embarrassment. Ajay uses Seema's death to get close to Priya and Chopra. Priya, however, suspects that her sister didn't commit suicide. With help of her college friend and police inspector Karan Saxena (Siddharth Ray), she investigates the matter secretly.


Ravi, a friend of Seema, who had a crush on her, tells Priya about Seema's secret lover. Ravi finds a photo of Seema and Ajay together at a birthday party but is killed by Ajay. Ajay forces Ravi to sign a suicide note, making Priya and Karan believe that Ravi must have been Seema's lover and murderer. Ajay began a double game whilst keeping both the parties in dark. When Ajay puts contact lenses in his eyes to use his fake ID Vicky again, it's revealed that Madan is the person responsible for making Ajay and Shobha cry.


The next day when Ajay sees Madan's chair at Madan's company, a flashback is shown.


When Ajay's father Vishwanath Sharma (Anant Mahadevan), a reputed businessman, discovers that his manager Madan is embezzling money under his nose, Sharma has Madan thrown in jail. After Madan completes his jail term, he re-approaches Sharma and asks for forgiveness. Vishwanath rebukes him, but his wife Shobha takes pity on Chopra's daughters and pleads to her husband. Chopra is reappointed in the company. However, Chopra has come back to exact revenge on his former boss. Slowly, but surely, Chopra regains the confidence of Sharma. One day, when Sharma has to go for a business tour, he hands over power of attorney to Chopra so he can run the company in his absence. Chopra, who has been waiting for such chance, usurps Sharma's company and becomes its de facto owner. Sharma learns of this treachery, by which time his family is ejected from their home after Chopra takes a loan out in their name. More tragedy strikes the Sharma household when his newborn daughter dies of fever and Sharma himself dies of a heart attack while trying to buy medicines for her. Devastated by the turn of events, Shobha goes insane, while Ajay decided to avenge the wrongdoings by making Chopra pay for what he did.


Later, Priya and Vicky coincidentally meet Seema's college friend, Anjali (Resham Tipnis) at a jewelry store. Anjali thinks that she recognizes Vicky. When she finds the photo as well, she calls the Sharma household during Vicky's and Priya's engagement party. Vicky intercepts the call, impersonates Chopra, and arrives at her place. He throttles her, stuffs her body in a suitcase, and throws it in the river. A man and his dog find the body soon after. Priya and Karan realize that the murderer is still alive. Meanwhile, history repeats itself, with Chopra handing over the power of attorney to "Vicky". Ajay decides to hasten up his plans on learning that Priya and Karan are bent on finding the killer.


Ajay's plan hits a glitch when he and Priya run into the real Vicky Malhotra (Adi Irani), Ajay's friend whose identity he had taken. Priya becomes suspicious and decides to contact this Vicky. After returning from his business trip, Chopra is shocked to find that the company is run by a Sharma group. Ajay reveals the truth to Chopra and kicks him out of the company after humiliating him.


Meanwhile, Priya learns of Ajay's true identity from Vicky and rushes to Ajay's home in Panvel. She is shocked to see a picture of Ajay and finds a marriage locket with photos of him with her sister.
Ajay comes home, where she confronts him with his misdeeds. He tells her the whole story, and she is dumbstruck by what her father did to Ajay's family. Chopra arrives at Vicky's house with his henchmen to kill Ajay and exact revenge. Ajay goes outside to see some cars coming to his house and is shot by Chopra. After seeing Ajay being beaten by Chopra and hearing Chopra's name being repeated, Shobha regains her sanity and runs to her son's defense. Ajay starts bashing Chopra's goons and overpowers Chopra. Despite the circumstances, Karan and Priya sympathize with Ajay.


In a standoff with Chopra, Ajay spares his life. Chopra impales Ajay with a long iron bar and laughs about his victory. Ajay begins to laugh maniacally as well and rams the bar into Chopra's stomach, with both plummeting from a high wall, killing Chopra and mortally wounding Ajay.


Ajay makes it back to his mother who finally recognizes her son. Ajay promises her that he's gotten revenge for their family misfortunes and reacquired everything that was meant to be theirs — now wanting only to rest peacefully in her embrace. Priya and Karan watch despondently as Ajay dies in his mother's arms at peace.

