Aamir khan aur remakes ki daastaan – part 1 of 2
iView Author: Crazyrals (Bangalore, India)
Email: crazyrals [at] gmail.com
Aamir khan aur remakes ki daastaan – part 1 of 2
I have wanted to write this article from a long time, to be precise
after the release of Mann. Eventually, after the release and the
super-success of Ghajini I have got down to writing it. There is
something with Aamir and movie remakes, he has consistently been a
part of movies which are remakes. Its definitely not his fault that he
has featured in them, its the writer-director who were looking for a
quick and readymade storylines and of course the producer for easy
money. And let me also say that he is not the only star to feature in
remakes, as we all know, but the quality of the remakes is what
differentiates him from the rest. Why I have analysed him is because,
out of the 40 odd movies that he has made, nearly 10 of them have been
remakes which is like 25%. Let me go ahead and write down about these
movies in a chronological manner of their release wrt Aamir’s
filmography.
1. It Happened One Night – 1934 : Clark Gable played the male lead
Peter, he even went on to win the Oscar for the Best Actor. It was a
heart-warming movie with a smiple storyline. A small time reporter
Peter is looking for a big story and he meets a high-browed lady Ellie
[Claudette Colbert] who has escaped from the clutches of her dad and
is on the run to meet her beau. How they both make the journey from
Florida to NY, the small squabbles that they have and how they
eventually fall in love with each other is what the movie is about.The
movie went on to win 5 Oscars; apart from Clark Gable, Claudette won
the Best Actress, Frank Capra won the Best Director, it was awarded
the Best Movie and Best Writing/Adaptation.
The formula was a sure-shot success, and so in 1956 a movie named
‘Chori Chori’ starring Raj Kapoor and Nargis was released. Raj Kapoor
played the struggling reporter named Sagar while Nargis was Kammo. The
highlight of this movie was the songs and especially the puppet-act of
Raj and Nargis. The movie had some brilliant compositions from
Shankar-Jaikishan like ‘Panchhi Banoo Udti Phiroon’, ‘Aaja Sanam
Madhur Chandni Mei Hum’, ‘Jahan Mai Jaati Hoon Wahin Chale Aate Ho’
and ‘Rasik Balma’. SJ won the Filmfare for Best Music Director.
If you watch Mehmood’s Bombay To Goa, you can see the same theme where
Aruna Irani is trying to escape to meet her lover Shatrughan Sinha and
is guided all the way by Amitabh Bachchan. But it was dished out in a
different way, they changed the screenplay totally and added the
comedy angle to it. This occured to me just now, wonder why I did not
think of it earlier.
Anyways, the person who did not deviate from the original screenplay
was the Robin Bhat-Mahesh Bhat duo. They stayed faithful to IHON and
in 1991 came Dil Hai Ki Manta Nahin starring Aamir Khan as Raghu
Jaitley and Pooja Bhatt as Pooja. Aamir exuded the same kind of charm
as Clark Gable. In fact, he went a few notches up in the emotional
sequences where he could neither stop Pooja from meeting her lover nor
could he tell her that he has fallen for her. Aamir played the role
with gusto beginning with the telephone-booth sequence, then the
request-for-lift scene and ending it with the elopement. The entire
journey was fantastic, but the magical moment has to be the one where
he starts humming ‘Hum Hain Rahi Pyar Ke’ with a cigarette between his
lips and Pooja in his arms. Only after this does he realise that he
has started liking Pooja. The movie received 4 Filmfare nominations,
for Best Actor, Best Director, Best Comedian [Anupam Kher playing
Pooja's father] and Best Female Singer. Anuradha Paudwal took home the
award for the title track, while the rest just remained nominated.
2. Breaking Away – 1979 : This was a really nice movie about a
good-for-nothing dude Dave Stoller [Dennis Christopher] who has no aim
or ambition and leads a non-chalant life. His parents keep reminding
him about his responsibilities but he just loves spending time with
his friends and riding the bicycle. He has a chance meeting with a
beautiful girl Katherine [Robyn Douglass] and to make friends with her
he fakes his identity to be a guitar playing Italian exchange student.
