Ghajini (2008 film)

Ghajini
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	A. R. Murugadoss
Produced by	Tagore Madhu Madhu Mantena
Written by	A. R. Murugadoss
Starring	Aamir Khan Asin Thottumkal Jiah Khan Pradeep Rawat Riyaz Khan
Music by	A. R. Rahman
Cinematography	Ravi K. Chandran
Editing by	Anthony Gonsalves
Distributed by	Geetha Arts (India) Reliance Entertainment (Overseas)
Release date(s)	India 25 December 2008 United States 23 December 2008 UK 23 December 2008
Running time	183 minutes
Country	India
Language	Hindi
Budget	65 crore (US$14.3 million)
Box office	190 crore (US$41.8 million)

Ghajini (Hindi: गजनी) is a 2008 Hindi romantic action drama film written and directed by A. R. Murugadoss and produced by Tagore Madhu and Madhu Mantena. The Soundtrack and film's score is by A. R. Rahman. It is a remake of Murugadoss's own 2005 Tamil film Ghajini starring Surya Sivakumar in the lead role. The film stars Aamir Khan, Asin Thottumkal and Jiah Khan in lead roles while Pradeep Rawat and Riyaz Khan essay supporting roles. The Tamil version of Ghajini was inspired by Christopher Nolan's Memento. Aamir Khan spent a year at the gym, training for the role.

The film is an action movie, with strong romantic elements, that explores the life of a rich businessman who develops anterograde amnesia following a violent encounter in which his love interest, model Kalpana, was killed. He tries to avenge the killing with the aid of Polaroid Instant camera photographs and permanent tattoos on his body. The character of Aamir Khan also featured in a 3D video game titled Ghajini - The Game, which is based on the movie. Ghajini is currently the seventh highest grossing Bollywood film according to worldwide gross collections.

Plot

The film opens with Sunita (Jiah Khan), a medical student, and her friends working on a project about the human brain. She wants to investigate the curious case of Sanjay Singhania (Aamir Khan), a (former) notable city businessman, who is reported to have anterograde amnesia. Her professor denies access to Sanjay's records as it is currently under criminal investigation. Sunita, nonetheless, decides to investigate the matter herself.

Sanjay is introduced as he brutally murders a man. He takes a Polaroid picture of the man, and writes on it "done". It is revealed that Sanjay has anterograde amnesia where he loses his memory every 15 minutes. Sanjay uses a system of photographs, notes, and tattoos on his body to recover his memory after each cycle. It is revealed that Sanjay is ultimately out to avenge the death of his sweetheart Kalpana (Asin), and that he is systematically killing the people who were responsible for it. His main target is "Ghajini" (Pradeep Rawat), a notable social personality in the city.

Police Inspector Arjun Yadav, on the case of the serial murders, tracks Sanjay down to his flat and attacks and disables him. Yadav finds two diaries where Sanjay has chronicled the events of 2005 and 2006. The film flashes back to 2005 as Yadav reads the diary. Sanjay Singhania is shown as the owner of the Air Voice mobile telephone company. In the course of his business, Sanjay sends his men to meet Kalpana, a struggling model, about putting up a billboard above her apartment. The owner of Kalpana's advertising firm misinterprets this as a romantic advance, and in view of a possible lucrative Air Voice ad campaign and other benefits, encourages Kalpana to accept the overture. Kalpana thinks of this as an innocent prank that may fetch her better modeling work, and decides to play out the charade as Sanjay's girlfriend. As soon as Sanjay knows of this matter, he decides to confront Kalpana but falls in love with her on first sight. Thus, he introduces himself as Sachin. Eventually both of them hang aroung together and gradually develop a liking towards each other. The diary ends with Sanjay proposing Kalpana and promising himself to tell her that he himself is Sanjay Singhania if she would accept the proposal.

When Yadav is about to read the 2006 diary, Sanjay returns to senses, attacks him and ties him up. He tracks down Ghajini to a college function where Ghajini is the guest of honor. Sanjay took pictures of Ghajini and decides to kill him. He meets Sunita at the function who, after some conversation, decides to befriend him. Later that evening, Sanjay mistakenly attacks and kills one of Ghajini's goons in the parking lot. Ghajini is perplexed and fails to recollect the incident. However he decides to find and kill his enemies one by one, but Sanjay is not among them.

