Om Shanti Om () is a 2007 Bollywood musical film directed and choreographed by Farah Khan. It stars Shahrukh Khan and Deepika Padukone in the lead roles while Arjun Rampal, Shreyas Talpade, and Kirron Kher feature in supporting roles. More than forty-two well-known Bollywood stars appear in the course of the film, including thirty of them (not including the stars of the film) in one song alone. The film is set in the 1970s and 2000s; it pays tribute to, and pokes fun at the Indian film industry of both these eras.
Plot
Protagonist Om Prakash Makhija (
Shahrukh Khan) is a
junior artiste in the 1970s Bollywood film industry. He and his friend Pappu (
Shreyas Talpade) are trying to succeed as leading actors. Om's mother, Bela Makhija (
Kirron Kher), herself a junior artist, inspires and encourages her son to become a success. He is in love with the film actress Shanti Priya (
Deepika Padukone).
One evening, Om views the premiere of Shanti Priya's film Dreamy Girl, claiming he is the actor Manoj Kumar. Here, scenes from older Bollywood films are used to form the scenes seen by Om on screen. He is shown fantasizing himself as its lead and catching Shanti Priya's eye before Dreamy Girl begins and during its display. Later that night, Om becomes drunk and describes his vision of himself as a famous, wealthy film star to Pappu and some local children. During his speech, references are made to the Law of Attraction, creating an axiom that recurs throughout the story.
On another occasion, during a shooting of a film wherein Om is acting as a scene-extra, he notices Shanti trapped in the middle of a fire scene where the fire has escaped control. When the lead actor of the film fails to save her, Om saves her instead and they become friends. He initially attempts to overawe her by pretending that he is the lead and producer of his own films, but ultimately confesses and finds the attempt unnecessary. That night, Om invites Shanti to a film set, where Om, assisted by Pappu, uses props and several backgrounds to create fantastic backgrounds against which develops a romantic song sequence.
The following day, Om tries to talk to Shanti on the set of a film, but is almost ignored. He follows her into a dressing-room, where he, unseen except by the viewer, overhears her argument with the film's producer Mukesh Mehra (Arjun Rampal) about a recent promise of Mukesh's to marry a businessman's daughter in return for funding of a film. It is here revealed that Shanti is secretly married to Mukesh, and that Shanti is pregnant with Mukesh's child. Mukesh insists that his relationship with Shanti be kept secret, arguing that its revelation will spoil his plans, but Shanti demands that they marry in public. Mukesh relents when she reveals her pregnancy. Om leaves, disappointed, and remains miserable for some days.
One night, Om notices Mukesh escorting Shanti to the set of their planned film Om Shanti Om. Inside, Mukesh tells Shanti that he will cancel the film, reveal their marriage to the public, and have a grand wedding in the spectacular set, but contradicts himself by blaming her for his loss of the film and its revenue, igniting a fire in the set, and leaving her imprisoned inside it. Om attempts to rescue her, but is attacked by Mukesh's men. When they leave him, Om enters the set, but is prevented by an explosion from rescuing Shanti and she finally gets killed. Om, having been fatally injured and propelled by the explosion into a road, is hit by a car owned by Rajesh Kapoor (Javed Sheikh), a well-known actor who is taking his wife (Asawari Joshi) to a hospital for the birth of their child. Rajesh Kapoor then takes Om to the hospital with them, but Om dies of his injuries. Moments later, a son is born to Rajesh Kapoor, who is named Om and implied to be Om Prakash's reincarnation. The film then cuts to the younger Om's adulthood, wherein he is a popular movie star and lives an extravagant, luxurious life. He experiences pyrophobia and appears overall to be a younger, more impatient, brusquer, and less emotionally mature version of his previous self. It is shown through some scenes that he subconsciously inherits Om Prakash's memories.
