The Superheroes have landed
I saw a film yesterday and was itching to write post about superheroes in hindi films. yeah yeah I know…everybody was talking abt it when krr-eeesshhh was released like a fart in an elevator – you just cant avoid it and the man who does it slyly smiles !So i will talk of other films and avoid krrish ( sorry hritik..next time)
so everybody was talking of indian superheroes..here is my take on bollywood’s superheroes…
1) Puneet Issar in superman. YES my friends..yes. Based on the actual superman, we had a hairy punjaabi jatth Puneet (duryodhan) issar as the man in blue. replete with the costume and the S logo! do u know who played Jor el? sadda dharmendra! Now c’mon run along to the nearest Video library ( I dont think they even converted it to CD format) and pick it up for seeing the most amazing effects in Indian Motion pictures history !Shakti -aaaoooo – kapoor was lex luthor!
2) Kishore Kumar in Mr X in Bombay – made in a time when mumbai was bombay and we had melodious music, the film was about kishore kumar falling in love, getting jilted and drinking a scientists potion hoping that it is poison. It turned out to be an invisiblity potion and our hero was now the invisible man! I would seriously give it fullmarks for the effects – remember it was a black and white film and they tried real hard. Eventually he becomes normal ( i think) but not before singing one of my fav songs – teri duniya se hoke majboor chala..main bahut door..bahut door chala…oh..he also fought some villains like a good little hero!
3) Jackie shroff – Shiva ka insaaf. “Zulm ki aag ko bujhaane waali hawa, Kamzoron ke dard ke dava – mera naam hai shiva!” and it doesnt get any tackier than this! Made as a 3d film, it had all the scenes with things being thrown towards the audience to give the wow effect! I remember seeing it in the hall ( gimme a break – I was a kid at that time) with the plastic glasses et al! aah the innocence of childhood when we dont know crass from class!We had a young boy – gopal whose parents are killed by the DAKUs! yeas, we are talking about dakus! and then he is taught the art of fighting ( by ripping of scenes from 36chamber of shaolin) by his uncles Ram, Rahim and Robert! yes, you heard it right – this was a new way of promoting religious intolerance (never mind viewrer intolerance or the subtle gay undertones – watch them train together- yea sure- good friends!)!These roles were played by Vinod mehra, Mazhar khan and parikshit sahani! he grows up to be Shiv ka beta – SHIVA ( this was before RGV made his versions of shiva) he has shiv ki aankh (a ring that leaves a mark – how original) a trishul, goes to the city and joins a (GASP) newspaper as a mild mannered (gasp gain) reporter – bhola! He then proceeds to fall in love with (Gasp yet again) his fellow reported played by poonam dhillon! MAN, this shiva was worse than the latest RGV version ( yeah its that bad). Plus gulshan grover played the bad guy in yet another over the top role!
4) Mr. India – I remember it for some reasons – 1) it was written for amitabh bachchan – and I wish he had played the role 2) my deep dark secrets of romping with sridevi were being played out on the screen ( the other secrets…wellll we wont go in there but one involves zeenat aman, katrina kaif, sushmita sen and lots of melted chocolates…but i digress) 3) invisibility was such a cool thing and shekhar kapoor did a really great job of the special effects 4) and above all for Mogambo! Mr. Puri was brilliant! Other characters that stand out are (remember these names?) calender played bya much thinner satish kaushik, daga and teja ( played by shard saxena and ajit vachchani). walcott – played by Bob Christo – a role that finally gave him some recognition (The Indian god marta hai!!!jai bajrangbali scene was brilliant)! a great film with all the masala – action, drama, emotion, love, comedy, kids and one mean villain!
