Bhool Bhulaiya (2007)
Warning: Possible Spoilers ahead
==============================
Have you felt a sense of deja vu while watching a movie? I guess many remakes give the feeling. But how do you feel when you watch the same movie with a different name, a different language and different actors.
Priyadarshan’s “Bhool Bhulaiya” is a exact copy of “Manichithrathazhu”. When I say exact copy it is almost 99% ’same-to-same’. except for some scenes which could not be replicated from Malayalam, it does not change at all. The dialogs, acting, story, expressions, everything is same. Even the furniture is same. I don’t think the chair which Akshay Kumar sits during the first night in the palace is available in Rajasthan. I think it is typical Kerala furniture but I could be wrong. Although I think the furniture is a wrong reason to criticize any movie.
So when I had a choice between the weepy “Laga Chunri Main Daag” and “Bhool Bhulaiya”, I choosed the later and as for Priyadarshan it can be only said that;
He screwed it!
I wish, Priyadarshan had not remained so faithful to the original. I mean I could almost replace Mohanlal’s subtitles by Akshay’s subtitles and nobody will notice the difference. The same meaning of the original not the same acting as Mohanlal.
The story is same but now the place is Benaras. I did not want to compare it with the original but the writers and directors were hell bent to force me to compare. On second thoughts, what did the writers write and what did the director direct? As I said the movie is scene by scene copy of the original and no variation to adapting to a new location and difference in the culture. It looks like they watched the original Malayalam DVDs and directed the actors to act accordingly
The big problem is that the first half becomes a ghost movie and the second half becomes Akshay Kumar film. The story is about a couple who stay in the ancient palace said to be haunted. After they start staying strange things happen which they suspect is due to mental illness of a family member. A psychiatrist is called who finds the mystery behind the illness and ghost
The basic idea or trigger of dual personality in the original was because of Shobana’s past. Her lonely childhood and her fascination with stories of kings and demons, the big palace and the fascination of the stories associated with it. Also the husband, Suresh Gopi is busy and although he loves his wife, he cannot help with her loneliness. That loneliness itself triggers her adventure in the palace. Vidya Balan meanwhile is surrounded by people and is quite chirpy and happy herself.
In BB, Shiney Ahuja is more of a happy-go-lucky person. Its difficult to believe that Avni played by Vidya Balan would go into mental depression as she is quite contented with life. How would a perfectly stable happy person be suddenly be unhappy and depressed. The original had Shobana slowly turning into the dual personality trait. Her body language changes as the film progresses. Vidya Balan meanwhile goes from being very happy to suddenly being unstable.
In the original, the reason Suresh Gopi starts suspecting Vinaya Prasad is because he thinks she is jealous about him marrying Shobana when he was supposed to tie the knot with her. The tension between Vinaya Prasad and Suresh Gopi is evident from the first scene together. A sense of guilt is seen on Suresh Gopi’s face because he married Shobana.
Shiney Ahuja suspecting Amisha Patel is not justified here. One day he is fine with her and he even greets her quite well without any sense of wrong doing or guilty feeling and when the events occur, he blames Amisha patel for the problems without any logical reasoning and provocation. It seems that Amisha Patel is there only because a similar character was there in the original. The original had the 2nd heroine being silent because of her divorce but Amisha Patel cannot marry Shiney Ahuja as he marries Vidya Balan and Amisha Patel is perfectly ok with it.
Shinet Ahuja is ok in the role of the husband.
Paresh Rawal is for comic relief and is strictly ok. Rajpal Yadav is just for 3-4 scenes. He should be credited as guest appearance.
Vidya Balan plays the average heroine in the first half. She was good in the climax though.
The movie belongs to Akshay Kumar even though he is in the second half. He drives the picture from then on which should not have been the case. I guess that is the biggest problem of Bhool Bhulaiya. Its an actor driven movie rather than story driven
So how does a movie which is almost an exact replica of the original cannot be as good as original. Well! I don’t know. The above reasons or the same reason why “Ghost” and “Pyar Ka Saaya” are totally different even though copied frame to frame.
Rating: 5/10
Tags: Medium
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
To say that Priyadarshan screwed it is more or less a fair assessment of why bhool bhulaiyaa does not live up to its promising premise
Though it does improve upon the original in the way the climax unfolds
For instance what many consider to be the best scene ie the transformation of Ganga to Nagavalli and back to Ganga in the bed lifting scene,aftre its all done the way Ganga reacts gives you a feeling that she knows about what she has done and is apologetic about it and at the verge of breakdown..
Noticably here the camera angle has been changed,unlike the original where we look directly into Shobhana’s eyes and ignore the fact that there is no change in Body Language..here since Vidya’s body comes into the frame it cannot be ignored and there is no change in the mannerism(bad direction),even the sound effects do not make up for it.However contrastingly,the character here is unaware of what she has done but has a sinking feeling that something wrong just happened..thereby the two reactions are very different..to me the fear that was there in Vidya’s eyes looked more real than In Shobhana’s in this scene at least.
Now even in the dance sequence the is song entire presentation has been changed..the reason behind the delusions in the original cannot be guessed but here it is because the madly in love courtesan sees her lover,her thirst is quenched and gets a feel of dejavu here..
Now Vidya does match up to the dancing prowess of Shobhana but her expressions more than make up for it…(I personally had a problem with Shobhana’s expression when the song begins..it looks more like that of anger rather than that of a woman madly in love singing about her loved one) The song here far more soulful and haunting than in any version thanks largely to the pristine vocals of Shreya Ghoshal
Also when she is brought out for the final scene there is hardly any change in Shobhana’s body language is completely ignored because of what we are focusing on..but here the camera angles put emphasis on her body language..thankfully it works here..
Though one discrepancy still exists..in both versions though a cardboard is stabbed,then where does the blood come from????
Priyadarshan’s film is letdown as a result of effete dialogues and a slow screenplay
The performances are fine..Akshay Kumar is the life,breath and soul of the film here though this eccentric is no match for the original in Mohan Lal which is saying something since here akshay is the main protagonist unlike mohan lal.
Vidya Balan does a fine job throughout and gets a kickass audition test of her acting skills in the climax..Thankfully though unlike Jyothika she does not let us down.She does very well to do justice to the role which is a lot less powerful than in the original,in a quite different manner than Shobhana.
Everyone else barring Manoj Joshi and Vikram Gokhale sleepwalk through their parts
I think full marks to Vidya Balan, at least she did justice to her role not like everybody else.
In first half everybody was wondering whether this is comedy movie or horror movie or smethng else.
Climax was perfectly OK and well directed, but still one question remained unanswered, about deaf girl – what she had seen in her childhood so she became deaf.
Well…..to start with ur a typical mallu….first place if u knew the film was a copy of malayali u shud not have gone to see it again and then criticise it …………ur review sucks……..and whom r u comparing ur mohanlal with ???? akshay kumar ……..u knw what mohanlal sucks big time …………all those bulging stomach and fat moustaches thats what u like rite???????????? nw dont ever write a review again mallu cribber :-w
Fazil & Priyadarshan Directed “Manichitrathazhu” for keralite people(3 corore people speaking malayalam). collected 3 crore.
after 14 years same Priyadarshan remade in hindi for hindi world (more than 150 crore people using hindi language). collected 30 crores.
Even if it was a scene-to-scene remake, Priyan did miss some of the very important scenes. (Or did I see a version where it was cut). For example, When Shobana and Suresh Gopi comes to home for the first time and meets everyone, there is Lalita’s character who doesnt speak and show some wierd actions. The expressions on Shobana’s face were very impressive as it is the first kind of unusual thing she faces there. It was the beginning of unusual things in the store for her. Also the scene where Mohanlal argues with Shobana at the temple. Priyan couldnt even do it 10% attractively. No need to mention the pathetic bed-lifting scene. Only director is the culprit.
arijit betta….whats wrong with u… u are just the same thakara who wanna watch Mills and Boon romance and skin shows. if u wanna see only style bafoonery why dont u watch FTV…we have got some excellent actors in Malayalam… they have got more national and international recognition than any of your macho baffoons… so grow up beta and try to understand the difference between acting and bafoonery…
I’m curious to know, Balan ghost/mental patient in this film speaks in Bengali, what language did the Shobhana ghost/mental patient speak in the original?
To answer doremi’s question, Shobhana spoke in Tamil in the original.
According to me the film is superb entertainment.
As for the film being remake of any other movie i dont know.So it was a new story and superb acting by the whole lot…
Recommended….a must see..
[-x arigit you shouldnt be that rude how dare you say that to someone
Arjith … what a pity .. Acting is not about showing body ..Do you know who mohan Lal is .. If is not fair to ccompare MohanLal and Akshay Kumar. Akshay Kumar can only dream to act like mohan Lal or mammuty …Akshay Kumar and Salman Khan are for Guys like you , Who don’t know what is Good cinema and who love watching Karan Johar Films .. Pity on you man