Having been introduced to Om Kapoor, his lifestyle, and his nickname of "O.K.", viewers see him becoming aware of Om Prakash's memories when his film crew use the site of Om Prakash's death as the setting of his new film. Here, O.K. sees images of Mukesh's argument with Shanti Priya, which vanish when he is disturbed by a crewmember. Later, O.K. is awarded 'Best Actor' during a ceremony featuring both existing and fictional Bollywood films and film stars (listed below). When making a speech of acceptance for this award, O.K. unexpectedly recalls the drunken speech Om Prakash had made to Pappu, and makes it to the assembly who have awarded him. Pappu, seeing this broadcast on television, is convinced to share Bela's conviction that O.K. and Om Prakash are the same man. At a celebration of his award (again featuring numerous Bollywood film stars, and accompanied by a song whose refrain is the film's title), O.K. is introduced by his father to Mukesh Mehra, who has been producing films in Hollywood for thirty years. Upon seeing him, O.K. becomes aware of all of Om Prakash's memories. He conceals his knowledge of Mukesh's past, but later reunites with Bela and Pappu. He then conspires with them to avenge Shanti Priya's death by terrifying Mukesh into confessing his role therein.
As a disguise and framework for this plan, O.K. convinces Mukesh to recreate Om Shanti Om, altering the plot to fit their designs. It is then shown that the central part of their scheme consists of convincing Mukesh that Shanti Priya's ghost is haunting him, thereby frightening him into revealing his role in Shanti's death. To achieve this, they hold auditions for an actress who resembles Shanti Priya to the extent that seeing her unexpectedly appear and seem to vanish will startle Mukesh. They find an actress named Sandhiya ("Sandy" for short), who is a huge fan of O.K., though she is very clumsy but her resemblance to Shanti is uncanny. O.K. and his co-conspirators train Sandy to represent Shanti's ghost, but achieve no success, on account of her clumsiness, until they have told her the entirety of their plans and the reason thereof. Thereafter the filming begins. Throughout the film shootings, O.K. and his friends arrange incidents, some involving brief appearances by Sandy, that frighten Mukesh, arrange the situation itself to remind him of his crime, and exacerbate his fear almost to insanity in their (chiefly O.K.'s) conversations with him. Their plan goes awry when Mukesh investigates their arrangements and begins to suspect that they are deceiving him. During the music launch of the film, O.K. taunts Mukesh by revealing the extent to which he knows the story of Shanti Priya's death, in the process implying that his film's plot imitates that story. Toward the end of this scene, Mukesh pursues Sandy and sees that she is capable of bleeding, persuading him that she is not a ghost.
After the celebration, O.K. and Mukesh confront each other with their knowledge of each other's actions. They are interrupted when a figure whom they think to be Sandy appears on the nearby stairwell and reveals that Mukesh had returned to the burning film set after its explosion, found Shanti dying but not dead, and buried her in the center of the set, beneath its chandelier. Mukesh himself is killed when an identical chandelier, located in the same position, falls onto him, having come loose during the celebration. Moments later, Pappu and Sandy join O.K., whereupon O.K. realises that the figure who challenged Mukesh is Shanti Priya's ghost. As he realises this, the ghost smiles and runs up the stairwell and then disappears, ending the movie. The credits then show all the actors, producers, directors, and workers (hair stylists, accountants, spot boys, grips, etc.) from the film dancing to the final tune.
Cast
Shahrukh Khan as Om Prakash Makhija/Om Kapoor
Deepika Padukone as Shanti Priya/Sandhya
Kirron Kher as Bela Makhija
Shreyas Talpade as Pappu Master
Arjun Rampal as Mukesh Mehra "Mike"
Javed Sheikh as Rajesh Kapoor
Bindu Desai as Kamini
Asawari Joshi as Lovely Kapoor
Yuvika Chaudhary as Dolly
Shawar Ali as Shawar
Satish Shah as Film Director
Special appearances during the song "Deewangi Deewangi" (in order of apparence during the song)
Rani Mukerji
Zayed Khan
Vidya Balan
Jeetendra
Tusshar Kapoor
Priyanka Chopra
Shilpa Shetty
Dharmendra
Shabana Azmi
Urmila Matondkar
Karisma Kapoor
Arbaaz Khan
Malaika Arora
Dino Morea
Amrita Arora
Juhi Chawla
Aftab Shivdasani
Tabu
Govinda
Mithun Chakraborty
Kajol
Preity Zinta
Bobby Deol
Rekha
Ritesh Deshmukh
Salman Khan
Saif Ali Khan
Sanjay Dutt
Lara Dutta
Sunil Shetty
Other Special appearances (in alphabetical order)
Abhishek Bachchan as himself
Akshay Kumar as himself
Amisha Patel as Om Kapoor's heroine at Filmfare Awards
Amitabh Bachchan as himself
Arshad Warsi as himself
Bappi Lahiri as himself
Bipasha Basu as herself
Chunkey Pandey as himself
Dia Mirza as Om Kapoor's heroine at Filmfare Awards
Farah Khan in the opening of the film as junior artist whom Om Prakash asks if she's the director of the movie
Feroz Khan as himself
Gauri Khan as herself
Hrithik Roshan as himself
Karan Johar as himself
Koena Mitra as herself
Mayur Puri as the Gujarati director of Apahij Pyar.
Rakesh Roshan as himself
Rishi Kapoor as himself
Shabana Azmi as herself
Subhash Ghai as himself
Vishal Dadlani as the director of Mohabbat Man, a stereotypical superhero film starring O.K.
V. Manikandan as the director of Mind It, a parody of action films and Tamil actors
Crew
Producer: Gauri Khan
Director: Farah Khan
Screenplay: Mushtaq Sheikh & Farah Khan
Story: Farah Khan
Dialogue: Mayur Puri
Editor: Shirish Kunder
Music: Vishal-Shekhar
Choreography: Farah Khan
Lyrics: Javed Akhtar & Vishal Dadlani
Cinematography: V. Manikandan
Assistant Directors: Vaibhav Mishra, Joyeeta Chatterji, Kanika Dhillon, Pooja Desai, Parag Kalica, Arunabh Kumar, Zoa Morani
Executive Producer: Sanjiv Chawala
Director of Photography: V. Manikandan
Art Director: Sabu Cyril
Action Directors: Sham Kaushal, Aamar Shetty, Angelo Sahin
Background Music: Sandeep Chowta
Visual Effects Studios: Red Chillies VFX
Production
The film is based on
reincarnation. Shooting of the film began in January 2007 at various locations in
India. 30 of the Bollywood's stars put in a guest appearance for a special song in the film. The film was released on 9 November 2007.
Om Shanti Om is all set to create another record of sorts by going in for an unheard of 2000 prints (worldwide) release. This is the highest number of prints (including digital) for any Indian movie till date.
Om Shanti Om has set a record of sorts as it has registered pre advanced booking of 18,000 tickets in a chain of theatres in national capital Delhi a couple of days before the advance booking was to start.
Baba Films, production and distribution company, has offered a record Rs.110 million for the rights to the Mumbai Circuit, easily surpassing the highest amount ever paid for the territory of Rs.85 million for Jaan-E-Mann.
SRK’s Red Chillies Entertainment has reportedly sold the world rights for the film to Eros International for an amount between Rs.720-750 million.
A book titled, The Making of Om Shanti Om written by Mushtaq Sheikh has been released after the release of the film. The book gives an insight about the production and happenings behind the camera of the film.
Home Video Release
Om Shanti Om was released on a two disc DVD mastered from
High Definition in
Widescreen format. The second disc included a trivia game, promos, trailers and teasers, premiers, deleted scenes, etc. The DVD also included a signed poster of
Shahrukh Khan and a mini look book. The film was also released in
Blu-Ray.
Soundtrack
{{Infobox album|
Name = Om Shanti Om
| Type =
Soundtrack
| Artist =
Vishal-Shekhar
| Cover = Omshantiomalbum.jpg
| Caption = Album cover
| Released = for the film released on 18 September 2007.
The film's score and soundtrack are composed by the musical duo, Vishal-Shekhar with lyrics by renowned lyricist, Javed Akhtar. Composer A. R. Rahman opted out of this movie, as T-Series did not agree to share the copyrights of music with him and the lyricist.
Indiafm.com gave the music 4 out of 5 stars saying "Om Shanti Om is easily one of the most complete scores by Vishal-Shekhar and Javed Akhtar". The track "Deewangi Deewangi" has a total of 30 stars performing in it. the Best Composer award for the soundtrack at The 2nd Asian Film Awards in Hong Kong, 2008.
Reception
Ratings and box office
The film was
rated as "U/A" (Unrestricted with adult accompanied) by the
Central Board of Film Certification of India and PG–13 by the
Motion Picture Association of America. Similar ratings were awarded in other countries such as
Australia and the
UK.