In the meantime, Sunita visits Sanjay's flat and finds Yadav, beaten and bound. Sunita finds the two diaries and frees Yadav. She also finds that Ghajini is Sanjay's target. Yadav tells her that Sanjay is a known serial murderer. Sanjay arrives suddenly; he remembers neither of them and chases them out. Yadav is eventually hit by a bus, while Sunita barely escapes, going into a boutique. Believing Ghajini is in danger, she informs him that Sanjay is after him. Ghajini arrives at Sanjay's flat to kill him. He destroys all the photographs, notes and scratches off Sanjay's tattoos. Satisfied that he has neutralized Sanjay by wiping out any trace that connects back to him, Ghajini leaves.

Meanwhile, back in her dorm, Sunita reads the diaries. The film flashes fast to 2005 then back to 2006. It is revealed that Kalpana had accepted Sanjay's proposal. This diary ends abruptly. Sunita investigates further, and discovers that Kalpana was traveling to Goa for a modeling assignment by train when she came upon 25 innocent young girls being trafficked to Goa. She saves the girls who name Ghajini as the ringleader of the racket. Ghajini kills two girls, who recognized him, and goes in search of Kalpana. His goons break into her apartment and wait for her to return. Sanjay arrives there to meet Kalpana. Her last word to him was "Ghajini". The goons attack Kalpana. Sanjay intervenes but Ghajini hits him over the head with an iron rod. Sanjay's last vision was to witness Ghajini brutally murder Kalpana with the iron rod.

Sunita, now aware of the shocking truth, finds Sanjay in the hospital and tells him the truth. He flies into a rage and he told her to lead him to Ghajini. Arriving at Ghajini's lair in downtown Mumbai, Sanjay confronts all of Ghajini's henchmen and with superior strength, manages to disable. Finding Ghajini himself, Sanjay fights Ghajini hand-to-hand. However, Ghajini realizes that he is no match for Sanjay's strength, so the two engage in a chase until Sanjay's memory loss strikes again. Ghajini turns around and stabs him. He begins to taunt the stabbed Sanjay with the grisly tale of how he murdered Kalpana, when Sanjay, with a sudden burst of last minute strength, overpowers Ghajini. Sanjay kills Ghajini in the same way as Ghajini had killed Kalpana.

The film ends with Sanjay, still experiencing amnesia, volunteering at an orphanage. Sunita gives him a gift which is the cement slab on which Kalpana and Sanjay impressioned their first footprints when the couple moved into a new apartment to remind him of his fond association with Kalpana.

Cast

• Aamir Khan as Sanjay Singhania, a rich business man; the chairman of a mobile phone company, Air Voice. He is also Sachin in the eyes of Kalpana, who hides his identity unless she will accept his engagement. Later in the story, he suffers from short term memory loss which means he forgets all the events that had happened 15 minutes ago.
• Asin as Kalpana, a model by profession who gains publicity by proclaiming herself to be the girlfriend of Sanjay Singhania, which is not really true. She never knew the truth that her boyfriend, Sachin, was actually Sanjay Singhania himself, even till her death.
• Jiah Khan as Sunita, a medical student, who is trying to study the case of Sanjay Singhania and his amnesiac problem.
• Pradeep Rawat as Ghajini Dharmatma, a gang honcho and the mastermind of many illegal and criminal ventures.
• Riyaz Khan as Inspector Arjun. A police inspector who is investigating the murders by Sanjay Singhania.

Production

The film's shooting started in Chennai in May 2007. Other filming locations included Bangalore, Cape Town, Deadpan Desert and Mumbai.

Release

Ghajini was released on 25 December 2008 with an estimated 1500 prints worldwide, including 1200 prints in the domestic market, making it the largest Bollywood release at that time. The domestic rights were sold to Geetha Arts for 53 crore, while satellite,overseas and home media rights were sold at a total sum of 40 crore, breaking the records of Shah Rukh Khan starrer Om Shanti Om's 73 crore. The overseas distributors, Reliance Entertainment released the film with 300 prints in 22 countries, including 112 prints in USA and Canada, 65 prints in the UK and 36 prints in UAE. The film was also released in Norway, Germany, Denmark, Netherlands, Belgium, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Singapore. The film had around 650 paid previews which fetched it around 7 crore.

Home media

The 2-disc collector's edition DVD was manufactured by Big Home Video and distributed by international distributor, Adlabs Films Ltd on 13 March 2009 with a MSRP of $19.99 USD. It received a 15+ age rating by the British Board of Film Classification for persistent and excessive violence.

Video game

A PC video game based on the film was manufactured and produced by FXLabs Studios Pvt Ltd and Geetha Arts, and marketed and distributed by Eros Home Entertainment, entitled Ghajini - The Game. It is a third-person action game consisting of five levels of play, here the player controlled the protagonist Sanjay to accomplish various missions using martial arts, weapons, and artifacts. It was hailed as India's first true 3D PC game with an MSRP of US$14.99, although never officially rated, the distributor recommends that 15+ year old players partake in the game.

