Bombay 405 Miles

Bombay 405 Miles (Brij, 1980)

One of the things I love so much about Bollywood is that it’s pretty much a pointless exercise to try and play “Six Degrees of Separation…” with anyone, because EVERYONE has been in movies with EVERYONE ELSE.

Case in point: Bombay 405 Miles, which not only brings together my two ALL TIME FAVOURITE STUDLY LEADING MEN (Hot Papa Khanna and Shotgun)

 How is this not THE MOST ADORABLE PAIR YOU HAVE EVER SEEN?

and my two ALL TIME FAVOURITE VILLAINOUS ACTORS WHO WERE ACTUALLY KNOWN FOR BEING LOVELY IN REAL LIFE (Pran – and seriously, is there anyone who DOESN’T enjoy Pran? -  and Weird Villainous Crush #1 Amjad Khan – seriously, if you knew what percentage of my screencaps of this film turned out to be of Amjad you would worry a little about my sanity. Or my taste. Or probably both. But SCREW YOU Judgey McJudgerson, I AM MADLY IN FILMI LOVE WITH HIM)

Bombay 405 Miles is a wildly entertaining, awesomely bromantic, definitely Desai inspired-comedy about two conmen: Kanhalya (Vinod Khanna) – an expert forger based in Delhi, and Kishen (Shatrughan Sinha) – a master lock-picker/safe-cracker based in Calcutta -  who meet, and instantly bond, at a bus-stop after the authorities force them out of their respective towns for being too good at the criminal arts.  At the same bus-stop, Kishen and Kanhalya encounter Radha (Zeenat Aman) a beautiful but infinitely devious woman who is waiting for a bus to take her the 405 miles it will take to get to Bombay, where she too can embark on a new life as a criminal genius. Kanhalya and Kishen both fall instantly for Radha’s …err…physical charms

and decide to follow her to Bombay, City of Dreams, but before too long, their blatant sexual harassment gets them thrown off the bus and they hitch a ride on a CONVENIENTLY passing freight train.

Where they rapidly encounter a bunch of violent goondas (MAC MOHAN ALERT!), engage in some train-top shenanigans, and then, having dealt to the goondas, suddenly find themselves the unlikely guardians of Munni, a little girl worth “crores” according to the swiftly (and conveniently) dying old man with her.

And from here on in, the film is just…insanely hilariously wonderful.

1. New(est) favourite jodi: Shotgun and Vinod
There’s a new bromance in town,

and THEY CAN’T KEEP THEIR HANDS OFF EACH OTHER.

Can you really blame them?

 I can’t believe these guys aren’t in like A MILLION films together: Vinod is the more serious, matinee-idol handsome one; and Shotgun is the saucy, sassy, hilarious one with mad bedroom eyes. I love both these guys so much that, omigosh, their powers combined is like..pure joy. Among their antics in the film: Vinod Khanna is wonderfully goofy (which you hardly ever get to see, and he is SO funny!)

Sexist? Kinda. But Radha has just conned them BIG TIME. And is also MAHA annoying. 

but brings a touch of his trademark tragic hero to the role;

Vinod UPS THE MELODRAMA by DRAMATICALLY SLASHING HIS WRIST OPEN and ordering a doctor to take the blood that is leaking all over the place to perform a blood transfusion on another character. Even, he says, if the doctor needs to take ALL THE BLOOD IN HIS BODY. Good job, Tragic Vinod. Good job.

Shotgun is HILARIOUS and scrappy and sassy as usual

At this point in the film, I'm willing to bet Shotgun ACTUALLY KNOWS NO JUDO-KARATE. But awesomely, by the climax, he and Vinod transform MAGICALLY into NINJAS doing gravity defying backflips.

but also gets to be a smooth Mr Lover-Lover. Basically, Shotgun is the man.

SWOON. Check out those bedroom eyes.

2. Amjad Khan: GIVES IT THE CRAZY EYES!
 Seriously – I took more screencaps of Amjad in this film than I did of anyone or anything else. Amjad laughing.