While he is dating Katherine an entourage of Italian bikers happen to
come to his town for a Little500 race. He loves watching them pratcise
and shows his talent with the bicycle. He hopes to get close to them
by showing that he can keep up to their pace, but he beats them in a
friendly dash; but instead of lauding his effort they just push him
into a ditch. That really breaks Dave’s herat and he loses all respect
for the Italian cyclists. He decides to take part in the Little500
race wearing the ‘Cutters’ jersey; referring to the lesser privileged
people who are not able to complete their education but take pride in
hardwork. He ofcourse goes on to win the race and create history. The
movie won the Oscar for Best Writing, Screenplay; but it lost in the 4
other categories Best Director, Best Picture, Best Actress and Best
Music.
In 1992, Mansoor Khan took a lot of inspiration from this movie and
made Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar. I have used the word ‘inspiration’
because the movie was not a scene-to-scene remake. Lots of new things
were introduced, but the plot, storyline and the spirit of the
original was kept intact. Mansoor wrote a brilliant screenplay and
dialogues by Nasir Hussain were really good, they breathed a life into
the Sanjaylal character played by Aamir Khan. They retained the
sub-plot of Aamir faking his identity and calling himself a Xavier
student so he can go around with Devika[Pooja Bedi] and ultimately she
gets to know the truth. The friendship of Sanjaylal and Anjali[Ayesha
Jhulka] was handled with maturity and utmost honesty. Mansoor Khan
introduced an emotional quotient attaching a prestige to the Annual
Cycle Race and added the nostalgia of Sanjaylal’s dad[Kulbhushan
Kharbanda] having won the race once upon a time. And the burden of
bringing home the cup rested on Ratanlal [Mamik], Sanjay’s elder
brother. But when Ratanlal is severely injured from an accident
inflicted upon by the Rajput College boys, Sanjaylal takes it upon
himself to bring home the coveted honor and take revenge against the
Rajput College boys. The movie won the Filmfare for Best Film. Aamir
was excellent in the movie, to say the least.
3. Houseboat – 1958 : This movie starred Carry Grant as Tom Winters,
who works in the state department of Washington and Sophia Loren as
Cinzia who is the daughter of an Italian conductor. The movie is about
Tom whose estranged wife dies in a car crash and he decides to raise
the 3 kids, but the kids despise him. In his effort to befriend the
kids he takes them to a concert, but the youngest kids get bored and
goes out to have some fresh air and play his harmonica. The kid runs
into Cinzia who has runaway from home after a small squabble with her
dad. Cinzia is able to strike a chord with the kids and since she has
nowhere to go, she accepts Tom’s offer of being their housemaid/nanny.
After some wandering around and having seen their travelling house
[home on wheels] getting destroyed due to a speeding train; they
finally move into a houseboat. Tom’s sister-in-law who has a crush on
him tries to woo, but slowly and surely Tom finds himself falling for
Cinzia. How they get married and how the kids finally accept their dad
and new mom is what the rest of the movie is about.
In 1993 a movie titled after a popular Dev Anand song released, the
movie was Hum Hain Rahi Pyar Ke. It was again the combination of Robin
Bhat-Mahesh Bhat who systematically copied the movie scene-by-scene.
The only thing that they changed was that, the kids were Aamir Khan’s
nephews and nieces and not his own. And Aamir becomes the caretaker of
the kids after the sad demise of his sister and brother-in-law in a
car crash. They also introduced the character Mishraji [Mushtaq Khan]
who had returned from Japan after getting trained in assembly-line
production; and they made use of this by adding the twist of having to
deliver the bulk order of 1 lakh shirts. Apart from this, rest of the
movie remained faithful to the original. It was so faithful that the
Cinzia character’s Italian dialogues were translated to suit Juhi
Chawla’s tamil character Vyjayanthi. The concert, mouth-organ playing
kid, taking the kids to visit the museum, Vyjayanthi’s advise of
treating the kids with maturity were all the same as in the original.