5) Shahenshah: Rishtey mein to hum tumharre baap hote hain…naam hai shahenshaah – the big b’s return vehicle. Some say it was a hit some say it was a flop – I would like to believe that it was a hit.period. about the movie – it had a batman kind of concept – son loses father at young age, grows up to be a greedy, seedy loser. But that is during the day – at night he is a crusader for justce- ta daa- shahenshah – a deep breathing serious man with a shiny armour that he flails about! supporting him are his love – meenakshi sheshadri and her mother aruna irani ( who was also involved in his fathers suicide) and the viallian of the piece – JK. I feel that the film was well written and well made – balanced out all the ingredients – powerful dialogues. remember this was when we did not have multiplexes for the “urban thinking crowd (sic)”. this was a movie for the masses -and they loved it. also i cant get over this – aruna irani was AB’s heroine in bombay to goa where he played a young undercover police offcer and years later – she played his mother inlaw and he was yet again a young police officer – imagine AB calling AI – maaji!
6) Toofan: AB in another double role as Shyam Jadugar and Toofan ( the crossbow wielding cursader)! long lost twins, revenge, stolen gold, a missing name on a slate, a superhero who comes with the power of toofan ( No not gas problems that propel him forward) – a storm precedes his presence. Interesting costume for AB. + I dont know if any of you remember the song – dont worry be happy – not sung by bobby mcferrin but by amitabh himself. And in the song he serenaded a major film actress – Sonu walia ( excuse moi! major??? film actress??????)
so, these are some of the names i remember ( other than dariya dil where govinda and kimi katkar dressed up like superman and spiderwoman and sang a horrible song)!If you remember any more…do write in….till then look up in the sky…its a bird..its a plane….
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
Sorry Sophocles to correct you
Just a little correction. “Teri duniya se hokar majboor chala” is from Pavitra Paapi and is picturized on Parikshit Sahani.
The song you say is “Mere mehboob qayamat hogi. Aaj rusava teri galiyon se Mohabbat hogi”
Punds
- Ah the good old desi super heroes… there was another one called “Jugnu” which had Dharmendra and Hema Malini in it. Dharmendra was a sharif zada during the day and a super powered masked guy with a mooch at night. Famous song- The one Dharm-paaji sings in a helicopter Pyaar ke es khel mein, do diloan ke mel mein… Tera peecha na main chodoonga soneeye, Bhej de chahe jail mein
Another one where Dharmendra played Superman (well actually beats Superman and impersonates him as Superman) – was “Teesri Aankh” (released in the early eighties). That scene where he plays Superman lasts for a few minutes and a song. Superman (not shown in the movie) is an evil guy coming to help the Devil’s son – played by Amjad Khan, but Dharmendra (Shiva’s Bhakt aka biggest devotee), kills or kidnaps Superman and goes to meet Amjad Khan. There he flies (wonder how he could do that??? This question has been troubling me for the last 25 years, since I saw the movie), dances and sings with his girl – Zeenat Aman…
[opening in serious voice]
Salaam Sahibon… Main Aaa Gaaya..
[scream voice]
MAIN AAA GAAYAA (no he just arrived not came as in “came)
[song starts]
Salaam salaam salaam salaam,
Main aa gaya,
Leeya kisi ne mera naam,
Main aa gaya…
[zeenat baby sings]
Loote sab ki neend loote sab ka chain
[chorus of female singers]
Superman Superman Superman
[punjabi male voice]
Oye Superman
Dharmendra picks Zeenat and flies up in the big hall towards the roof. While doing this, the crappy special effects team does an amazing job by showing the body of DharmPaaji and ZeenieBaby to be bigger than the size of the hall. And whenever DharmPaaji flies in that song, there’s this huge irritating black border that keeps popping up all around him.
erm, in majority of hindi films most of the actors are superheros and that too without any powers :-”
:d
thanks punds – my mistake! i meant mere mehboob kayamat…
sure, shahenshah and mr.india are inevitably the first ones to pop to mind when it comes to desi superheroes. but is your mind crazy enough to recall the dariya dil song “tu mera superman” where govinda and kimi katkar are dressed up as superman and spiderwoman, respectively? needless to say, i had to go looking for the poster.. success!
http://bollylp.users.btopenworld.com/recorddetail102.html
Superman and Spiderwoman? I remember seeing this movie on Video and fastforwarding most of it. No wonder I don’t remember this song DARN!
That’s funny, I just got finished watching Toofan.
Mr.X in Bombay was a good movie. It’s amazing as to how they managed the special effects during the black n’ white era.