Mobile content

Indiagames Ghajini is a mobile games and applications based on the film. Indiagames has developed 4 games and 1 application based on the title on the mobile platform. It has different types of games like Ultimate Workout, Memory Revival, Brain Trek, and a number of mini games.

Reception

Critical response

The film received generally positive reviews from critics. Sonia Chopra of Sify gave the movie 3.5 stars and recommended watching it "For the four As—Aamir, Asin, AR Murgadoss and AR Rahman". Rajeev Masand of CNN IBN gave the movie 3 stars writing, "Ghajini isn't a particularly good film, but entertainment it delivers by the bucketful." Martin D'Souza of Bollywood Trade News Network gave the movie 3.5 stars, noting the flaws in screen play, while praising the action. Taran Adarsh of Bollywood Hungama remarked that the movie "is a winner all the way" and gave it 4.5 stars. Nikhat Kazmi of The Times of India praised the performance by Aamir Khan as its high point, and awarded 3.5 stars. Zee News described Aamir's performance as his best till date. Sukanya Verma of Rediff gave the movie 3.5 stars, while describing the film as "a sleek album of dark memories, which are terrifying to relive and shattering to experience". Noyon Jyoti Parasara of AOL India said, "Most comparisons often point out that a remake is not as worthy.Ghajini however succeeds when it is compared to the Tamil version directed by the same director." Anupama Chopra of NDTV said "Ghajini isn't a great film or even a very good one but I recommend that you see it. It is, as we used to say in the old days, paisa vasool. Kaveree Bamzai of India Today quoted that "This is brutality, choreographed by a poet, and therefore that much more compelling." giving it 3.5 stars

The film also received some mixed and negative reviews. Gaurav Malani of Indiatimes gave the movie 2 stars, criticizing its length while praising the performance of the cast. Raja Sen of Rediff rated the movie 2.5/5 and criticized the performance of Asin while concluding, "overwhelming feeling is one of regret". Shubhra Gupta of Express India concluded that 'Ghajini' is too long, too violent, and criticized Jiah Khan's acting and dancing skills, but praised the performances of Aamir Khan and Asin. Hindustan Times gave it 2 stars and said "You’d like to give Ghajini a long-term memory loss. Kya, kyon, kahan? Murugadoss.? Aamir? Asin? Who? Got to jog my memory... maybe after 15 minutes."

Box office

Trade analyst Komal Nahta estimated the film's first week collections to be 62 crore. According to Box Office India, Ghajini's box-office gross totals were 155 crore in India, and over 35 crore overseas, for a total worldwide gross collection of 190 crore (US$41.8 million). It is currently the seventh highest-grossing Bollywood film of all time according to worldwide gross collections. The film was declared as an "all-time blockbuster" worldwide.

Influences

The original Tamil version of Ghajini was inspired by the American film Memento, which itself was adapted from the short story Memento Mori. The film stars Guy Pearce as Leonard Shelby, a former insurance fraud investigator searching for the man he believes raped and killed his wife during a burglary. Leonard suffers from anterograde amnesia, which he contracted from severe head trauma during the attack on his wife. Certain concepts like writing notes behind instant Polaroid photographs and tattooing facts on his body were inspired by the film. According to Aamir Khan, "Ghajini is not a remake or even slightly inspired by Memento, but it's a remake of the Tamil film, Ghajini".

Several comical scenes in the film are similar to Happy Go Lovely (1951). The scene where Kalpana (Asin Thottumkal) helps a blind man to cross the road is also similar to the French film Amélie.

Soundtrack

Main article: Ghajini (soundtrack)

The film has six songs composed by A. R. Rahman, with lyrics by Prasoon Joshi. While Harris Jayaraj scored the Tamil version, Rahman started from scratch for the Hindi version. The soundtrack album was released on 24 November 2008 by T-Series.

Awards

• Star Screen Award for Most Promising Newcomer - Female, Asin Thottumkal
• Stardust Superstar of Tomorrow - Female, Asin Thottumkal
• Stardust Hottest New Filmmaker, A.R. Murugadoss
• Stardust Hottest New Film Award, Ghajini
• Filmfare Best Female Debut Award, Asin Thottumkal
• Filmfare Best Action Award, Peter Hein
• IIFA Best Female Debut, Asin Thottumkal
• IIFA Best Villain Award, Pradeep Rawat

External links

• Film Review on Devildead (French)
• Ghajini at the Internet Movie Database
• Ghajini at Rotten Tomatoes
• Ghajini at AllRovi
• Ghajini at Box Office Mojo