All the kids did a great job, especially Kunal Khemu who went onto
become an actor. Aamir was also the Assisstant Director of this movie,
in fact this was the phase when Mahesh Bhat was considered to be the
most busy director, so busy that he was supposedly giving instructions
over the phone; that was the reason for Aamir to step-in as Assisstant
Director. This did not stop the movie from winning the Filmfare for
Best Actress, Best Film and Best Lyricist[Sameer].
4. Kramer Vs Kramer – 1979 : It was a movie about a marriage gone
wrong and a divorce case ending up in a courtroom. Dustin Hoffman as
Ted Kramer, a workaholic from advertising industry marries Joanna
Kramer, played by Merly Streep. One day when he returns home after
being given a big assignment with a new client, he finds his wife
walking away. She wishes to walk-out on him, leaving behind her son
Billy. Now, its upto Ted to look after Billy. He does so with some
help from Margaret, his neighbour. One day, as they sit around the
park while the kid is playing, Billy has a minor accident and is
bleeding profusely. Ted makes a mad rush to a hospital amidst the
traffic and speeding cars. A year and half later, Joanna returns to
seek custody of Billy and this is where a bitter court battle ensues.
There is a lot of bad blood and lot of vicious remarks being made
about Ted’s carelessness in taking care of the baby. Finally, Joanna
being a mom, wins the battle on emotional grounds and Ted is left
alone.
The movie won 5 Oscars, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Director, Best
Picture and Best Writing, Screenplay.
Mansoor Khan could not resist this movie as well. In 1995 he remade
this movie and titled it ‘Akele Hum Akele Tum’. He just changed the
fields of interest, i.e., Aamir Khan as Rohit is a promising singer
who sings for a club and awaiting his opportunity to sing in a movie.
His love interest Kiran, played by Manisha Koirala, is learning
classical music. She is a fan of Rohit and she makes it to one of his
New Year shows where they meet and falling in love seems inevitable.
Soon after the breezy romance they get married and realise that life
is not easy. Kiran is ambitious and she is not willing to sacrifice
her singing so she walks out on him, leaving Rohit with his son Sunil,
played by Aadil. How Rohit and Sunil manage together and how Kiran
comes back into their lives to reclaim Sunil forms rest of the
courtroom drama. Aamir gave a very well restrained performance but the
same cannot be said of Manisha. The movie had some good songs but was
marred by plagiarism where Anu Malik lifted the famous Last Christmas
song of George Michael. Also, there was a rubbish spoofing of
Nadeem-Shravan duo; Shafi Inamdar and Harish Patel played the crook
music directors Amar-Kaushal, who are after Rohit’s composition. I am
not sure whose idea it was, TIPS guys or Anu Malik but it was in bad
taste. Anyways, the movie bombed at the box-office. Only Aamir and
Adil’s performance added some value to the otherwise dull movie.
5. Godfather – 1972 : How does one even start-off talking about a
movie like ‘Godfather’. I shall not go into the plot and drama because
its totally unnecssary. And I will not be able to say anything that
has not already been said.
In 1975 Feroz Khan paid tribute to Godfather with his version named
Dharmatma. But he twisted the plot towards the second half, where
instead of allying with his father and their forces Feroz plays
against them. Feroz Khan repeated the same concept in Jaanbaaz and
Yalgaar without much success. In 1992 a movie named Zulm Ki Hukumat
was released. The movie starred Dharamendra as Pitamber Kohli and
Govinda played Pratap Kohli aka Michael of Godfather. This was one of
the first proper remakes of Godfather. The movie fared pretty well and
I liked Govinda’s perfromance.
Even after all this, we still had Aamir in line to pay tribute to
Godfather. So, he acted his part in Atank Hi Atank which released in
1995. He played the role of Michael, which Al Pacino had played. In
fact, it was quite fascinating to see Aamir with a moustache and his
wet-hair all combed back, he looked like he meant business. This movie
had Rajnikanth playing Sonny, I think the only time that Aamir and
Rajni have ever worked together. But none of this could save the movie
at the box-office.
to be continued …
Tags: aamir khan, akele hum akele tum, atank hee atank, Dil hai ki manta nahin, Ghajini, Hum hain rahi pyar ke, Jo jeeta wahi sikandar, MannEditor Note: Part 2 of this fantastic series coming soon..