Eros International, a leading distributor listed in London, confirmed that Om Shanti Om was the highest-grossing Hindi film of all-time raking in $45 million at the box office worldwide. But currently, it is in place 7.
Om Shanti Om opened across 878 cinemas and has since grossed around Rs. 65,65,00,000 in its two week record-breaking run in India. The movie was a hit at the U.S box office, grossing $1.764 million in its first three days, despite opening in only 114 theatres. Its total gross in US was $3,597,000, which is the highest ever for a Bollywood film.Om Shanti Om became the biggest Bollywood movie of 2007 in the United Kingdom, earning a total of £1,350,000 (US $2,626,000 - INR 10,500,000). The film also collected a gross of over $20 million worldwide in the first week, including collection of $13.5 million in India, $5 million in Pakistan, and over $2 million in North America. The film has grossed $39,539,517 (Rs. 155,78,56,969.8)
|-
|align="left"|Belgium and Luxembourg
|align="left"|$26,373 Mark Medley of National Post gave 3 stars and stated, "The film is a mess for all the right reasons; elements of comedy, drama, romance, action and the supernatural are packed in. But really, the plot is just a vehicle to get from one song-and-dance number to the next." Raja Sen of Rediff.com gave 3 and half stars and stated, "Om Shanti Om is an exultant, heady, joyous film reveling in Bollywood, and as at most parties where the bubbly flows free, there is much silly giggling and tremendous immaturity. You'd do well to breathe in the filmi fumes, lift your own collar-tips upwards, and leave sense out of the equation. More cameos are written in than dialogues, so sit back and play spot-the-celeb. Or watch the Khan have a blast on screen." Indiafm's Taran Adarsh gave movie awesome 4 out 5 star rating stating "At the box-office, the film will set new records in days to come and has the power to emerge one of the biggest hits of SRK's career." AOL India's Noyon Jyoti Parasara gave the movie 3 out of 5 stating, "The movie consists of all the elements that are essentially called the 'navratnas' of Indian cinema - from joy to grief to romance to revenge. And she mixes these well to cook up a potboiler, which is sure to be a run away hit."
SearchIndia.com gave the movie the thumbs-down stating that "A dispiritingly commonplace theme of reincarnation packaged in a disjointed, tracing-paper-thin plot with ho-hum performances by the lead actors renders a mediocre movie that only addled fans of Bollywood superstar Shahrukh Khan would love."
Rajeev Mansad of CNN-IBN gives Om Shanti Om 3 out of 5, stated "A special mention must be made for the film’s excellent dialogue which so cleverly incorporates Bollywood’s oldest clichés into these characters’ everyday parlance." Nikhat Kazmi of The Times of India gave 3.5 of 5 stars stating the film is a total paisa vasool and a true tribute to Karz (1980). Hindustan Times's Khalid Mehmood gave the film 4/5 saying that "Om Shanti Om is total brainless mazaa." Sudish Kamnath of The Hindu stated, "Om Shanti Om' is a light-hearted tribute to Hindi cinema the way we know it and love it, in spite of its flaws, improvisation and implausibility. [...]That apart, the movie is a hell of a party, a bits-and-pieces blockbuster strung together with a series of laughs, songs and dances. SRK shows us why he's the rock star of our times."
The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes gave Om Shanti Om a rating of 83%, based upon 6 reviews (5 fresh and 1 rotten).
Controversy
Manoj Kumar's complaints
Om Shanti Om landed into a controversy with veteran actor
Manoj Kumar, for showing his body double in a bad taste. In the movie,
Shreyas Talpade's character (Pappu) sneaks
Manoj Kumar's movie passes to enter a movie premiere. When the "real" Manoj Kumar (film double) shows up for the premiere, the security guards ask him for identification. He produces his driving license with a photograph of him covering his face (a parody to his classic style of acting). Because the security guards do not recognize him, they declare him a fraud and chase him out of the premises with their sticks. Kumar added, "Are the Mumbai police so stupid that they can't recognise Manoj Kumar and lathicharge him in the '70s when he was a star?”. Kumar also alleged that Shahrukh Khan is communal.