Amjad looking menacingly astonished.

 Okay, less INSANE CRIMINAL GENIUS, more "goldfish" maybe.

Amjad BREAKING MY HEART.

 Considering he died of a massive heart attack, this was pretty ironic. Of course, seconds later he does something hideously evil. So there's that.

But by far the best screencap is the very first one I took, which illustrates just one of the many reasons to love Amjad Khan (but you can’t have him, he’s mine): he does some wicked cool eye acting, and here we see CRAZY EYES.

Appropriate, given that Amjad’s character, Veer Singh, even more awesomely, is a DRUNK PERVERT who is not only unashamed of his drunken pervertedness, but is PROUD OF IT, claiming that anyone who doesn’t drink, gamble or molest anything that moves is a pure coward! Oh yeah, also: Veer Singh is kind of TOTALLY INSANE! This manifests in a number of subtle, insidious, but HILARIOUSLY MELODRAMATIC ways, like so:

Man, I just LOVE Amjad Khan! But look, I’m not alone. See how tenderly Kanhalya is touching his face. It’s a fine bromance, with no kisses.

I bet it was the husky voice that won HPK over too.

3. When you are at some obscure Bollywood quiz night and you get asked: “What movie totally rips off Donna Summer’s Love To Love You Baby”? by having an ‘item number’ where the lead actress pretends to HAVE SEX IN A VAN and the accompanying sleazy song is ACTUALLY all moaning and suggestive lyrics? YOU WILL TOTALLY KNOW THE ANSWER thanks to pervy Brij and Bombay 405 Miles.

4. PIT OF BURNING EMBERS!

You can't really fault a film that has the heroes falling into a pit of burning embers. 

Even more awesome: what happens next. Insane villains, take note – please do not cut corners with materials when building your pits of burning embers. Because your prisoners will CONVENIENTLY ESCAPE. And get drunk. And drive a car right into a photography shop.

5. Speaking of: this bit cracked me up so much (small things, people, small things) because – okay, this:

Two things.

The line. We have broken his…Shop. HA!

And when Vinod Khanna gets out of the car he is still holding the steering wheel. Seriously, I have TEARS IN MY EYES. (Right about now you can probably guess at how I was a WRECK at certain points during Housefull. And how I can happily watch EVERYTHING Govinda has been in. EVERYTHING).

6. The most quotable quote…ever.

Bollywood is good for quotes, and I have some particular favourites. There’s “You son of a baaaastard!” from The Burning Train, which is getting thrashed in my flat at the moment; another one that will make my flatmate and I crack up until the end of time (and is adaptable to ANY situation, believe it or not) is “Make her legs good again” from Krrish (but you have to say it EXACTLY like Hrithik says it in the movie).

But this, this is my new favourite, for when I am feeling particularly melodramatically grumpy:

 I FREAKING LOVE THIS MOVIE THOUGH. I love it! I love its FACE!

Om Shanti Om (Farah Khan, 2007)

Om Shanti Om is the first Bollywood film I ever saw. I’ve seen it now more times than I can count; it’s my go-to film when I don’t know what I feel like watching, or when I need a pick-me-up, or when I need a dose of post-modern masala: it has all the comedy, romance, action, melodrama and filmi references I could ever need. It’s the first Bollywood film my flatmate had ever seen too – I made him watch it because I knew he’d love it – and now we each have our own copies of the dvd. Quite often, when we have a spare moment or two, we’ll sit down to watch a song or a scene from the film and inevitably we get sucked in to watching the entire 3 hour spectacle for the umpteenth time.

I’ve put off even attempting a review until now (it’s my blog’s 1^st birthday today!) because honestly? There’s NO WAY I can be objective about this film, nor can I hope to remotely do it justice. Om Shanti Om is my all-time, absolute favourite Hindi film, the reason I watch Indian cinema, the reason I started this blog. If we’re going to get filmi and melodramatic about it (and it seems appropriate): Om Shanti Om changed my life, y’all.

