''Andaz Apna Apna'' () is a 1994 Indian

Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of North India, northern, Central India, centr ...

-language

comedy Comedy is a genre of fiction that consists of discourses or works intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter, especially in theatre, film, stand-up comedy, television, radio, books, or any other entertainment medium. The term ori ...

film directed by

Rajkumar Santoshi Rajkumar Santoshi is an Indian film director, producer and screenwriter of Hindi films. Having received several accolades including three National Film Awards and six Filmfare Awards, he made his directorial debut with the crime film '' Ghaya ...

and produced by Vinay Kumar Sinha. It stars

Aamir Khan Mohammed Aamir Hussain Khan (; born 14 March 1965) is an Indian actor, film director and producer who works in Hindi films. Through his career spanning over 30 years, Khan has established himself as one of the most notable actors of Indian ci ...

Salman Khan Abdul Rashid Salim Salman Khan (; 27 December 1965) is an Indian actor, film producer, and television personality who works in Hindi films. In a film career spanning over thirty years, Khan has received numerous awards, including two Nationa ...

Raveena Tandon Raveena Tandon (born 26 October 1972) is an Indian actress who works in Hindi films. The daughter of director Ravi Tandon, she made her acting debut in the 1991 action film '' Patthar Ke Phool'', which won her the Filmfare Award for New Face ...

Karishma Kapoor Karisma Kapoor (born 25 June 1974) is an Indian actress, who works in Hindi films. A member of the Kapoor family, she is the recipient of several accolades, including a National Film Award and four Filmfare Awards. Kapoor made her acting d ...

Paresh Rawal Paresh Rawal (born 30 May 1955) is an Indian actor, comedian, film producer and politician known for his works notably in Hindi films, and Telugu, and a few Gujarati and a few Tamil films. He has appeared in over 240 films and is the recipie ...

(in a dual role) and

Shakti Kapoor Shakti Kapoor (born Sunil Kapoor; 3 September 1952) is an Indian actor and comedian who appears in Bollywood films. Known for his villainous and comic roles in Hindi films, he has featured in over 600 films. In the 1980s and 1990s, Kapoor teame ...

in lead roles. The film was released on 4 November 1994 and the plot elements of the film were later used in other language films such as ''

Ullathai Allitha ''Ullathai Allitha'' () is a 1996 Indian Tamil-language romantic comedy film directed by Sundar C. The film stars Karthik, Rambha and Goundamani, with Manivannan, Jai Ganesh, Senthil, and Jyothi Meena in supporting roles. It revolves around ...

'' (1996), ''

Veedevadandi Babu ''Veedevadandi Babu'' is a 1997 Indian Telugu-language Comedy film written and directed by E. V. V. Satyanarayana and Cinematography by Chota K. Naidu. The film is an official remake of the Tamil film '' Ullathai Allitha'' which itself was heav ...

'' (1997) and '' Galate Aliyandru'' (2000), though none being a frame-to-frame remake. Although the film was a semi-hit at the box office, the film has emerged as a

cult film A cult film or cult movie, also commonly referred to as a cult classic, is a film that has acquired a cult following. Cult films are known for their dedicated, passionate fanbase which forms an elaborate subculture, members of which engage i ...

over the years. The lexicon of the film has become part of everyday language. The climax of this film is a rehashed version of the climax of a 1972 film ''

Victoria No. 203 ''Victoria No. 203'' is a 1972 Indian Hindi-language heist comedy film produced and directed by Brij. The film stars Saira Banu, Navin Nischol, Ranjeet, Anwar Hussain and Helen. Ashok Kumar and Pran play key supporting roles and earned the Fil ...

''.

Plot

Both Amar Manohar and Prem Bhopali are daydreamers living with their fathers Murli and Bankelal respectively. They learn that millionaire Ram Gopal Bajaj's daughter Raveena Bajaj is coming to India from

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

with her secretary Karishma to find a suitable groom. Amar and Prem decide to woo Raveena to get a share in her father's wealth. Amar and Prem meet each other when they escape from their towns and board a bus bound for

Ooty Ooty (), officially known as Udhagamandalam (also known as Ootacamund (); abbreviated as Udhagai), is a city and a municipality in the Nilgiris district of the South Indian States and territories of India, state of Tamil Nadu. It is located ...

where Raveena and Karishma live. They soon realise that they have the same goal and they also fail at several attempts to woo Raveena and Karishma but they manage to enter their house. Amar pretends that he has lost his memory and eyesight after getting knocked out by Raveena when he tried to flirt with her, while Prem pretends to be a doctor at their house to cure him from his diseases but he unknowingly falls in love with Karishma. Meanwhile, nobody knows that Ram Gopal has an evil twin-brother Shyam Gopal "Teja" Bajaj who plans to kidnap him and pose as him to go to London. He has also sent his two sidekicks Robert and Bhalla to live in Raveena and Karishma's house as their servants. Later, Amar and Prem discover that the secretary Karishma is actually the wealthy "Raveena" while the wealthy Raveena is actually the secretary "Karishma", as they had exchanged their identities as Raveena wanted to find a suitable groom for herself who will love her, not her money. However, Amar still falls in love with the real Karishma while Prem also still falls in love with the real Raveena. Soon, Ram Gopal arrives in India and seeing the true nature of Amar and Prem, declines their marriages with Raveena and Karishma, respectively. They plan a fake kidnapping of him along with their friends where they will heroically "rescue" him which will make him agree for their marriages. Teja also plans along with Robert and Bhalla to kidnap Ram Gopal and steal all of his money converted into his diamonds. Robert and Bhalla somehow manage to kidnap Ram Gopal which shocks Amar and Prem. When they go to Teja's hideout to rescue Ram Gopal, they mistake Teja for him and take him to his house. The next day, Raveena and Karishma tell their suspicion to Amar and Prem who discover the truth on secretly following Teja to his hideout where Ram Gopal tricks him and escapes his hideout prison. However, Amar and Prem mistake him for Teja and imprison him again - resulting in Teja imprisoning Amar and Prem as well before escaping from his hideout. Amar and Prem still manage to convince Robert and Bhalla and Ram Gopal is Teja and free him from the prison. An escaping Teja is then stopped by Amar and Prem along with Robert and Bhalla. Meanwhile, throughout the film, Robert and Bhalla are constantly harassed by Crime Master Gogo who is demanding his money taken by Teja back, but he discovers Ram Gopal's diamonds and he kidnaps him along with Raveena and Karishma. At Gogo's hideout, Amar and Prem arrive and they try to control the situation along with Ram Gopal as each motive of each villain is revealed in a comic standoff. However, the police who were already called by Amar and Prem, are able to find Gogo's hideout and arrest all of the criminals. Ram Gopal finally gets all of his diamonds back and he also agrees for the marriages of Amar and Prem with Raveena and Karishma, respectively.

Cast

as Amar Manohar *

as Prem Bhopali *

as Raveena Bajaj *

as Karishma *

as Ram Gopal Bajaj / Shyam Gopal Bajaj "Teja" (Double Role) *

as Crime Master Gogo *

Viju Khote Viju Khote (17 December 1941 – 30 September 2019) was an Indian actor who was known for his work in more than 440 films in Hindi and Marathi cinema. He was famous as the dacoit ''Kaalia'' in the film '' Sholay'' and the dialogue, "Sardar ...

as Robert *

Shehzad Khan Shehzad Khan is an Indian actor who appears in Bollywood films and TV serials. His wife's name is Humaira Khan. Career Khan made his acting debut in 1988 film ''Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak''. He is better known for his role of "Bhalla" in 1994 film ...

as Bhalla * Javed Khan as Anand *

Tiku Talsania Tiku Talsania (born 7 June 1954) is an Indian actor, who works in the Bollywood industry. Apart from acting in films and television serials, he also performs as a freelance theatre artist, working for Gujarati theatre. Career Television Tiku ...

as Inspector Pandey *

Harish Patel Harish Patel (born 5 July 1953) is an Indian character actor. He has appeared in a variety of Hindi films, but in recent years has begun to appear in American projects like reimagination of '' Four Weddings and a Funeral'' on Hulu. His latest ...

as Sevaram *

Mehmood Mahmud is a transliteration of the male Arabic given name (), common in most parts of the Islamic world. It comes from the Arabic triconsonantal root Ḥ-M-D, meaning ''praise'', along with ''Muhammad''. Siam Mahmud *Mahmood (singer) (born 199 ...

as Johny *

Deven Verma Deven Verma (23 October 1937 – 2 December 2014) was an Indian film and television actor, particularly known for his comic roles, with Bollywood directors like Basu Chatterji, Hrishikesh Mukherjee and Gulzar. He also produced and directed ...