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
Zulm Ki Hukamat going straightaway to rent the dvd.
Zulm ki hukumat is a must see. It took me by complete surprise. I went in thinking it’s the same bang bang kind of film being dished out in those times (early 90s)… but wow…
Thats bringms me to the point, why the eff did they have to come up with titles like ” Zulm Ki Hukumat” or ” Aatank Hi Aatank” for a Godfather????
Akele Hum… was a plagiarism carnival.
Everything was stolen in that movie. I still cringe with agony everytime some one sings that song lifted from Sweet Child in Time by Deep Purple.
I think that this movie is bollywood at its lowest form. I say this even though I am a long time fan of aamir khan, starting from QSQT to Ghajini…
Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikander is my favorite movie of the last decade and I consider it as one of the most under-rated films of all time. It may be an inspiration but it doesn’t take anything away from it as one can easily sense the freshness and the honesty with which it was made. I love evrything about the movie and the song Rooth ke Humse kabhi is just so heartwarming. Every body gave an amazing performance and also it has one of the best Aamir Khan performances. Its one of the very rare movies where the characterization is so true to life. The bonding between siblings is the best I have ever seen in any film. And one can never forget Pehla Nasha.
Yet to see Dil Hai ki manta nahin.
@ Papapi: Yeah, even the poster was a rip-off. I can’t remember the name of the movie now but i think that was the first instance where such an incident came in press.
AHAT was totally rip off
The poster itself was copied from Sleepless in Seattle.
And Raja Ko Rani Se, was taken straight from Godfather theme.
I guess ur comming up with part 2, but some more remakes
Ghulam- On the Waterfront, heavily copied
Mann- An Affair to Remember, Arzoo
Raja Hindustani-Jab Jab Phool Khile
Mela- Pathetic reworking of Sholay, Glad the movie was a disaster, Dharmesh Darshan is such an overrated director.
Baazi- Climax was a straight lift of Die Hard.
Fanaa- Basic storyline taken from Eye of the Needle.
@ Manish-6
The poster for AHAT was copied from Sleepless in Seattle.
http://www.impawards.com/1993/posters/sleepless_in_seattle.jpg
But after the media bought this to light, they changed it.
@ Manish-6
http://www.impawards.com/1993/posters/sleepless_in_seattle.jpg
The poster was copied from Sleepless in Seattle.
@Ratnakar : actually, this was not the first instance tat a poster had been copied. even before this, the ‘junoon’ poster was copied from ‘basic instinct’ … tat was the 1st one.
my take is on movies that are scene-to scene copy or the entire theme being lifted. only the last half hour of baazi was lifted from ‘die hard’ and the first half was to some extent like harrison ford’s ‘the patriot’. i m not mentioning ‘mela’ for the same reason tat it was not an exact rip-off, unlike chinagate. i have not mentioned ‘fanaa’ too, for the reasons mentioned above. rest all have been covered, i have submitted the part 2 already; its upto the editor to publish it whenever they wish to.
Thanks for this.. I never really thought of Aamir as the remake badshaah.. Fun reading! Waiting for Part II.
Good Post !!!
@ Crazyrals – I think poster, layout, credit design is the most flourishing but under-reported industry as far as plagiarism is concerned. The other day, i saw the dredit titles of Adaptation, movie written by charlie kaufman, it was same as that of Lakshya.
Nice post.It never occured to me that he starred in so many remakes!! I watched Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikander recently and it was a very well made film.Wish Mansoor made a comeback!!During the 90’s Aamir shared a great bond with Inder Kumar and starred in many of his crappy films like Mann,Ishq…Thank god he is not doing his films anymore.
@Shimit and JJWS fans: in the song ‘rooth ke hamse’ … the kid who played the boyish-aamir and whose pants get pulled down was his nephew imran khan
. he confessed this during the promotions of JTYJN. imran was only asked to ride the bicycle and he had no clue tat his shorts wud be pulled down, obviously he was not informed so that they could get the perfect reaction.
also, the sailor cap which aamir wore in dhkmn was imran’s cap. while aamir was searching for the perfect cap, he liked imran’s cap and borrowed it from him.
