It's raining remakes

By Rinky Kumar, Team iDiva


It's time for remakes in Bollywood. (Actually, when was it not?!) While the Hindi film industry has always been inspired by Hollywood, it's now seeking inspiration from its own repository of yesteryear blockbusters.
Actor-producer Sohail Khan is planning to remake the super hit Satte pe Satta with elder bro Salman Khan all set to play the role of Amitabh Bachchan. David Dhawan will don the director's hat for this movie that was originally inspired from the 1954 musical Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.

Sajid Khan's soon-to-be-released Housefull starring a plethora of stars like Akshay Kumar, Lara Dutta, Deepika Padukone, Jiah Khan, Arjun Rampal and Ritesh Deshmukh is inspired by the all-time hit Chupke Chupke. The Hrishikesh Mukherji directed film had stalwarts like Dharmendra, Amitabh Bachchan, Jaya Bachchan, Sharmila Tagore and Om Prakash.

Apart from this, Karan Johar is all set to remake Hollywood superhit Stepmom. Kajol and Kareena Kapoor will reprise the roles of Susan Sarandon and Julia Roberts. The duo will be seen together after they made an appearance in Kabhie Khushi Kabhie Gham. That's not all.

The 2003 Hollywood flick Phone Booth is being remade into Knockout by director Mani Shankar. Irrfan Khan plays the role enacted by Colin Farrell in the original, Sanjay Dutt plays a cop while Kangana Ranaut will be seen as a television journalist.

We take a look at some popular remakes of yesteryear Hindi and Hollywood films that have managed to win rave reviews.

Don -The chase begins again This Shah Rukh Khan starrer was a remake of the 1978 film Don. SRK played the dual roles that were originally portrayed by Amitabh Bachchan. The Farhan Akhtar-directed flick kept us glued to our seats with its action sequences and surprise ending. Though SRK went overboard with his acting skills, Arjun Rampal and Priyanka Chopra gave decent performances. Kareena Kapoor, however failed to match up to Helen's sexy moves to Yeh mera dil pyaar ka deewana. She ended up looking fat and boring!

Parineeta

This Saif Ali Khan and Vidya Balan starrer was a remake of the 1932 film by the same name. The original saw Ashok Kumar and Meena Kumari play the lead roles. The new film was directed by ad filmmaker Pradeep Sarkar. Vidya and Saif shared a sizzling chemistry and won critical reviews for their natural performances. Shantanu Moitra's lilting music had an old world feel about it. However it lacked the simplicity of the original.

Ek Hasina Thi The Sridhar Raghavan directed film was loosely inspired by Double Jeopardy. Urmila Matondkar played the role that was originally portrayed by Ashley Judd. Saif Ali Khan was effective as the uber sexy villain. The tight screenplay penned by Raghavan kept us riveted. Urmila and Saif won several nominations for their acting prowess. The remake was however slow paced as compared to the original.

Chak De India Very few people know that this Yashraj film was a remake of the 2004 film Miracle. Shah Rukh Khan played the role of a coach that was portrayed by Kurt Russel in the original. The original was based on a true story of the 1980 US Olympic ice hockey team winning the gold medal by defeating Soviet Union and Finland. The desi version had the Indian women's team defeating Australia. SRK and his gang of girls gave a superlative performance. However it was hard to believe that a coach could bind an all women's team so effortlessly within such a short span of time!

Teen Deewarein

The Nagesh Kukoonoor film was inspired by The Shawshank Redemption, which in turn was based on a Stephen King novella. The desi version had Nagesh, Naseeruddin Shah and Jackie Shroff play the lead roles. Shah gave a stellar performance. Juhi Chawla was seen on the big screen after a long time. While the film had a surprise ending, the audience was quite peeved with its slow pace.