Darr

Darr: A Violent Love Story
Theatrical Release Poster
Directed by	Yash Chopra
Written by	Honey Irani Javed Siddiqui
Produced by	Yash Chopra
Starring	Sunny Deol Shah Rukh Khan Juhi Chawla Anupam Kher Tanvi Azmi Dalip Tahil
Cinematography	Manmohan Singh
Edited by	Keshav Naidu
Music by	Shiv-Hari
Production company	Yash Raj Films
Distributed by	Yash Raj Films
Release date	24 December 1993 (1993-12-24)
Running time	177 minutes
Country	India
Language	Hindi
Budget	₹3 crore[1]
Box office	est. ₹21.31 crore (equivalent to ₹124 crore or US$17 million in 2019)[1]

Darr (transl. Fear) is a 1993 Indian romantic psychological thriller film directed by Yash Chopra through the studio Yash Raj Films. The film stars Sunny Deol, Shah Rukh Khan (in his first Yash Raj film) and Juhi Chawla with Anupam Kher, Tanvi Azmi and Dalip Tahil in supporting roles.

Darr has won several accolades, including the National Film Award for Best Popular Film Providing Wholesome Entertainment. The film received 10 nominations at the 39th Filmfare Awards, including Best Film, Best Director for Chopra, Best Actor for Deol, Best Actress for Chawla, and Best Villain for Khan, and won 2 awards, including Best Comedian for Kher. For Chawla, this was her fourth consecutive box office hit of the year solidifying her career as a leading lady in the 1990s. Khan's portrayal of obsessive lover, was applauded by critics and the audiences and won him many awards.

Plot[]

Kiran, a beautiful college student returns home to her brother Vijay and his wife Poonam. She is being obsessively stalked along the way by Rahul, her classmate who has a crush on her. Kiran's boyfriend Sunil is a navy officer. His captain Avinash is Rahul's father. Rahul tries to be friendly with Sunil, to be closer to Kiran. When she reaches home, she is continually stalked by Rahul on the phone. This causes much stress to herself and her family.

Sunil and Kiran get engaged. Upon knowing this, Rahul tries to kill Sunil but fails. Sunil meets with an accident and marries Kiran after recovery. Rahul still refuses to give up. Sunil takes Kiran on a honeymoon to Switzerland while booking extra tickets to Goa so that the stalker go away. Rahul kills his friend Vicky and makes it look like he was the stalker. Rahul learns Kiran's location and turns up at her hotel.

Kiran recognizes and welcomes him to be part of their festivities. Sunil finds out Rahul has been Kiran's stalker all along in actual. He sends her away on a boat and confronts and beats up Rahul who stabs and leaves him for dead. Rahul reaches the boat and forces Kiran to marry him. Sunil comes back and beats and kills Rahul. Kiran and Sunil return to India and reunite with their family.

Cast[]

• Sunny Deol as Sunil Malhotra
• Juhi Chawla as Kiran Awasthi
• Shahrukh Khan as Rahul Mehra Captain Avinash's son
• Anupam Kher as Vijay Awasthi
• Tanvi Azmi as Poonam Awasthi
• Dalip Tahil as Captain Avinash Mehra Rahul's father
• Annu Kapoor as Vikram "Vicky" Oberoi Rahul's friend
• Vikas Anand as Dr. Ajay Gupta

Production[]

^[2][3] Sanjay Dutt was the original choice of the role of antagonist Rahul, but Chopra was unable to finalize him because of his jail sentence due to illegal possession of arms. Sudesh Berry was then considered for the role, but was rejected after a screen test. Ajay Devgan was offered the role of Rahul, but he could not accept due to other commitments.

Aamir Khan, who had worked with Chopra on Parampara, was then signed as Rahul. However, problems arose when Khan asked Chopra for a joint narration of the script with him and Sunny Deol. Khan's reasoning for this was that since he and Deol were two leading actors, they could hear their roles and if they were both satisfied, no ego hassles would happen henceforth. However, Chopra refused to heed to such a request. Khan was also unhappy with the way Deol's character beat Rahul up in the film's climax. Khan was then removed from the project. Ironically, after the release, Deol was miffed as he felt that the other male lead role was stronger than his.

After Aamir left the film, Shah Rukh Khan was cast as Rahul. Darr helped bring Shahrukh to stardom and he went on to star in all of Chopra's future directorial ventures. Rishi Kapoor, Mithun Chakraborty and Jackie Shroff were all offered the role of Sunil before Sunny Deol.

Sridevi, who had previously worked with Chopra in Chandni (1989) and Lamhe (1991), was the original choice for the role of Kiran. The role was crafted and planned much like her previous roles in Chandni and Lamhe. Chopra too admitted dressing Kiran like Chandni and Pallavi/Pooja, which can be observed in the film as well. However, Sridevi refused to accept the role as she wanted Kiran's character to be the obsessed lover instead of the victim, but Chopra refused this change of plot. After Sridevi, the role was offered to Divya Bharti mainly on the consultation of Sunny Deol. But owing to some previous misunderstandings, Aamir got Divya replaced by Juhi Chawla.^[4]

Nitish Bharadwaj was approached for Sunil's role after Rishi Kapoor and Jackie Shroff rejected the role. This is because of his popularity as Lord Krishna's role in B.R. Chopra's Mahabharat. But Nitish rejected the role claiming that the role is not as challenging as it would be.