Om Shanti Om is the ultimate Bollywood film: a tale of star-crossed love, murder, betrayal, reincarnation and revenge, set amid the artificial glamour and glitz of the Indian film industry.

A tale told in two distinct halves (1970s/present day) and on at least two distinct levels (narrative/homage), Om Shanti Om is one of those films that rewards repeated viewings.

The story revolves around Om Prakash Makhija (Shahrukh Khan), a junior artiste (film extra) who dreams of film stardom when he isn’t mooning over starlet Shantipriya (Deepika Padukone). Fate conspires to bring Shantipriya and Om together in the swooniest way, 

and Om falls head over heels in love…

but Shanti’s heart belongs to another: the sinister film producer Mukesh Mehra (Arjun Rampal), whose ambition is…deadly, to say the least. When tragedy befalls Shanti, Om’s love for her transcends even death when he is reincarnated as a Bollywood superstar, who starts to remember his former life, and who seeks vengeance for the death of his true love all those years ago.

Sounds pretty pulpy and melodramatic, huh? I remember after I had first seen OSO, explaining the plot of this “amazing film!” I had just seen to some friends, who looked at me like I had lost my mind.

It’s pretty awesomely melodramatic, and I really loved that the first time I saw it.

It also helps that, for a Bollywood virgin like I was, there were some pretty amazing song picturizations. Like this:

But the real strength, and the thing I love the MOST about Om Shanti Om now that I am a little more clued up about Hindi films in general – is that this film has been made with a huge HUGE affection for the Indian film industry, and for films, and for cinema in general.

You have the actual narrative on one hand. On the other, this film is about films. And celebrity, and entertainment, and that whole industry: the business of manufacturing dreams, as someone once called it.

It’s a thread that is so ingrained in the film, I don’t even know where to begin, to be honest. It’s as simple and obvious as playing “Spot the filmi references” (and I’ve seen this film a million times and EVERY TIME I STILL find more – Farah Khan seriously packed them in. She has an incredible eye for detail).

Some of my favourite filmi references:

Now that I don’t rely SO heavily on the subtitles, I love the beginning of the film (which is set on the set of a song from “Karz” featuring Rishi Kapoor). The subtitles refer to him as “the hero”, but the dialogue actually refers to him as “Chintu”! 

Here's the ORIGINAL song from Karz (because both the song and Rishi are freaking awesome).

Similarly, it always cracks me up when Om tells his melodramatic maa that if she had been in Mughal-E-Azam it would have been “Flop-E-Azam!”

Om’s necklace, said to be a subtle reference to Manmohan Desai’s Amar Akbar Anthony.

The woman on crutches hobbling after the filmi convertible is totally referencing Sharmila Tagore's Naaz's character in Sachaa Jhutha, and is not the only thing the two films have in common.

Sholay still running!

I love the Singin’ In the Rain influenced movie set setting of Main Agar Kahoon, and it’s probably the ONLY filmi reference I got the first time I watched the film!

But there’s a darker, more melancholic layer to the film too, if you look – and that’s what is so wonderful about Om Shanti Om –it has layers.
 

The burnt out, ruined film studios, named RC Studios (a reference to RK Studios – the at the time of filming largely defunct Kapoor production house) and modeled after the abandoned film studios in Kaagaz Ke Phool suggest an awareness of the fleeting, temporary nature of celebrity and success; that the surviving superstars that Shantipriya appears alongside in Dreamy Girl (Rajesh Khanna and Jeetendra) in the 70s portion of Om Shanti Om have been replaced by younger, newer, fitter models in the present day  is an inevitable part of the business – reminiscent of the speech that one of the characters in Guddi makes: no matter how great you are, everyone gets forgotten, sooner or later.

Farah Khan, though, seems determined to prove that someone remembers, and has been paying attention. Om Shanti Om is undoubtedly an extravagant, affectionate, and tender love letter to the Bollywood film industry.  I ADORE THIS FILM.