Nice write up, waiting for next ..Pseudos wont b worrying it:)
Great post- Crazy rals.But actually the remake king of all time is Rajnikanth- he must have remade nearly 20 movies of Amitabh Bachchan alone.I guess I’ll probably write on it myself
@ Sethu i can recall Rajni’s remakes of AAA, Don, Khuddar. Which are the other ones?
Yeah one more Mr.Bharat, i think Trishul remake.
@Ratnakar & Sethu: basha was a remake of ‘hum’. i even recall seeing rajni in namak halaal remake apart from don, aaa etc
Ratnakar:
Deewar – Thee
Namak Halaal – Velaikkaran
Kuselan – Kathaparayumbol
Muthu – Thenmavin Kombathu
Chandramukhi – Manichitra Thaazhu
Bulandi / Peddarayudu – Nattamai
Veera, Dharma Dorai – from Telugu
Panakkaran – Laawaris
Padikadhavan – Khuddaar
Maaveeran – Mard
Viduthalai – Qurbani
Mr. Bharath – Trishul
Naan Adimai Illai – Pyar Jhukta Nahin
Gangvaa – Malaiyur Mambattiyan
Thillu Mullu – Golmaal
Billa – Don
Rom Robert Rahim – AAA
Annai oru Aalayam- Maa
Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar is an amazing movie, like the original. I love “Breaking Away” a lot as well. “Dil hai ki manta nahin” is as good as the originals, if not better. Mela was copied i never knew.
Nice post. Truely exhibiting ‘passion for cinema’. Waiting for partII.
FYI:
“If you watch Mehmood’s Bombay To Goa, you can see the same theme where Aruna Irani is trying to escape to meet her lover Shatrughan Sinha and
is guided all the way by Amitabh Bachchan.”
She’s actually running away from Shatrugan Sinha after she finds out about his schemes. She happened to hop on to the Bombay-to-Goa bus while running away from them.
@Pratik: ohh, thanks for the correction. although i did mention abt bigB guiding her [protecting her] i faltered abt running away and not towards…
. the sentence should have actually read: If you watch Mehmood’s Bombay To Goa, you can see a similar theme where Aruna Irani is trying to escape FROM her lover Shatrughan Sinha [technically ex-lover] and is guided all the way by Amitabh Bachchan.
Arre I didn’t mean to be nit-picky or anything. I watched it recently toh socha point-out kar leta hoon. Nice list btw.
@crazyrals : Nice post.
JJWS released during my post HSC vacation. I watched it everyday for the first week. I guess an i-view post is in order for that experience. So much so that even the ushers at the theatre started calling me Jo Jeeta. :D
There’s another interesting trivia about the movie. The main characters were all loosely inspired by the Archie comic strip. Sanju was based on Archie, Ratan on Moose, Shekhar on Reggie, Anjali on Betty & Devika on Veronica.
@The Narcissist:talking abt archie comics…kkhh was ur typical archies comics; he had srk as archie, kajol as betty, rani as veronica, anupam kher as principal weatherbee, archana as grundy. i think only jughead was missing, among the major chars
the college setup was also like archies … srk walking in with a basketball and guys on skateboard etc.
hmm…i think i shud write a post on this
Anand- good list,
Ratnakar- here’s some more-
Annamalai- Khudgarz
Shiva- Khoon Pasina
Kodi Parakkuthu- Shahenshah
Dharmathin Thalaivan- Kasme Vaade
Adutha Vaarisu- Raja Jaani
Annai Oru Aalayam- Maa
Arunachalam- 2nd half was copied from Malaamal
I think there are more remakes/inspired movies too
Close on the heels of Rajni is wannabe superstar Vijay who also makes a lot of remakes from telugu.
The joke doing the rounds is that he copies even the color of the underwear from the original.
Guys, I remember that the title sequence of “Catch Me if You Can” is copied in a recent (in last 1-2 year) hindi movie, but I can’t remember which one…
Anybody can tell me?
Maro Charitra (Telugu)Original – Ek Duuje Ke Liye (Hindi)Remake
hey…thanks all u guys for taking such keen interest. i m so glad tat i wrote this