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Ghajini (Hindi: गजनी) is a 2008 Bollywood film directed by Murugadoss and produced under Geetha Arts. It is a remake of the Tamil film with the same name, which was also directed by Murugadoss. The plot of Ghajini is inspired by the American film Memento, written and directed by Christopher Nolan. It stars Aamir Khan, Asin Thottumkal and Jiah Khan in lead roles while Pradeep Rawat and Riyaz Khan essay supporting roles. Aamir Khan spent a year at the gym, continuously training with his personal trainer for the role.
The movie is an action-thriller, 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 will also feature in a 3-D video game titled Ghajini The Game, which is based on the movie.[1]
Synopsis
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.
The story goes forward through flashback as Sunita reads Sanjay's diary between 2005 and 2006. The flashback starts with Sanjay Singhania, who is a successful businessman and owner of Air Voice company .Sanjay sends his men to put up an ad on an apartment. Kalpana, a struggling model, is the resident of this apartment. She takes up the offer in the hope of developing her career through it. Sanjay and Kalpana meet and Kalpana decides to act as Sanjay Singhania's girlfriend for fame and to boost her career. Sanjay introduces himself as Sachin, a normal guy looking for a job. Soon Kalpana and Sanjay begin falling in love with each other. Sanjay proposes to herwill tell her his true identity or he will leave. Kalpana accepts his proposal. After that, the diary comes to an abrupt stop. While flipping through the pages, Sunita reads about how Kalpana found out about a prostitution racket wherein small girls were being transported to Goa for the purpose by Ghajini, an important member of the society but is actually a gang honcho. Kalpana saves the girls and this angers Ghajini. He sets out to murder Kalpana, who had ruined his plans. Sanjay was also there by coincidence and witnessed the incident of Kalpana's brutal murder. Seconds later, his head was hit by a heavy iron rod. This injury caused his anterograde amnesia which persisted. Sunita had previously warned Ghajini about the danger he faced from Sanjay and Ghajini had scratched out all of Sanjay's tattoos and destroyed all proof against him. But when Sunita comes to know his reality, she decided to help Sanjay. With her help, Sanjay is able to kill Ghajini and his henchmen thus avenging the death of Kalpana. The film ends on a happy note where Sanjay is seen in an orphanage and Sunita gifts him the cement slab of plaster on which Kalpana and Sanjay had pressed their feet on to mark their entry into a new apartment.
Cast
- Aamir Khan as Sanjay Singhania. Sanjay Singhania is a rich business man; the Chairman of a mobile phone service provider company, Air Voice. Sanjay falls in love with Kalpana, who later is murdered. In the same incident, Sanjay develops a type of amnesia which makes him forget all the events that had happened 15 minutes ago following a firm blow to his head by an iron rod. After undergoing rehabilitation, Sanjay Singhania becomes obsessed with avenging the murder of his girlfriend and to combat his disability, he has tattoos spread over his torso to help him remember what his intentions are. Aamir Khan went through a tough fitness regime for the right physique for the role, and trained regularly with a personal trainer in his own home gym, resulting in the perfect physique in which he spotted 16 inch arms and 8 pack abdominals.
- Asin Thottumkal as Kalpana. Kalpana is a model in fashion by profession and gains publicity by proclaiming herself to be the girlfriend of the successful entrepreneur, Sanjay Singhania. She later unknowingly falls in love with Sanjay, mistaking him to be a commoner, Sachin. Kalpana, showcased as a kind-hearted person, becomes involved with Ghajini and his henchmen after foiling their plot to sell the kidneys of girls . Kalpana is killed in front of Sanjay by , and subsequently so creating the theme of avengement, which forms the crux of the plot.
- Jiah Khan as Dr.Sunita. Sunita is a medical student, who even though not given permission to, tries to study the case of Sanjay Singhania and his amnesiac problem. She appears throughout the film as she attempts to unravel Sanjay's mysteries and past life and goes places to find more information about the psychiatric patient she wants to meet. Despite initial friction between Sanjay and herself, she then helps Sanjay meets Ghajini.
- Pradeep Rawat as Ghajini Dharmatma. Ghajini is the serial killer who brutally killed Kalpana for insulting him and ruining his plans. He is a gang honcho with lots of contacts and minions. In the movie, he is depicted to have been the mastermind of many illegal and criminal ventures.
- Riyaz Khan as Inspector Arjun. Arjun plays the cameo of a police inspector who investigates the murders by Sanjay Singhania. He also learns about some of Sanjay's past life but is killed in an accident, later in the movie.
Release
Box office
Ghajini was released on the 25th of December 2008 with an estimated 1500 prints, of which 213 were released to overseas markets. The movie had around 650 paid previews which fetched it around INR 70 million. The domestic distribution rights of Ghajini were sold by Geetha Arts for INR 530 million and home video rights as well as overseas rights and satellite rights for another 500 million to Adlabs Films Ltd.
According to Box Office Mojo Ghajini's box-office totals were about Rs.100 crores. Ghajini has done about 115 crores net in India and over 35 crores in Overseas. Its total worldwide gross collection is over 140 crores. It is the Second Highest Grossing movie in Indian History and stands as the 4th All Time Grosser when inflation is taken in account.
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.[2]
Video game
A video game for the PC was manufactured and produced by FXLabs Studios Pvt Ltd and Geetha Arts and marketed and distributed by Eros Home Entertainment entitled Ghajini - The Game. The game is based on the movie which is a first person perspective game consisting of five levels of play, here the player controlled the protagonist Sanjay to accomplish various missions using martial arts, weapons, and artifacts similar to the Hitman games.[3] It was hailed as India's first true 3D PC game with an MSRP of $14.99 USD, although never officially rated the distributor recommends that 15+ year old players partake in the game.[4]
Inspiration
Ghajini and the original namesake film in Tamil , both these films were based on 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 has 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.
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 in it like Ultimate Workout, Memory Revival, Brain Trek, and a number of Mini Games.
Music
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 this Hindi version.
Reception
The album received positive reviews from critics and fans. Bollywood Hungama gave an extremely positive review saying, "The music of Ghajini is all set to make waves way into 2009 after the Christmas release of the film. When 'best of the best' list would be compiled at the year end, it would be hard to ignore Ghajini."[5] Rediff.com gave it the highest possible rating of five stars with the reviewer praising Rahman saying, "This could just be one of his finest albums ever. Not just are the tracks great, but each one segues into the next with perfect unpredictability."[6]
Tracks
Awards
See also
References
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