I still get asked “What is it you love so much about Bollywood?” and I still don’t know how to answer the question. I think from now on, three words: “Om Shanti Om” will have to suffice.

EXTRA SPECIAL BONUS BECAUSE I CAN'T HELP MYSELF:

This is my favourite part of the entire film (see how sentimental and filmi I am?):

 

 

Lafangey Parindey

Lafangey Parindey (Pradeep Sarkar, 2010)

Watch this:

When the trailer for Lafangey Parindey first appeared, a ripple of…gleeful awe swept across a little pocket of the internet. The overwhelming general opinion seemed to be that Aditya Chopra (the guy in charge of Yash Raj Films now) had pretty much lost his mind. For those not in the know, Yash Raj Films have a pretty enduring reputation as purveyors of a certain kind of film: melodramatic, mushy romances, dependent on the forces of fate to bring lovers together against all odds (for example: uncooperative, stubbornly traditional parents). The usual tropes associated with a Yash Raj romance are things like lovers running through flowery fields, chasing after trains or frolicking clad in pastel jumpers and chiffon saris somewhere in the Swiss Alps, a la DDLJ (the uber Yash Raj romance):

Lafangey Parindey, with pretty boy Neil Nitin Mukesh dripping copious amounts of blood, its niftily choreographed motorcycle stunts, a gritty, rock-influenced soundtrack and errrr, a blind rollerskating heroine, seemed a little…outside the box.

But the biggest surprise of all is that while it isn’t quite the mushy romantic fare that has overwhelmingly come to dominate Yash Raj’s productions, nor is it the pulpy cartoony, purposely over-the-top violent crack-o-rama (the Hindi equivalent of a B-movie a la Robert Rodriguez is what I was anticipating) that the trailer and the simplified plot summary would have you believe.

A blind rollerskater, with the awesome alliterative moniker Pinky Palkar (played by Deepika Padukone), dreams of winning India’s Got Talent as her ticket out of her stifling lower-class Mumbai neighbourhood. One fateful evening, Pinky’s path collides with that of an improbably pretty wannabe goonda whose ability to win illegal boxing matches, blindfolded, with just one punch, earns him an income, respect, and the nickname “One Shot” Nandu (Neil Nitin Mukesh). And both their lives change. Forever. 

What I love, SO MUCH, about Lafangey Parindey, is that although it uses the eternal Bollywood motif of a timely twist of FATE/KISMET/DESTINY to thrust One Shot and Pinky into each other’s lives, it’s not really about fate at all. It’s about how making choices shapes your future, and how our lives are what we make them. We can drift along, accepting the hand ‘fate’ has dealt us, like One Shot initially does – stagnating in his petty goonda lifestyle, even his mentor Anna (Kay Kay Menon) can see that One Shot could make a better life for himself if he gave up the illegal boxing and took a legitimate job as a bouncer in a club (and Anna tries to help him, to no avail. Because One Shot has to realise for himself that he is a lover, not a fighter…awwww….); or we can forge our own paths and determine how our own futures will look. Pinky Palkar has a goal – to dance/rollerskate on India’s Got Talent – and she is determined enough that not even sudden blindness will deter her from at least TRYING to achieve what has always been her dream.

Along the way, the film transforms into a sweet, tender, quiet love story about two people changing their own destinies.

Another reason I love this film is possibly the very reason many people hate it: the two lead actors. The casting of the exquisitely pretty Neil Nitin Mukesh and the stunning Deepika Padukone as lower class Mumbaikers has been widely criticised – they look and sound out of place in the tapori setting. I’d argue that this is entirely the point. 

There is a vague surreality, a fairytale –like quality to Lafangey Parindey. From the opening slo-mo shot of a single exquisitely formed drop of blood falling from One Shot Nandu’s nose, to the closing scene where the cops who have been pursuing One Shot throughout the film remark as he and Pinky walk away “So, this is a love story”, to the endless film references that pervade the media-saturated universe the characters inhabit, everything in the film has a kind of hyperreal edge. That Deepika and Neil seem not to belong entirely to their grungy setting is important. These characters are partly drawn to each other because they don’t entirely fit in, they are outsiders searching for something more than what ‘fate’ has dealt them, who ultimately find ‘home’ in each other.

It’s not at all a crack fest of “see how hilarious it is to see a blind girl rollerskate”, and if that’s what you want from this film, you really will be sorely disappointed. Lafangey Parindey is actually a Yash Raj romance through and through, if an unconventional take on the product - a tender, touching love story about two people who inspire each other to take control of their fate, rather than succumb to it.

Housefull

Housefull (Sajid Khan, 2010)

Make no mistake: Housefull is WITHOUT A DOUBT the most ridiculous, deliberately stupid, lowbrow film I have ever seen. It is very, VERY silly, and definitely contains material that is bound to offend those who do not see the funny side of frequent jokes suggesting the main male characters are gay, to give just one extremely typical example of this film’s kind of humour. But there’s a LOT more where that came from. Let’s put it this way: If you’ve seen Heyy Babyy, or Kambakkht Ishq, you’ll know whether you can stomach this kind of film or not.

Fortunately for everyone involved, those most likely to get VERY offended by Sajid Khan’s take on mass entertainment are the ones LEAST likely to EVER want to watch this film.

So anyway.

Shameful confession. Despite my (not so secret anymore) love of Heyy Babyy, Sajid Khan’s previous directorial outing, I had read enough dire reviews of Housefull, and seen enough clips of horrendous slapstick shenanigans that I was convinced I would hate it. Because it just sounded like a terrible, terrible film.

GUESS WHAT? YOU WILL HATE IT IF YOU GO INTO IT EXPECTING ANYTHING MORE THAN WHAT IT IS.  Because I was pretty much expecting it to be a horrible waste of time …

…I laughed myself silly for about 85% of the film. Seriously. I laughed SO HARD at parts of it my face hurt, and my SIDES hurt, and I had to stop the film because I was laughing too hard. How can you fault a film like that? It sets out to entertain, at the basest level, and you know what? OBJECTIVE ACHIEVED.

The story is centred around Aarush (Akshay Kumar) – an unfortunate man who believes he is destined to bring bad luck to all those around him until he finds true love. The only problem is…all his attempts at finding true love seem to be jinxed too. The film rapidly descends into farce territory when Aarush goes to stay with his best friend Bob (Riteish Deshmukh) and his wife Hetal (Lara Dutta); and in true Bollywood fashion a series of convoluted events and misunderstandings spiral WILDLY OUT OF CONTROL.

In the hands of less talented performers, this film could be even more chaotic than it is (because let’s be honest – it does require a certain willing and open attitude from the viewer to overlook the flaws and go with the silly flow to enjoy a film like Housefull. Could I pick this film to bits? Yep. Do I want to? Hell no! It was too much fun). There were a couple of scenes that didn’t really work for me, but in a patchwork piece like this, where the narrative lurches from comedic scene to comedic scene rather than existing as a fluid, coherent whole, then it doesn’t really matter.

All I really needed to sustain me was:

1. Lara Dutta falling through a glass window
2. Akki dishooming a monkey
3. Riteish Deshmukh repeatedly mispronouncing the word "lingerie"
4. Arjun Rampal repeatedly making the "I'm watching you" gesture at Akki
and last but most definitely not least
5. AAKHRI PASTA! (Seriously, my flatmate is ready to throttle me already for my overuse of the phrase "I'm JOKING! Mamma MIA!" in a terrible Italian accent).

