His death is tragic because his character is designed to be likeable with a smiling persona and the constant whistling. Even Arjun’s friend who is killed in the iconic umbrella scene (another shot one would see in many subsequent movies) is not just another hero’s friend who gets killed to trigger the revenge saga. The supporting cast of Anupam Kher, Paresh Rawal, AK Hangal and Raja Bundela (amongst others) was given enough material to work with. In the Bombay of mills and matkas, Arjun’s fight is against this system. Disappointed with the ‘No Vacancy’ signboards outside offices and mills, this generation of youth was ripe to be picked up by political parties and anti-social elements to play to their agenda. This hero was a product of the pre-liberalisation employment scene of the nation.
Arjun did not exist in a vacuum or a make-believe universe. Nevertheless, this hero was as symbolic of his times as the Angry Young Man was of the Emergency era. This Javed Akhtar creation does not get as much of print or web space compared to the Angry Young Man (which he co-created with Salim Khan). His fight against the system is not driven by rage but fuelled by disillusionment. Arjun, the hero is brooding and more internal. This protagonist found such following in the Telugu industry that we have had almost every major actor play it.Īlso read: Gayle Sequeira on old Sunny Deol movies playing at single-screen theatres.Īrjun is set in a time when Mumbai was Bombay and Sunny Deol did not explode on screen (that was reserved for later films like Ghayal). Even the iconic poster of Siva with Nagarjuna wielding a cycle chain draws inspiration from Arjun’s poster, with a dapper Sunny Deol holding an iron rod. Siva was a slightly younger, college-going version of Arjun. In the Telugu film industry, it all started with Ram Gopal Varma’s historic debut Siva. Apart from the remakes like Sathya in Tamil (starring Kamal Hassan) and Bharatamlo Arjunudu in Telugu (with Venketesh), the protagonist of Arjun has appeared in countless movies. Suniel Shetty is part of a similar subplot in another ’90s action movie: Krishna.
The subplot of Mohra involving Naseeruddin Shah and Suniel Shetty is an extension of the politician (Anupam Kher) betraying Arjun. If not the whole plot, the template of the unemployed do-gooder protagonist has been reused in multiple films. Closer to the naming ceremony, she had an epiphany that she was not fine with her son becoming an unemployed vigilante like the titular character and hence I was christened a more generic option from the name pool.Īpocryphal tales aside, the fact remains that this Sunny Deol starrer has in all probability inspired the maximum number of remakes. The story goes that my mother was so impressed by that movie and Sunny Deol’s performance in it that she wanted to name her first born Arjun. Rahul Rawail’s Arjun is a movie that was discussed a lot at our dining table during my growing-up years.
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