Karan Arjun (DVD)

Karan and Arjun are brothers living with their mother Durga. As adults they are murdered by their uncle who also killed their father to take over the boys' inheritance from their paternal grandfather. In her grief, Durga, becomes obsessed with praying to God and miles away and unrelated her boys are reborn. Years later, Karan & Arjun meet and feeling they know each other, they somehow end up in the village from their last life and meet Durga who ...
...out there, but films like Karan Arjun makes it seem as if rich landowners can go around killing whomever they please to, never mind the fact that the people they killed were not street urchins (not that that should make any difference) but the actual rightful owners of the land.

Not wanting to harp on about the huge part of the storyline that annoyed me, I'll talk about the characters in the film.

Karan and Arjun are ... more

Karan and Arjun are brothers living with their mother Durga. As adults they are murdered by their uncle who also killed their father to take over the boys' inheritance from their paternal grandfather. In her grief, Durga, becomes obsessed with praying to God and miles away and unrelated her boys are reborn. Years later, Karan & Arjun meet and feeling they know each other, they somehow end up in the village from their last life and meet Durga who seems to have become a madwoman.

Will the boys realise they were brothers in a previous life? Will they recognise their "mother? Will they avenge their father and their own murders and get justice for Durga? Or will they meet the same fate and die again?

To analyse this film I found myself pondering reincarnation and do I believe in it? Sometimes I think I do, but more often, I don't. When I do think I believe in it, I certainly don't believe that you can remember in your present life what happened in your past life and here we have a film which is expecting us as viewers to believe that the power of a mother's love is so strong that her sons can be reborn and eventually grow up and come and find her. If the mother's love was so strong why did her murdered sons not magically come back to life - that actually would have been easier for me to stomach (in a Bollywood film anyway). But no, we have to wait 17 or 18 years for them to grow up elsewhere and come back to find her (with different names) and look EXACTLY the same as they did in their previous lives, thereby freaking out everyone connected with their murder (in their previous lives not their current ones, keep up with me now) and not really surprising mother dearest all that much as she knew they "would come back one day" to avenge the wrongs done in the past.

Never mind that I found all of that hard to stomach, I was generally more annoyed with the fact that all these crimes had taken place and oh, the murderers don't go to prison. Are we expected to believe in India, a country which has progressed so far in recent years will still allow murders to take place and the murderers not to be punished? As someone of Indian origin and brought up in Western society, I feel irked that Indian society is portrayed as still living in the dark ages. I've been to India - there is a justice system out there, but films like Karan Arjun makes it seem as if rich landowners can go around killing whomever they please to, never mind the fact that the people they killed were not street urchins (not that that should make any difference) but the actual rightful owners of the land.

Not wanting to harp on about the huge part of the storyline that annoyed me, I'll talk about the characters in the film.

Karan and Arjun are played by Salman and Shah Rukh Khan respectively (not related). They are considered to be A list actors these days. In 1995 (which is when this film was released) Shah Rukh Khan was fairly new to the industry and starting to make a good name for himself whereas Salman Khan had been around for a while already and was quite well established. Putting them together in a dual starrer film might have been a good idea but personally I was not overly impressed with either stars' acting abilities in this film. A lot of it was down to their dialogue which isn't their fault I suppose - I mean they can only work with the script they're given! Salman was nominated for a Filmfare Award as Best Actor for his role (although he didn't win) but the film didn't win any other awards - it was really not their best work as both actors had had several big hits under their belt already - maybe the big boys in Bollywood assumed whatever the two stars touched would turn to gold. How wrong they were! I would add that both actors have had many hits since this film and won many awards for acting. Personally I've never particularly like Salman Khan - he overacts a bit too much but apart from in this film, I've always found Shah Rukh Khan very easy to watch.

Rakhee Gulzar starred as Durga, the boys' mother. She was a Bollywood heroine herself throughout the 70s and 80s but was never someone I rated personally as an actress as I always felt that she overdid it in whichever roles I've seen her in. She has a very whiney voice which I find irritating (Bollywood fans all over the world, don't strike me down please) and I found myself wanting to mute the volume every time she was on screen. I thought as a mother figure she might be easier to watch but no, she had way too much screen time for my liking and her histrionics were way over the top for me to handle. Are you getting the feeling I didn't like this film too much?

In between all these plotting and reincarnation and reunions scenes there were of course the love interests for our heroes - played by Kajol and Mamta Kulkarni - they didn't have especially big roles - but they played their parts well enough. Kajol is an A list star these days and it was nice to see her in one of her earlier roles, whereas Mamta Kulkarni had a reputation for being mostly an item girl (someone who is mostly a seductress in a song and dance routine in a Bollywood film) and did not do so well due to lots of controversy in her short lived acting career.

Amrish Puri played the biggest villain in the film and as usual he was very adept at carrying off the bad guy role. He excels in these types of roles which is why he's been cast in them over the decades. Bollywood lost one of its best baddies when he passed away in 2005. Every act of evil you can imagine from a bad guy, every cliché, seems to be a trait of Puri's murderous villain. I bet he relished playing that character! Some of you might have seen him in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom in which he played Mola Ram.

Some of the other supporting cast in the film were Kiron Kher, John Gabriel, Ranjeet, Dinesh Hingoo, the ever annoying token comedian Johnny Lever and the very amusingly named Salim Khan Ding-Dong.

The film had quite a few songs in it which were all pleasant enough and the costumes worn were bright and colourful but nothing really memorable. Playback singers included: Lata Mangeshkar, Udit Narayan, Kumar Sanu, Sadhana Sargam and Alka Yagnik. The music score was by Rajesh Roshan.

Karan Arjun was produced and directed by Rakesh Roshan (father of Bollywood star Hrithik Roshan). Not one of his better films I would say for sure - but who am I to say all this about a film which was apparently a pretty big hit in its time. To me, it hasn't dated well. At just over 160 minutes, it was 100 minutes too long for me! Out of 10 I'd only rate this a meagre 4 and I think I'm being generous with that rating.

If you want to purchase the DVD it's available from Amazon for £19.99 or from musichouseltd.co.uk for £5.99 or you could try your usual DVD rental source. Karan Arjun is rated PG for UK viewers. 

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