MR INDIA

Publicity poster for Mr India on Blu-Ray (© Shekhar Kapur/Narsimha Enterprises)

Two of the most famous and successful of all Bollywood Hindi musicals are Maine Pyar Kiya (1989) and Mr India (1987). I have seen the former movie several times and have it on DVD with English subtitles, but although many years ago I taped Mr India from TV, after gamely watching the first hour or so of it (it is nearly 3 hours long) I had to concede defeat, because its very detailed plot was too confusing without English subtitles. Just over a month ago, however, I saw on ebay the official Mr India DVD, which does have subtitles, so although it was expensive I treated myself, and it arrived not long afterwards. On 4 July 2020, I sat back, pressed 'Play' on my DVD player's remote control, and just three hours later I'd finally watched Mr India, understood it, and enjoyed it immensely. True, the plot has several Grand Canyonesque holes in it, but any movie featuring an invisible super-hero is not to be taken seriously and suspending disbelief is de rigueur, so I didn't and I did.

Directed by Shekhar Kapur, Mr India tells the story of a philanthropic, good-hearted young man named Arun (played by Bollywood megastar Anil Kapoor), who was a street orphan as a child, raising himself in poverty but becoming a skilled violin player, a skill that earns him money as a teacher in adulthood, and helps pay the rent on a big old coastal house where he raises a host of orphans rescued by him from the streets to save them from the miserable childhood and deprivations that he had suffered. Eventually, however, his money runs out so he rents out the room on the top floor to a journalist named Seema (played by Sridevi, popularly dubbed Indian cinema's first female superstar), who is by no means a fan of children in general but grows to like Arun's and Arun himself.

Meanwhile, a Ming the Merciless-type super villain named Mogambo (Amrish Puri) plans to bring India crashing to its knees by flooding it with drugs, weapons, and poisoned food to create anarchy and enable him to proclaim himself King of India, its absolute ruler. However, and for reasons that are never made clear, he desires Arun's house as a base (why that particular one out of the innumerable similar coastal houses in India?), and goes to great lengths to evict him and the children. At the same time, it turns out that Arun's long-dead father was actually a scientist who had been murdered years ago by some of Mogambo's henchmen (explaining why Arun had become a homeless orphan) in a bungled, failed attempt to steal his secret formula for invisibility.

Now, out of the blue, Arun receives covert details from his father's former assistant concerning a special watch that his father had made using his special formula, which when worn and activated by pressing a button will render its wearer invisible until the button is pressed again (the 1970s TV series Gemini Man comes to mind here). So Arun duly sets out to recover the watch, which he does. He then secretly uses it in a series of rescues and other plots against Mogambo's men, referring to himself when in invisible super-hero mode as Mr India. Needless to say, the egomaniacal Mogambo does not take kindly to Mr India's success in thwarting his plans, eventually leading to an action-packed climax that is explosive in every sense!

Threaded through the many twists and turns of this much-tangled tale are several extravagantly staged songs composed by celebrated Indian songwriting duo Laxmikant Shantaram Kudalkar and Pyarelai Ramprasad Sharma, with lyrics by Javed Akhtar. The most famous of these are 'Hawa Hawai' (featuring Seema in disguise as a cabaret-style dancer - click here to watch this scene on YouTube) and (especially) 'Kaante Nahi Kat Te Din Yeh Raat' ('I Love You'), one of the most celebrated of all Bollywood musical songs (click here to watch this scene on YouTube). Its lavish staging features Seema writhing sensually in some hay and getting her clinging sari even more clinging after it becomes soaking wet when she risks catching her death of cold by dancing in a fountain in the rain, as you do, while an invisible Arun as Mr India sings seductively to her but has the good sense not to join her dancing in the fountain or in the rain (incidentally, at this stage in the proceedings Seema has no idea that Arun and Mr India are one and the same person, adding further to the intrigue).

All in all, Mr India is a decidedly surreal and often zany movie, yet well worth sitting through its lengthy running time. But if you don't have three hours to spare right now, why not check out the official Mr India 25^th anniversary trailer by clicking here, which does an awesome job of compressing the entire movie into just under 5 minutes!

And to view a complete listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE!