DDLJ Come fall in love… again…..
I have not met a single soul as yet who has not liked this movie.It’s unarguably the cutest,most adorable,simplistic,charming,delightful love story coming out of Indian Cinema.Adi chopra hit the right cord with people across all the classes and generations.He rejuvenated the magic of Indian commercial cinema.Still today after watching DDLJ,i have hope that one day Adi chopra will find that lost magic for Yashraj films and make another classic.It’s hard to imagine he is the same guy who messed up Dead poet’s society by making Mohhabatein and is the producer of all the nonsensical movies coming out of yashraj films.
DDLJ is a class apart.Period.
Raj may not be the guy next door but you can relate to him in every sense. SRK plays this character with flamboyance and not once in this movie does he crosses the line and overacts,which he does quite often.All the srk movies that followed DDLJ,had an extension of the character Raj . Johars and Chopras could not restrain themselves from using Raj,be it kuch kuch hota hai,be it veer zara,be it kank where cynicism was added to Raj instead of developing a different character itself.Whenever any director has tried to keep srk away from raj,it has worked…. at-least for me,Like in the case of Swades or Dil se or the recent Chak de.
Kajol gave Simran the fresh and raw look and simran gave us the talented and very natural Kajol.The chemistry between srk and kajol in DDLJ was perfect blend of mischief and romance and will win hands down to any other on-screen couples in recent years.If any one has doubt about their chemistry one should check out the scene after the Europe trip on the London railway station,where Simran invites Raj for her marriage and in reply raj say no by just nodding his head.It was one of many fabulous scenes in the movie.All the other characters in DDLJ from Anupam kher to Farida Jalal are memorable as well.Special mention should be given to Amrish Puri who with his virile voice portrayed the role of a girl’s dad and though he was against the romance of his daughter,not once do we hate him.
DDLJ has perhaps one of the best boy-meet-girl-for-first-time scene in history of Indian film industry.Who can forget that scene where simran is running fast to catch the tube and raj lends his hand and pulls her inside the tube , just in time. 
The songs are in perfect sync with the story.”Tuzhe dekha to yeh jana sanam” and “na jane mere dil ko kya hua” will remain intact in our mind’s for ever.Though cliched it had all the ingredients to be a blockbuster,which it eventually became and now it will remain a classic for ever.
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
This film is way over rated…I find it quite boring to be honest…what is so novel and unique about it? Boy meets girl…parent objects…in the end all khushi khushi…
It may have one or two good scenes and a few nice songs but it’s not a film that has any real depth…candy floss cinema which started the typical Raj srk syndrome.
Kajol should have got married to the guy her dad wanted her to get married to in the end…a tragedy type ending would have worked better I feel.
Sunny ,
I don’t think it is overated ..may be because of the fact all the other movies after that followed the same track some people feel that way …
when the music of DDLJ released i would come back from school and listen to its songs everyday. but never quite liked the film. Anand…may be m the single soul. n i still dont feel like watching it. like many my roomie has seen the film million times and he can still watch it million times more.
While discusing ddlj in collge,a social science professor who was thought to be lil mad, once said…raj..he is a gutless fellow. he even could not run away with the girl. he started the era of momma’s boy and all about loving ur family!! somehow agree with him.
Phoenixnu,
Even i remember watching the songs on zee tv again and again during my school days …..i won’t comment on if u like DDLJ or not ….but it’s one of the best commercial movies which became hit …
” raj..he is a gutless fellow. he even could not run away with the girl.” LOL …:)….btw by any chance your social science professor was from rgv factory :d
DDLJ is single handedly responsible for every NRI movie we have seen since 1995.
the music of DDLJ holds a special place for me. It was what was playing in my drunk friend’s car in my first year of college, when he rammed into an on coming jeep.
Broken Bones, blood, a Haywards bottle up my mouth, one dead and another life ruined.
“I have not met a single soul as yet who has not liked this movie.”
[-( meet me!!!!!!
lol i hated this movie from reel 1
papai …when did u see this movie ..i mean did u see it way back when it was released or did u see it after some years …..
i saw it when it was released…. on the third or fourth day…. my GF is a huge SRK fan :w;
If I remember correctly, when this film first came out, a section of the media accused the Chopra’s of exploiting the Rajshri “family/ wedding video” formula that one saw a year earlier in Hum Aapke Hain Koun. But this film has “survived” much longer than HAHK though HAHK was a bigger hit when it was released.
Aditya ..i have no idea about media accusing chopra’s …i didn’t like HAHK ,the story line was very thin ….
DDLJ is my all time favourite movie….I have seen it n no of times…. I just loved SRK & Kajol in that…
I believe art has to be judged on two important accounts : A place in culture where it presents itself and time in culture where it presents itself..
It always easy to deride art when u analyse it in hindsight without having to think of the significance it held(however minor that it maybe) when it first made its appearance..
Which is why DDLJ cud actually be a pretty important film that can often be lacerated in times to come by bracketing itself within terms like “mushy” and “often been done”..
