Remake Fever Captivates Bollywood

“Old wine in a new bottle” as the proverb goes, is not new to our Bollywood. Copying or so called remaking the hits of Hollywood in desi style, which is called drawing inspiration in the language of our film world or BOLLYWOOD had not remained the first choice for the industry, now the concept of doing remakes of old Hindi classics and cult movies made by the Kings of the same industry of yester years have geared-up.

P.C. Barua, followed by Bimal Roy, first filmed Sarat Chandra Chatterjee’s Devdas and then by Sanjay Leela Bansali. Again, the remake of oldie Parineeta by Vidhu Vinod Chopra created a great hype. Also Farhan Akhtar’s Don released a few days ago, which featured Shah Rukh Khan as Don, got much media attention. This gadget-friendly hi-tech Don is quite in contrast with the pan-chewing Don of Amitabh Bachchan. Interestingly all these remakes were palatable to the generation X.

The month of November also witnessed the release of another remake; this time it was J.P.Dutta’s Umrao Jaan featuring Aishwarya Rai and Abhishek Bachchan in the lead role. Aishwarya Rai was indeed flawless keeping upto the expectation of her admirers. Her ethereal looks added glory and glamour to the film.

Bollywood will take up many more remakes next year like, Rituparno Ghosh’s Rahgeer, remake of Dev Anand-starrer Guide, Feroz Khan’s Qurbani, and Raj Sippy’s Satte Pe Satta. Then comes the biggest Bollywood hit Sholay.This remake will be made by Ram Gopal Varma as Ram Gopal Varma ka Sholay. More interesting is the role reversal of the remake. The bad man-Gabbar Singh’s role will be played by Amitabh Bachchan who played the role of Jai in the earlier one.

But there is a contradiction regarding the concept of remaking. A section feels that it is only wastage of money and time without any creativity. But another section finds no fault with remakes. This group feels that it will help to bridge the gap between two generations. The Big Daddy’s of the industry also doesn’t feel that it as wastage, rather they took it as a challenge. They also deny the fact that it is nothing like dearth of new plots. Let’s see how the formula of remake succeeds in diluting the generation gap.

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