Chowrangi

There is no doubt that Bollywood has been a very popular film industry since its inception and not only indian nation but it has fans all around the world. People in Pakistan also prefer watching indian movies rather than Pakistani ones (esp. the gujjar kind) as they offer variety of subjects and speak out boldly about the topics that we don’t want to discuss openly. But the credit also goes to the hollywood movie makers who address such issues in their movies which bollywood copies.

Bollywood is the informal name given to the popular Mumbai based Hindi language film industry in India. Bollywood is often incorrectly used to refer to the whole of Indian cinema; it is only a part of the Indian film industry. Bollywood is one of the largest film producers in the world, producing more than 1,000 films a year, with an audience of 3.6 billion people.

Bollywood is an extremely vast industry with new ideas and new films. But now the ideas have dried up to some extent. Many of the recent films are mostly copy or have inspired from English movies or other international movies. In some occasions, they may recreate their own work from earlier films. Sometimes the copying is merely a matter of imitating theme or style, its not strictly plagiarism. However, tunes or scenes may be copied wholesale, without credit or payment to the original author.

Bollywood these days are giving lot of efforts to curb the rampant piracy in India. Hopefully these original movie makers do not campaign against them for curbing this piracy; else many of the producers/directors will be behind bars!

Many of the movies made in Bollywood are blatantly copied or partially plagiarized (from other movies). Some of them just take some inspiration and some of them are simply a remake and some even go to the extent of copying the original movie scene-by-scene. This article is an attempt to create a list of such copycat inspirations.

Following is a list of copies (as opposed to inspirations):

Aaja Nachle—-Xuxa Requebra

Akele Hum Akele Tum—Kramer Vs. Kramer

Badshah — Nick of Time, Rush Hour etc.

Bheja Fry — The Dinner Game English

Dus — Copy of Kevin Spacey’s Role in The Usual Suspects

Ek Ajnabee — Man on Fire

Kaante — Reservoir Dogs

The Killer — Collateral

Koi…Mil Gaya — the major concept is copied from Extra Terrestrial (E.T) some of the scenes are even copied from Flubber, Independence Day and Forest Gump.

Main Aisa Hi Hoon—I am Sam

Malamaal Weekly—Waking Ned (Irish)

Manorama Six Feet Under — Chinatown

Metro — The Apartment.

Naqaab — Dot the I

Paap — Witness

Partner — Hitch

Sangharsh — The Silence of the Lambs

Zeher — Out of Time

Zinda — Oldboy (Korean)

Khoon bhari Maang— Scene-for-scene remake of the cult Australian mini series Return to Eden.

Chamatkaar — Copy of Disney movie Blackbard’s Ghost.

Kohra — Copy of Rebecca complete plot similar just changed ending.

Musafir – U Turn

Naina — The Eye

Krissh — Paycheck

Padmashree Lalu Prasad Yadav — A Fish Called Wanda, most of the scenes are copied

Phir Milenge — Pliladelphia

Pyaar tu ne kya kiya — Fatal Attraction

Pyar to hona hi tha — French Kiss

Rang de Basanti — All My Sons

Hum Koun Hain — The Others

Aiteraz — Disclosure

Jism — Body Heat

The list doesn’t end here these movies have same concepts, same dialogues with a little itsy bitsy change e.g. in Kramer vs. Kramer, a housewife leaves her husband to care for their son while she goes off to find herself. In Akele Hum Akele Tum, a housewife leaves her husband to care for their son to resume her career as a singer. In both movies, the wife eventually sues for divorce and custody of the child. The husband fights desperately to keep the child, to whom he has become a fully committed parent. Some scenes were copied in toto, such as a scene in Kramer vs. Kramer in which the hapless husband tries to make French toast for breakfast and botches it completely. In Akele Hum Akele Tum, this becomes a botched omelette

However, the Indian movie has a long section detailing how the parents meet, fall in love, and marry, which is completely absent in the Hollywood movie. The added material tries to cast the abandoning wife in a much better light, as a woman driven to leave by an uncaring husband. The endings also differ. In the Hollywood movie, the husband wins custody. In the Bollywood movie, the wife wins, then makes a last minute volte-face and decides to re-unite the family. The Bollywood movie also has much added material, much of it a sardonic look at the Indian film industry.

In Zinda a man is imprisoned for 14 years by persons unknown, then freed and given four days to hit large numbers of people with a hammer until he discovers the reason for his suffering. The similarities between Zinda and Oldboy was such that the makers of Oldboy were reported to be considering legal action.

Maalamal Weekly Director Priyadarshan, having made his name in Bollywood with remakes of his early Malayalam films and other Malayalam films directed by others, was so confident that his newest screenplay would be considered “totally n absolutely original”that he offered an unspecified cash prize to anyone who could prove otherwise. The film itself is a comedy about an impoverished village turned upside down when a dead man wins the lottery.

This concludes as Mumbai + Hollywood = Bollywood

Bollywood fans often do not agree as to whether similarities are coincidental, mere homage, or actual plagiarism but we all know the true picture

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