But, it really wasn’t all that simple in 1995. There was a sense of progressiveness about that movie. Two lovers who seek each other decide to hold back ,not go the “eloping way” and instead wait for parental approval. Its an easy thing to say, “Ah what the hell” now that we see it being repeated in films many a times, and sometimes with lot of indiscresion.
And it is even simpler to say stuff like, “It doesnt stand the test of time”… But what u need to sometimes understand is that we r in a cinema culture that moves along in an extremely pedestrian manner, where making and breaking of senibilities takes ages and where novelty and personal outlooks are often shrugged for petty economic considerations…
DDLJ was an important movie but its importance is frozen in time. It shud be admired because we dont have many other alternatives..
I loved DDLJ when I was 16 but can’t stand it anymore. I hate the back ground score (except the mandolin piece which is awesome) and can never get over the fact that they had a music for every reaction. Amrish Puri gets angry and you get a grim music…SRK hatches a plan and again you get a stupid piece of music. My soul was cries for a few moments of quite where the actors don’t need music to potray their emotions.
And honestly SRK doesn’t overact? You were being sarcastic right?
I am so glad that DDLJ released when I was at right age for this movie, (around 16-17 yrs). Though I would loved the movie even today, I doubt if it would have had the same impact.
It is a classic in every sense of the word and I too,never personally met anybody who did not like the movie.
I am currently reading stephen king’s “Hearts of atlantis” and in the book, the leading character, bobby who is 10, feels dejected after leaving the movie theatre, because he feels real life was so boring and bland after watching a great movie. In retrospect, that’s exactly how I felt while watching DDLJ during my teenage years..
And why was Parmeet Sethi villianized in the movie? Where was he wrong? And in the end the five foot hero beats up all the six footers goons single handedly to win over the approval of heroine’s dad. And by that time Parmeet and his family have been silenced bacause of “his” immoral deed of trying to beat up the lover of his would be wife. His and his family’s honour had no value of course in the eyes of the director compared to the lovers’ desire.
In fact ‘Jab we met’ treats the suitor of the heroine back in some Punjab village with much more dignity.
Saw a little bit of it again recently. Looks dated actually.
Its a milestone movie in the sense that it redefined a genre, andevry tom dick and harry set out to make a film like it afterwards. And thats probably, why for me, its lost a little bit of its initial charm.
It, and KKHH, are also responsible for taking a decent, but stylistic actor, and turning him into THE srk.
Oh well, pergaos for the best given the Ram Jaane’s of that time, although I I looved the kabhi haan, kabhi naa’s….
I have to say that, as an NRI of about 17/18, I could relate very well to Raj’s character and a lot of aspects of the film. So it hold a very special place for me. I still watch it once or twice a year even now.
Not sure if it was just the right film at the right time (for me and millions like me)
No film gives me a more powerful sense of nostalgia then DDLJ…
Tony, How could you relate to that character?! Examples?
Mohan Bhargarve is the best NRI character to have been sketched in the Indian Film industry. You will not find any better than that.
I find DDLJ very cheesy, melodramatic, cringy, and… the least i say about the film is better… otherwise, i would say something….
To me this was the first film which showed the NRI’s as the positive character and the RI (Archana’s hubby) in as the slimy one. This was a mature step forward for Indian cinema. Gone was the mentality that “she parties /he parties,” so she/he is bad, and “she is city bred” hence bad and “he is from the village” hence noble. Having lived an equal time as a RI and NRI, I can state that it probably caught the NRI character in a very non judgemental light, and it was actually caught by a RI director, so good for him. Also Amrish was very well directed, getting away from the streotypical “dad as a villian,” and yet having shades of natural grey.
And of course the songs were awesome. It made anyone and everyone fall in love. I still remember in 1995, I had just immigrated to Toronto on a lark, did not know anyone in canada and for 48 hours did not even know how to get to from the hotel airport to downtown Toronto, then 24 hours later, i had a job in Pricewaterhouse in Downtown Toronto, and apartment in Queens Quay and celebrated by seeing this movie in Islington, three hours later….canada and life in general had come alive!!!!
Cool story Vivek… You should come back to Canada man. I mean, don’t you miss the rain and the cold?
Mere Honhaar Goonde bhai, at the time I was a free-spirited, active teenager. I was always out with my friends, always doing crazy things (not exactly like SRK conning Amrish Puri for some beer, but not too far off that line either).
Plus I’m good buddies with my Dad. Whether I had some issue in life or just wanted to sit and have a beer, I could always go to him.
The biggest thing though was that I was born in Canada, but was very Indian at heart. That was very tough for a lot of people here in Vancouer, particularly in the mid-90’s to understand. They expected me to be a typical Canadian kid, like most, immersed in western culture, barely able to speak in Hindi/Punjabi, not caring too much for Indian values, etc.
DDLJ and the character of Raj showed that there were also hybrids like us out there, who had strong characteristics of both Indian and western society.
As for Mohan Bhargav, we’re not all NASA scientists you know…
I think Bhargav was a great character, a very noble one at that, but not quite a realistic snapshot of the average NRI.
I would just like to say that “Dulhan usiki hoti hai jo use bhaga kar ya churakar nahi but sabke saamne use doli mein bithakar saath le jaata hai….thats y u say Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jaayenge….”