Amitabh Bachchan’s iconic Vijay Dinanath Chauhan is still etched in the memories of film connoisseurs. We are obviously talking about Big B’s character in the iconic AGNEEPATH that won the megastar a National award.
Delving into the past, as is known to most who have knowledge about Hindi cinema during the eighties and early nineties, despite much critical accolades, Amitabh’s voice modulation turned out to be the achilles heel for AGNEEPATH.
To make things more clear, Big B modulated his much popular booming baritone voice to a hoarse whispering one to suit and give more depth to the character, something that the audience (of that time) could not understand or identify with. The vernacular press went overboard with their critical and sometimes even comical interpretation saying that the megastar may have had a cold and hence his voice appeared hoarse and whisper like!
Though Dharma Productions, then headed by producer Yash Johar (father of Karan Johar) tried to rectify, with the cooperation of Amitabh, who re-dubbed AGNEEPATH in his own characteristic style, but alas, the damage was done and AGNEEPATH was a commercial failure. But as they say, life is a great leveler and it is once again confirmed, given the fact that the remake of AGNEEPATH which opened to a tumultuous response all over, and is all set to be a big success at the box-office and also mark Hrithik’s first foray into the 100 crore club.
Of course, Karan Johar has left no stone unturned and used every possible commercial tactics like taking help from <i>Chikni Chameli</i> Katrina Kaif, taking nothing away from Hrithik’s mind-blowing performance, Sanjay Dutt’s menacing interpretation of ‘Kancha Cheena’ and Rishi Kapoor’s perfect acting (as always!) as the deplorable ‘Rauf Lala’.
Well, this is perhaps the first time in history of Bollywood that a remake of a commercial failure has been attempted and the result has been extremely positive, and this should start a new trend with makers being more adventurous and remaking critically acclaimed films that were much ahead of their times and hence failed, like say MERA NAAM JOKER, THE BURNING TRAIN, RAZIA SULTAN; well the list is endless.