Cast

• Shah Rukh Khan as Ajay Sharma/Vicky Malhotra
• Kajol as Priya Chopra
• Shilpa Shetty as Seema Chopra, Priya's sister
• Raakhee Gulzar in a special appearance as Ajay's mother
• Dalip Tahil as Madan Chopra, Priya and Seema's father
• Siddharth Ray as Inspector Karan Saxena
• Johnny Lever as Babu Lal, the head servant
• Anant Mahadevan as Vishwanath Sharma
• Resham Tipnis as Anjali Sinha, Seema's friend
• Dinesh Hingoo as Bajodia Seth
• Manmauji Taalia as the servant
• Adi Irani as the real Vicky Malhotra
• Master Sumeet as Young Ajay
• Sharad Sankla as Charlie (a guy in party)
• Daboo Malik as Ramesh
• Raju Srivastav as a guy in party with Charlie
• Harpal as Motu the cook
• Amrut Patel as Seema's driver

Soundtrack

The music was composed by Anu Malik and won him the Filmfare Award for Best Music Director. The song "Yeh Kaali Kaali Aankhein" bagged singer Kumar Sanu his fourth consecutive Filmfare Award for Best Male Playback Singer after Aashiqui, Saajan and Deewana. Other singers featured in the album are Asha Bhosle, Pankaj Udhas, Alka Yagnik, Vinod Rathod and Anuradha Paudwal. The soundtrack was released by Venus Music. Dr. Alban's song "It's My life" was also featured.

Song	Singer	Picturised on	Lyricist
"Baazigar O Baazigar"	Kumar Sanu & Alka Yagnik	Shahrukh Khan & Kajol	Nawab Arzoo
"Yeh Kaali Kaali Aankhein"	Kumar Sanu, Anu Malik	Shahrukh Khan & Kajol	Dev Kohli
"Kitabein Bahut Si"	Asha Bhosle & Vinod Rathod	Shahrukh Khan & Shilpa Shetty	Zafar Gorakhpuri
"Chhupana Bhi Nahi Aata"	Vinod Rathod	Siddharth & Kajol	Rani Malik
"Chhupana Bhi Nahi Aata"	Pankaj Udhas	In soundtrack, excluded in the film	Rani Malik
"Samajh Kar Chand Jis Ko"	Alka Yagnik & Vinod Rathod	In soundtrack, excluded in the film	Zameer Kazmi
"Ae Mere Humsafar"	Alka Yagnik & Vinod Rathod	Shahrukh Khan & Shilpa Shetty	Gauhar Kanpuri
"Tere Chehre Pe"	Kumar Sanu & Sonali Vajpai	In soundtrack, excluded in the film	Rani Malik

Box office

Baazigar was a commercial success declared as "Super Hit" and the fourth highest grossing Hindi film of 1993.

Awards and nominations

39th Filmfare Awards

Won

 

• Best Actor — Shah Rukh Khan
• Best Music Direction — Anu Malik
• Best Male Playback Singer — Kumar Sanu for "Yeh Kaali Kaali Aankhein"
• Best Screenplay — Robin Bhatt, Javed Siddiqui, Akash Khurana

 

Nominated

 

• Lux New Face — Shilpa Shetty
• Best Supporting Actress — Shilpa Shetty
• Best Performance in a Comic Role — Johnny Lever
• Best Lyricist — Dev Kohli for "Yeh Kaali Kaali Aankhen"
• Best Male Playback Singer — Kumar Sanu for "Baazigar O Baazigar"
• Best Female Playback Singer — Alka Yagnik for "Baazigar O Baazigar"

External links

Ek Villain (2014)

Ek Villain (English: One Villain) is a 2014 Indian romantic thriller directed by Mohit Suri. The film stars Sidharth Malhotra, Riteish Deshmukh and Shraddha Kapoor in lead roles, and tells the story of a hardened criminal whose terminally ill wife is murdered by a serial killer. The film was produced by Ekta Kapoor and Shobha Kapoor under Balaji Motion Pictures and ALT Entertainment. The film is an unofficial remake of the 2010 South Korean action thriller film I Saw The Devil. Upon its release on 27 June 2014, the film received mixed to positive reviews from the critics, and was a commercial success.

Contents

• 1 Plot
• 2 Cast
• 3 Production
  • 3.1 Development
  • 3.2 Marketing and promotions
• 4 Soundtrack
  • 4.1 Reception
• 5 Release
  • 5.1 Critical reception
  • 5.2 Box office
• 6 References
• 7 External links

Plot

The movie starts with Aisha (Shraddha Kapoor) calling her husband and leaving a message for him. A mysterious man in a hood breaks into her house, murders her with a screwdriver, and throws her out of the window. At her funeral, CBI officer Aditya Rathore (Shaad Randhawa) points out to the police that it is vital to track down the murderer or else Guru Pratap Singh (Sidharth Malhotra), Aisha's husband, would go on a killing spree. He misguides Guru by blaming Guru's former boss, gangster Caeser (Remo Fernandes), for killing Aisha. In a flashback, he reveals that Guru used to work as a hitman for Caeser. Two years back, Guru had mercilessly killed a young man in a fit of anger, in front of his mother and younger brother. She told Guru that one day God would make him pay for his crimes.
Guru meets Aisha, a free spirited girl in love with life, who requests him to help her with reuniting two aged lovers. They soon become friends and Aisha reveals to him that she has a terminal illness, and tells him about her bucket list. Guru helps her fulfill most of those wishes but her health deteriorates. Falling in love with her, Guru marries Aisha. He tries every means to save her. She receives treatment in Mumbai and miraculously recovers. Few days later she discovers she is pregnant but the doctor tells her that she might die while delivering the baby. She conceals this fact from Guru. In a parallel story, Rakesh Mahadkar (Riteish Deshmukh) is an unsuccessful and henpecked man who is constantly nagged and ridiculed by his wife Sulochana (Aamna Sharif) for being useless and poor. He vents out his frustration by murdering women who speak rudely to him, and Aisha turns out to be one of them.