What really made the film work though – and saved it from rapidly veering from amusingly silly to annoyingly stupid – was Akki's commitment to playing the loveable loser Aarush. In the midst of a lot of silliness – and called upon to do a lot of ridiculous things – like be electrocuted and then ‘dance’, or get into a dishoom dishoom fist fight with a monkey – Akshay brings sincerity and levity to his character, the unhappy guy who believes in always telling the truth, who wants nothing more than to find love so he can stop bringing bad luck and unhappiness to the people he cares about. Possibly the biggest surprise of all was that in a movie unapologetically aimed at the lowest common denominator, with broad jokes and unabashed objectification of men and women,

 

in a climax based around the improbable scenario of laughing gas leaking into a party at Buckingham Palace causing all the guests (our protagonists included) to fall into hysterics as the various plot twists unravel, Akshay Kumar ACTUALLY brought tears to my eyes as a heartbroken Aarush confessed his frustration at not being able to express his pain at his jinxed fate without laughing. It was a truly poignant moment in an otherwise ridiculous film, and no-one could pull it off quite like Akki.

IMPORTANT NOTE: If you're planning on buying the DVD, please be aware that the most popular song from the film: Dhanno (Apni To Jaisey Taisey)  - the item number in which Jacqueline Fernandez appears - is ENTIRELY ABSENT from the dvd. The song is a remixed version of a popular song from Amitabh Bachchan starrer Laawaris, and legal tussles over rights and whether Sajid Khan got the proper clearance to use the song in Housefull has meant the song has been entirely cut from the film.

The absence of the song is QUITE OBVIOUS and jarring in terms of the narrative flow of the film, and its absence is a good example to use in an argument for those people who don't believe songs add anything in terms of meaning or narrative sense to Hindi film.

Aatank

Aatank (Prem H. Lalwani, 1996)

I knew two things going into watching this film:

1. Aatank is kind of infamous on the internet as “The Bollywood Jaws”. I haven’t even seen Jaws, but seriously? Could I resist the lure of Dharmendra battling a BIG FAKE SHARK?

Totally the money shot. 

Obviously the answer is NO.

2. For some reason, this film has never been released in any format with subtitles. And I could only find it on VCD – so watching Aatank was always going to be ALL ABOUT testing/improving my Hindi comprehension. HOW HARD COULD FOLLOWING A NARRATIVE ABOUT DHARAM WREAKING HAVOC ON A BIG FAKE SHARK BE?

Well.

It turns out that Aatank is apparently about quite a lot more than just a big fake shark. And in fact, what I didn’t know going into this film is the handy fact that my flatmate, who HAS seen Jaws, helpfully pointed out. The one thing Jaws and Aatank definitely have in common: A BIG FAKE SHARK THAT IS HARDLY IN THE FREAKING MOVIE.

Seriously. The best bits of this film are all over the internet, so save yourself a good…100 or so minutes of sharkless, actionless exposition and let Youtube do the hard work for you.

On the plus side – the bits with the shark are FREAKING AWESOME. Look at how…BIG! And FAKE! it is.

I still have no desire to see Jaws. Because it lacks Dharam. And Amjad Khan.

Anyway. Aside from Sharky – or, as Rum likes to refer to it: “Bahut Nakli Machali” (Big Fake Fish), there are like, A MILLION CHARACTERS in Aatank. This – and my sketchy language skills -  may have slightly impacted on my comprehension of the story. But I think I followed it…mostly. EVERYONE is in this movie, so even though the story is kind of…meh, it’s worth watching for the star power, if you are a Hindi celebrity worshipper like me.

The story, as far as I could make out goes like this: Dharmendra

plays Jesu, the hero of the piece. We first meet him as a plucky orphan who takes the blame for some kind of mischief he and his pal Peter (Vinod Mehra)

 Interesting fact: Vinod Mehra is the guy who claimed to be married to Rekha. And Rekha denied it, and claimed he was just a "well-wisher". 

are involved in – when they grow up, Jesu is the best man at Peter’s wedding, only to then witness Peter be EATEN BY A GIANT SHARK only days later (when they are out searching the seas for Peter’s new bride…who went missing while swimming on her wedding day…BECAUSE SHE GOT EATEN BY A GIANT SHARK). Jesu goes awesomely nuts, having just lost his best friend to a freaking massive man eating shark, and all crazy eyes and ranting “Yeh shark marenge!” (That shark's gonna die!) he storms off down to the beach to get vengeance.

