Great superheroes before Krrish. Review on Super Heroes of Indian Cinema

Rakesh Roshan’s Hrithik Roshan starrer Krissh has set the box-office on fire after its release.After all it is the sequel of the mega hit Koi Mil Gaya of the same team and the 3rd movie of the deadly father-son combination.Right from its beginning Krissh has been marketed as the first Superhero film of Indian cinema just as Koi Mil Gaya was touted as the first sci-fi movie.The movie has succeeded in hitting the bull’s eye and is going down very well.I have not seen the film(thanks to a house sorts.In that sense yes Krishh is the first of its kind but as far as superheroes are concerned Bollywood has seen quite a number of them before Krissh.

First of all, I would like to say that in Indian cinema the hero has rarely been anything less than a superhero.He fights 10-15 people at a time.He jumps from high buildings.He knows everything right from swimming to flying a plane.In that case almost all the movies are superheroes films.But here we would clearly like to declare that we are not talking about these movies.So , superheroes films in India can be broadly divided into 2 types.

Type 1 are superheroes films where the hero is a normal guy and he has a twin personality where he changes his attire and becomes the man of the masses and fights against the evil.These type of movies are somehow more successful in India.

Type 2 are superhero film where the hero gets some powers and he uses them to fight against the evils.Somehow we have a handful of such movies.

Except for the fact that in both types, the hero fights against the evil another thing common between both the types is that in both such genre of superheroes the hero has twin personality and in it somehow the heroine gets attracted to the superhero personality of the hero.

We will have a look at some famous films of both type 1 and type 2 genre of -full status almost everywhere) but from the promos there is no doubt that such stunts, special effects and camerawork is being seen for the first time on Indian screen making it a first of superheroes.

TYPE 1

1.Azaad-1955-After going through some film sites I found the names of many B-grade actioners which sounded like superhero films.However, I guess the path breaking A-grade hit film of this genre was this Dilip Kumar starrer which was a big hit and won the thespian his second fimfare  award for best actor.I don’t know if there is any type of films where the legend has not been path-breaking.Although he was more famous as the tragedy king yet he broke his image every now and then quite successfully.After doing comedy in Shabnam and swash buckling action in costume drama  Aan , in 1955 he plays in the lead in what can be safely said as the first big hit A grade film of the superhero of this genre.The film co-starred the tragic queen Meena Kumari and ace villain Pran.Although I have still not seen the film but from whatever scenes I saw of it as a child on cassette and recently when I saw about 15 minutes of the movie on Set Max, the movie had all ingredients to be a commercial hit.Top hero, top heroine, ace villain, chartbursting music by C.Ramachandran(Applam Chapplam sung by Lata-Asha, Kitna Haseen Hai Mausam-where C.Ramachandra’s voice  fits perfectly to Dilip Kumar as the music director sings exactly like Talat Mahmood), wild animals, romance, light comedy , action and ofcourse the superhero ingredientHere Dilip Kumar plays a noble man in the light and in night takes the robes of superhero Azaad who fights against injustice and is the savious of the helpless.Azaad was the first film where Dilip Kumar and Pran were pitted against each other.Following its success they formed a successful hero-villain combination in Dil Diya Dard Liya, Ram Aur Shyam, Aadmi, Gopi and Duniya.Even after Azaad’s success Dilip Kumar did not play a superhero type character in his later films.His role of a patriotic sea-pirate with the name Kranti in Manoj Kumar’s blockbuster Kranti cannot be exactly called a super hero as his identity is more or less known and it was much more of a big budget periodical patriotic multi-starrer than a super-hero film.Dilip Kumar was the tragedy king and Meena Kumari was tragedy queen yet the movies they did together Azaad(Superhero), Yahudi(periodical with action) and Kohinoor(comedy and costume drama) were light entertainers and all 3 were big hits.**Ironically the only serious film they did together Footpath(where Dilip Kumar played a grey  negative character) flopped!!!!!!!!!!

2.Jugnu 1973-No am not talking about the 1947 Dilip Kumar starrer which made him a star but am talking about 1973 hit starring **Dharmendra in the lead.Even though Azaad was a big hit , yet we don’t have any famous  A-grade superhero type 1 genre film for almost 2 decades till this Pramod Chakraborty super hit.By 1973 Dharmendra had broken his soft romantic and serious type hero image with his powerful he-man image.In Jugnu Dharam just fits in the superhero glove perfectly.Like in Azaad, here again the hero is a noble businessman but he has another face to his personality which is Jugnu.Jugnu, like Azaad is the savious of the poor.He loots the corrupt and is a robin hood type character.He fights against the evil and romances with the heroine-Hema Malini with equal ease.Jugnu had a big star cast all the way.Top hero-Dharmendra, Top heroine-Hema Malini, Top supporting actor-Pran(yeah the veteran had made the rare transformation successfully from an ace villain to  a top supporting actor), and top villains Prem Chopra and Ajit(with a dreaded metal hand).The movie had all masala -romance, lost and found, light comedy, serious scenes and action.The movie’s music track was hugely popular with songs like-Pyaar ke is khel mein and Gir gaya jhumka girne do.Since I have not seen Azaad so Jugnu is the earliest superhero film which I watched(I watched it just a year back).I enjoyed the film but had one complaint.I saw this film as part of the Dharmendra film festival which involved me getting vcd’s of A-grade Dharmendra’s popular action films at home.I brought the vcd after watching Ghulami, Kartavya and Rajput.So after those heavy duty action stuff I felt that Jugnu had less action.But the film works in a big way as a masala flick.Pramod Chakaraborty’s other famous movies with Dharmendra were Naya Zamana, Azaad, Dream Girl and Jagir.Although these films also worked still the combo is remembered best for Jugnu.With resounding hits like Yaadon Ki Baraat and Jugnu in 1973 Dharmendra showed that even the presence of 2 superstars –Rajesh Khanna –Aap Ki Kasam, Daag and Amitabh Bachchan-Zanjeer, Abhimaan and the hit Namak Haraam which had both of them, could not dampen Dharam’s standing at the box office.Later in late 80’s onwards Dharamndra did b-grade actioners by dozens and even played a superhero in films like Khatron Ke Khiladi –where he played a split superhero with the name Teesri Adalat but none of them could match Jugnu.A lot B-grade starrrers had such a concept of hero a Zimbo/Jugnu type saviour  but none matched this Jugnu.

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