Later, in a press conference Shahrukh Khan and director Farah Khan apologised for the matter. Shahrukh accepted his mistake and apologised, saying "It was a mistake to overlook the fact that it might hurt anyone. I truly apologise to everyone who think I have made fun of him. Honestly speaking, I didn't mean to show anyone in a negative manner or run down anyone." Farah Khan even offered to cut the scene which Manoj Kumar felt was hurtful, but Kumar refused on grounds that, as Khan had stated, "I [Farah Khan] was like his daughter. He said, ‘Betiyaan maafi nahi maangti' (Daughters don't ask for forgiveness). I told him that he could've called me and scolded me."
In 2008, before the film’s television premiere on Sony TV, veteran actor Manoj Kumar filed for a stay on the television release, at civil court in Mumbai. On 8 August 2008, he won permanent injunction on the scenes in Om Shanti Om that lampooned him. The court ordered the producers and Sony Entertainment Television, to edit the Manoj Kumar lookalike scenes before showing the film on the channel on 10 August 2008. It also ordered that the film could not be shown in any media—TV, DVD or Internet—without the scene being deleted.
On 12 August 2008, Kumar filed two cases against actor Shah Rukh Khan, his production house director, and wife, Gauri Khan, and film director Farah Khan for ridiculing him in Om Shanti Om. First was the defamation case, demanding Re 1 as damages, and the second was a cheating case, for not keeping their promise of deleting the scene, as assured at the time of film’s release.
Alleged plagiarism
On 7 August 2008, before its television release, scriptwriter Ajay Monga, who has written scripts for
Madhur Bhandarkar’s film
Corporate (2006) and
Fashion (2008), moved to the Bombay High Court alleging that the basic storyline of the film was lifted from a film script he had emailed to Shah Rukh Khan in 2006. According to the petition, "Monga along with one more writer Hemant Hegde had registered the script with the Cine Writers Association (CWA) in September 2005… I then took the script to Red Chillies in 2006. Shah Rukh was shooting in Malaysia at that time, so the script was emailed to him, but they never got back to me. It was only when I saw the film that I realized that it was entirely based on my script." In January 2008, Cine Writers Association (CWA), rejected Monga’s appeal at a special Executive Committee meeting in February. Thereafter, he approached the court to stay the film’s screening on television. Though, on 6 August the court rejected Monga's plea for seeking a stay on the television telecast, it directed all the respondents including
Shahrukh Khan,
Farah Khan, and
Red Chillies Entertainment,
Gauri Khan (director Red Chillies) and film's co-writer Mushtaq Sheikh, to file their say by the next hearing on 29 September 2008.
In November 2008, the Film Writer's association sent a communication to Red Chillies and Ajay Monga that it had found similarities in Om Shanti Om and Monga's script. The similarities were more than mere coincidences according to Sooni Taraporewala who chaired a special committee that has investigated the case on behalf of the Film Writer's association.
Another allegation of plagiarism came from Rinki Bhattacharya, daughter of the late Bimal Roy, who directed Madhumati, and threatened legal action against Red Chillies Entertainment and the producer-director of Om Shanti Om, as she felt that the film's second half was similar to her father’s film, Madhumati, also a re-birth saga.[
]
Awards
Best Special Effects - Red Chillies Entertainment
Best Art Direction - Sabu Cyril
Best Costume Design - Manish Malhotra, Karan Johar & Sanjeev Mulchandani
Best Makeup - Bharat-Dorris, Ravi Indulkar and Namrata Soni
Best Debutant(Female) - Deepika Padukone
Nominated - Best Feature Film
Winner - Best Composer - Vishal Dadlani, Shekhar Ravjiani, Pyarelal Ramprasad Sharma
Nominated - Best Actress - Deepika Padukone
References
External links
Category:2007 films
Category:Indian films
Category:Hindi-language films
Category:Films about reincarnation
![Dastaan-E-Om Shanti Om [Full Song] - Om Shanti Om](http://web.archive.org./web/20110902124854im_/http://i.ytimg.com/vi/ymuNkKuToao/0.jpg "Dastaan-E-Om Shanti Om [Full Song] - Om Shanti Om")
![Dard-E-Disco [Full Song] - Om Shanti Om](http://web.archive.org./web/20110902124854im_/http://i.ytimg.com/vi/cKs83ZQxYKA/0.jpg "Dard-E-Disco [Full Song] - Om Shanti Om")