Mixed up in there somewhere he also looks after his sister’s kid and falls in love with Hema Malini.

Okay next storyline: why have one villain, when you can have THREE? Amjad Khan,

 I really really love Amjad.

my favourite favourite FAVOURITE film villain plays Alfonso, who is, I think, the kingpin of some kind of smuggling operation; D’Costa (Kader Khan)

 I do NOT love this look on Kader Khan.

and Ranjeet (played by…Ranjeet)

both play his henchmen. These guys were SUPER INTERESTED in black pearls – and at one point they actually FED A DIVER to the shark – so I’m thinking they didn’t actually want Jesu to kill Sharky? Because it was some kind of security protection thing for their illicit black pearl smuggling? Ehhhh, I don’t know, I wasn’t too clear on this part, but I DO know that CBI AGENT RAVI KISSEN INFILTRATED THE BAD GUYS’ GANG,

employing a cunning disguise to fool them!

BUT HOW DOES IT END?

Like this:

I don't really count this as a spoiler.

SHOCKER.

Actually, it all ends quite insanely abruptly. Amjad Khan, as Alfonso, by FAR my favourite character, is ENTIRELY ABSENT from the whole second half of the film except for a couple of token shots of him arriving, inexplicably, on a jetboat at the end to see the shark get slaughtered. Kader Khan as D'Costa is NOWHERE TO BE SEEN. A helicopter explodes for NO REASON except to lend a big flashy explosion to the proceedings, and then BOOM, the shark is dead in a gush of blood, THE END.

See below for why this movie, I think, was never actually ABLE to be finished properly and thus is a sad kind of mess. It's far from awesome; nor is it soooo bad it's a guilty pleasure.It just kind of...happens...until something awesome like BIG FAKE SHARK or Dharam yelling BAAAAASTARD or Amjad just STANDING THERE or Ravi Kissen in a huge fake mustache liven up the proceedings a bit.

A NOTE ON HOW AATANK ACTUALLY ALSO MADE ME QUITE SAD:

In case you didn’t pick it up from the extreme pyaar above, I really am very fond of Amjad Khan.

As soon as his character started speaking in the film, I realized it wasn’t Amjad’s voice, but a different actor dubbing it. Then I saw that Aatank was released in 1996, a good 4 years after Amjad Khan died way too young (he was 51, I think) from a massive heart attack.

The film was obviously shot sometime in the 80s, judging from how Amjad looks (he was involved in a serious car accident in 1976, and struggled with his weight following the accident due to the medication he was put on) compared to how he looked near the end of his life.

For some reason obviously the film was delayed – you can see in a few shots that Dharam and Hema have filmed scenes YEARS later.

 Dharam looks a bit older and more haggard compared to the 80s hottie of the pics above.

 Hema holds up a bit better. But you can tell this is years later. COME ON.

I'm thinking the film was NEARLY finished, but NOT FINISHED, sometime in the 80s when something delayed proceedings - like running out of money, or a lack of interest in big fake shark movies, or something, and the project was shelved.

And then for some reason in 1996, someone thought it was a great time to revive it. Despite the fact that  the entire film obviously needed to be dubbed, and two of the major character actors had sadly died in the interim (Vinod Mehra also died too young, also of a heart attack I think), plus I am pretty sure someone else dubs Kader Khan's voice too;  despite the fact that filming was clearly NOT FINISHED - hence the absence of MAJOR CHARACTERS from the second half...

it's kind of astounding. And it STILL HAPPENS! This November a Govinda/Priyanka film called Junoon is allegedly being released, after sitting on the shelves for 5 years. It...does not fill me with the joy you'd expect, having seen the HOT MESS that is Aatank.