In present day, Guru aims to track down Aisha's killer. After finding out that it was not Caeser behind the murder, he finally tracks down Rakesh, while he is assaulting another victim. Guru beats Rakesh brutally but later admits him to a hospital and pays for the expenses, intending to return. While at the hospital, Guru finds out that Aisha was pregnant which makes him angrier. While assaulting a nurse who had earlier spoken rudely to him, Rakesh is again intercepted by Guru who almost kills him, but revives him again after delivering an adrenaline shot and sets him free. Meanwhile, the police finds out the truth about Rakesh and takes his wife for questioning. Rakesh goes to his friend Brijesh Yadav (Kamaal R Khan), who suggests that Guru must be the husband of one of his victims and is thus taking revenge. He realizes that Guru is Aisha's husband as she had begged him not to kill her by saying that she is pregnant.

Rakesh, who now knows Guru's identity, taunts him over the phone before killing Aisha's father, and then surrenders to Aditya. Rakesh expects Guru to kill him so that he would become a "hero" in the eyes of his wife and everyone else, while Guru would become a "villain". However, Caesar calls Guru at that moment and says that he has killed Rakesh's wife and asks Guru to finish off his son. Enraged, Rakesh injures Guru and is about to kill him when he is run over by a car and dies on the spot. Guru later adopts Rakesh's son instead of killing him, and completes the remaining wishes on Aisha's bucket list.

Cast

• Sidharth Malhotra as Guru / Dipu Pratap Singh
• Shraddha Kapoor as Aisha Verma
• Riteish Deshmukh as Rakesh Mahadkar / Manish
• Aamna Sharif as Sulochana Mahadkar, Rakesh's wife
• Shaad Randhawa as ACP Aditya Rathore
• Remo Fernandes as Caesar
• Nihar Gite as Manish Mahadkar
• Asif Basra as Aisha's father
• Jack Wayne as Simon
• Rishina Khandare as Nurse
• Maharangiz Acharya as female boss
• Praveena Deshpande as Dipu's mother
• Anagha Joshi as Brijesh's wife
• Vidyadhar Karmarkar as Chhotu
• Aradhana Uppal as Lady doctor
• Vikas Shrivastav as Wagle
• Geet Vaghela as Sachin Anand
• Sandeep as Ajit Borkar
• Harsh Mehta as Rohan
• Kamal Karamchandani as doctor
• Rini Das as escort
• Vinita Amar as judge
• Yash Acharya as child Guru
• Manoj Sharma as Guru's father
• Shobha Gori as Guru's mother
• Prachi Desai in a special appearance in song "Awari"
• Kamaal R. Khan as Brijesh Yadav (Manish's new Friend and colleague)

Production

Development

Ekta Kapoor signed Mohit Suri to direct a romantic thriller. Ek Villain was earlier reported to be a remake of the Korean film I Saw the Devil, though Suri, the director, refuted the claim. Suri stated that every character in the film would have grey shades.

Marketing and promotions

The Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) cleared the film after a total of eight cuts designed to tone down the action sequences and mute a particular word. Tanuj Garg, representative of Balaji Motion Pictures stated the cuts were less than a minute of screen time.

The movie's official teaser which was released on 4 April 2014 with the film Main Tera Hero, got 1 million views on YouTube within three days of release. The official trailer of 2 minutes 18 secs was launched later and was well received by critics, as well as garnered praise from around the industry including Karan Johar, Ranbir Kapoor, Katrina Kaif among others.

Sidharth Malhotra, Shraddha Kapoor, Riteish Deshmukh, Mohit Suri and the film’s music directors attended a musical event in Mumbai to promote the soundtrack of the film. Further, Malhotra and Kapoor promoted the movie at the IPL semi finals as well as on reality shows like Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa. Promotion campaigns were also organized across the country in cities like Jaipur, Kolkata and Delhi. As a part of the promtional strategy, a television show based on Bollywood villains was hosted by Malhotra.

Soundtrack

The songs are composed by Mithoon, Ankit Tiwari and the band Soch. The lyrics are written by Manoj Muntashir, Mithoon and members of Soch . The album consists of six songs with Tiwari composing "Galliyan", Mithoon composing "Zaroorat", "Humdard" and "Banjaara" while the remaining track "Awari" is composed by Soch.

The film score was composed by Raju Singh.

Track listing

No.	Title	Lyrics	Music	Singer(s)	Length
1.	"Galliyan"	Manoj Muntashir	Ankit Tiwari	Ankit Tiwari	5:40
2.	"Banjaara"	Mithoon	Mithoon	Mohd. Irfan	5:36
3.	"Zaroorat"	Mithoon	Mithoon	Mustafa Zahid	6:08
4.	"Awari"	Rabbi Ahmed, Adnan Dhool	Rabbi Ahmed, Adnan Dhool	Adnan Dhool, Momina Mustehsan	5:20
5.	"Hamdard"	Mithoon	Mithoon	Arijit Singh	4:20
6.	"Galliyan (Unplugged)"	Manoj Muntashir	Ankit Tiwari	Shraddha Kapoor, Ankit Tiwari	4:14
7.	"Ek Villain (Mashup)"			DJ Kiran Kamath	4:28

Reception

Mohar Basu of Koimoi gave the album 4/5 stars and wrote, "Mohit Suri’s taste for melody cannot be doubted as the filmmaker uses an album that is fine blend of ballads and rock, infusing the right octave of harmony is every single song. In a long time there hasn’t come an album which has such perfectly pitched songs, each of them a winner. Music Directors get all the credit for creating a wholesome album like this." Rediff also awarded the album 4 out of 5 stars and noted, "The music of Ek Villain meets the high expectations that one had from it. Mohit Suri maintains his record of coming up with memorable music for each of his films." Filmfare wrote, "All-in-all, The OST of Ek Villain is another winner for Mohit Suri who has a knack for bringing out the best in his music directors. Go for it if you like soulful romantic tracks with loads of fusion thrown in."

Release

Ek Villain was released theatrically on 27 June 2014, in 2539 screens in the domestic market.

Critical reception

Ek Villain received mixed to positive reviews from critics with praise towards performances of Malhotra and Deshmukh.

Taran Adarsh of Bollywood Hungama awarded the movie 4/5 stars and wrote that, "On the whole, Ek Villain is a stylish, spellbinding and terrifying edge-of-the-seat thriller. It's a step forward in this genre, without doubt. A sure-shot winner!" Raedita Tandon from Filmfare gave the film 4/5 stars and stated that, "Though indulgent in parts, Ek Villain packs in a punch. Copy of a Korean film or not, it’s ‘good’ paisa vasool entertainment. ." Meena Iyer of The Times of India gave the film 3 stars in a scale of 5, stating that "You cannot fault the scale of Ek Villain or berate its lead star cast. But you wish you could celebrate this thriller like you did Suri's last movie outing  Aashiqui 2. This one lacks soul." 
 
Aparna Mudi of Zee News gave the film a rating of 2.5/5 stars, concluding her review that "The unveiling of the visceral saga has a lot of strong characters and Mohit has done a good job in adapting a foreign film and complimenting it with the drama that the Indian audience is used to. But he has gone a tad over in making a thriller. Maybe, filmmakers should step out of this trap more often and we wouldn`t be too far from making beacons of world cinema." Rajeev Masand of CNN-IBN stated that "I'm going with two-and-a-half out of five for 'Ek Villain'. If you're still wondering, the real villain here is the lousy script".

Shubhra Gupta of The Indian Express gave the film 2 stars, commenting that "Suri is an innate story-teller, and can keep things moving. All he needs is a strong, all-the-way credible, original plot." Saibal Chatterjee of NDTV rated the film 2/5 and wrote that "As a whole, this film, besides its surface flair, does not have too much to fall back upon. Watch it only if that is good enough for you." Raja Sen of Rediff gave the film 1.5 stars out of 5, stating that "Given free tickets, sure, you could escape Humshakals in theatres this weekend with this mediocre effort, but I say do yourself a favour and seek out the Korean DVD. (Uncover it, even.) Now that’s bloody special."

Box office

Ek Villain had what Box Office India called "very good" opening, with occupancies at around 55–60%. The film earned around ₹167.2 million (US$2.5 million) in its first day and around ₹507 million (US$7.5 million) in its first weekend, collecting around ₹165.4 million (US$2.5 million) and ₹174.4 million (US$2.6 million) in its second and third days respectively. The film collected around ₹81 million (US$1.2 million) in its fourth day and around ₹68 million (US$1.0 million) in its fifth day. The film collected ₹1.013 billion (US$15 million) in two weeks and around ₹1.056 billion (US$16 million) in three weeks. Box Office India reported that it will earn around ₹1.08 billion (US$16 million) in India alone. The film earned a distributor share of around ₹51 crore (US$7.6 million)(Share).

Ek Villain collected ₹132.4 million (US$2.0 million) outside India in its first weekend.

External links