The film's title Darr was suggested to Yash Chopra by Hrithik Roshan and Chopra's younger son Uday Chopra.^[5]

Soundtrack[]

The soundtrack for Darr was composed by the duo Shiv-Hari (Shiv Kumar Sharma and Hariprasad Chaurasia). It is written by Anand Bakshi It was the second best-selling Bollywood soundtrack album of the year.^[6] The soundtrack album sold about 4.5 million units in India,^[7] earning at least ₹10.8 crore (equivalent to ₹63 crore or US$8.8 million in 2019).^[8] Rakesh Budhu of Planet Bollywood in his review gave the album 8.5 stars out of 10.^[9]

Darr
Soundtrack album by Shiv-Hari
Released	1993
Genre	Film soundtrack
Length	42:12
Label	HMV Records
Shiv-Hari chronology
Sahibaan (1993) Darr (1993)

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
Planet Bollywood	[9]

All lyrics are written by Anand Bakshi.

No.	Title	Singer(s)	Length
1.	"Jaadu Teri Nazar"	Udit Narayan	4:41
2.	"Darwaaza Band Karlo"	Lata Mangeshkar, Abhijeet	6:05
3.	"Tu Mere Saamne"	Lata Mangeshkar, Udit Narayan	6:07
4.	"Ishq Da Bura Rog"	Lata Mangeshkar, Vinod Rathod	5:43
5.	"Solah Button"	Lata Mangeshkar, Kavita Krishnamurthy, Pamela Chopra	7:35
6.	"Likha Hai Ye In Hawaaon Pe"	Lata Mangeshkar, Hariharan	5:12
7.	"Ang Se Ang Lagana"	Alka Yagnik, Vinod Rathod, Sudesh Bhosale, Devki Pandit	6:49

Box office[]

At the domestic Indian box office, Darr became the third highest-grossing film of 1993, after Aankhen and Khalnayak, and was declared a blockbuster.^[10] In India, it was released on 190 screens, with 19.96 million tickets sold. Its domestic gross was ₹15.73 crore, including a net income of ₹10.74 crore, which is equivalent to ₹184.4 crore (US$26 million) when adjusted for inflation.^[1] Its domestic gross is equivalent to ₹339 crore (US$48 million) when adjusted for inflation.^[a]

At the overseas box office, Darr was the year's highest-grossing Indian film of 1993, grossing ₹5.58 crore.^[11] Worldwide, it grossed ₹21.31 crore,^[1] equivalent to ₹366 crore (US$51 million) when adjusted for inflation.^[a]

Remakes[]

Darr was remade in Kannada as Preethse, starring Upendra as Chandu (Rahul) Shiva Rajkumar as Surya (Sunil) and Bollywood actress Sonali Bendre playing Kiran.^[12] The film also partially inspired the 2005 Tamil Chinna, starring Arjun Sarja and Sneha in lead roles. The Telugu film Tapassu also borrowed some scenes from Darr.

The teaser trailer for an intended five-part web series Darr 2.0 was released on YouTube on August 30, 2016. It was set to be a retelling of the film in a contemporary setting, portraying cyber-stalking and digital crimes. The web series was set to be produced by Ashish Chopra under the banner of Y-Films and directed by Vikash Chandra. Screenplay and dialogues are by Nikhil Taneja and Shubham Yogi.^[13][14] The series was later postponed.

Awards[]

Award	Category	Nominee	Result	References
National Film Awards 1993	National Film Award for Best Popular Film Providing Wholesome Entertainment	Yash Chopra	Won	[15]
39th Filmfare Awards	Best Comedian	Anupam Kher	Won	[16]
	Best Cinematographer	Manmohan Singh	Won
	Best Film	Yash Chopra	Nominated
	Best Director	Yash Chopra	Nominated
	Best Actress	Juhi Chawla	Nominated
	Best Actor	Sunny Deol	Nominated
	Best Villain	Shahrukh Khan	Nominated
	Best Music Director	Shiv-Hari	Nominated
	Best Lyrics	Anand Bakshi for "Jaadu Teri Nazar"	Nominated
	Best Male Playback Singer	Udit Narayan for "Jaadu Teri Nazar"	Nominated

Notes[]

References[]

Further reading[]

• Chowdhury, Purna (2010). "Bollywood Babes: Body and Female Desire in the Bombay Films Since the Nineties and Darr, Mohra and Aitraaz: A Tropic Discourse". In Mehta, Rini Bhattacharya; Pandharipande, Rajeshwari V. (eds.). Bollywood and Globalization: Indian Popular Cinema, Nation, and Diaspora. Anthem Press. pp. 56–60. ISBN 978-1843318330.

External links[]

• Darr at IMDb