as Murli Manohar *

Jagdeep Syed Ishtiaq Ahmed Jaffrey (29 March 1939 – 8 July 2020), better known by his stage name Jagdeep, was an Indian actor and comedian who appeared in more than 400 films. He played Soorma Bhopali in '' Sholay'' (1975), Machchar in '' Purana Mand ...

as Bankelal Bhopali *

Govinda Govinda (), also rendered Govind and Gobind, is an epithet of Vishnu which is also used for his avatars such as Krishna. The name appears as the 187th and the 539th name of Vishnu in '' Vishnu Sahasranama''. The name is also popularly addresse ...

as himself (special appearance) *

Juhi Chawla Juhi Chawla (born 13 November 1967) is an Indian actress, film producer and entrepreneur. She established herself as one of the leading actresses of Hindi cinema from the late 1980s through the early 2000s. Recognised for her comic timing and v ...

as herself (special appearance)

Production

Development

After the success of his debut film '' Ghayal'' (1990), director

was approached by producer Vinay Kumar Sinha for a film. The latter wanted to make a film with

. Having made a film on a serious subject, Santoshi wanted to make a comedy film now. It was then decided that he would write a story about two warring buddies, the human versions of

Tom and Jerry ''Tom and Jerry'' is an American animated media franchise and series of comedy short films created in 1940 by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera. Best known for its 161 theatrical short films by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, the series centers on the ...

. Santoshi wrote the screenplay with Dilip Shukla, also modelling the characters on ''

Archie comics Archie Comic Publications, Inc., is an American comic book publisher headquartered in Pelham, New York. Despite the film feeling impromptu, every scene and dialogue was in the script.

Casting

Santoshi then decided to cast

followed by then relative newcomers Karisma Kapoor and Raveena Tandon as the female leads along with Paresh Rawal in a double role. Santoshi finished the script after the casting. He also wrote several dialogues on the set which were in his mind and not in the script.

Amrish Puri Amrish Puri (22 June 1932 – 12 January 2005) was an Indian actor, who was one of the most notable and important figures in Indian cinema and Theatre. He acted in more than 450 films, established himself as one of the most popular actor ...

was supposed to play the role of Mogambo's younger brother, Zorambo. But due to the length of the film, the character was removed.

Sunny Deol Ajay Singh Deol (born 19 October 1956), better known by his stage name Sunny Deol, is an Indian actor, film director, producer, politician and current Member of Parliament from Gurdaspur (Lok Sabha constituency) of Punjab, India. As an actor, ...

was supposed to do a cameo in the film, who was not available at that time. It was done by

. Initially, Salman Khan wanted more screen space than the other but later agreed to have the same amount of screen time.

Tinnu Anand Tinu Anand (born Virender Raj Anand, 12 October 1945) is an Indian actor, director, writer and producer in Hindi cinema and a few Telugu and Tamil films. Early life He is the son of veteran writer Inder Raj Anand, brother of producer Bittu An ...

was offered the role of the villain "Gogo", but could not do it because of date issues. It eventually played by

. While shooting, Santoshi had to call for a cut as almost the entire crew including the director of photography laughed so hard that it shook the camera. The

Muhurat shot In the Indian film industry, the muhurat shot or muhurtam shot is the first shot (or take) of a film marking the commencement of the principal photography Principal photography is the phase of producing a film or television show in whic ...

was done by cricketer

Sachin Tendulkar Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar (; ; born 24 April 1973) is an Indian former international cricketer who captained the Indian national team. He is regarded as one of the greatest batsmen in the history of cricket. He is the all time highest run-sco ...

. ''Andaz Apna Apna'' took three years in making, which resulted in some continuity issues. Ishwar Bidri was the director of photography while V. N. Mayekar served as the editor.

Marketing

made a special appearance in the 1993 film ''

Damini ''Damini'' () is a 1993 Indian Hindi-language crime drama film directed and co-written by Rajkumar Santoshi. It stars Meenakshi Seshadri in the titular role with Sunny Deol, Rishi Kapoor and Amrish Puri. Aamir Khan makes a special appearance. T ...

'' to promote the film.

Soundtrack

The film featured 4 songs composed by Tushar Bhatia with lyrics by

Majrooh Sultanpuri Asrar ul Hassan Khan (1 October 1919 − 24 May 2000), better known as Majrooh Sultanpuri, was an Indian Urdu poet and lyricist in India's Hindi language film industry. He wrote Hindustani lyrics for numerous Hindi film soundtracks. He was ...

. There are 2 songs more songs in the soundtrack, which were not used in the film.

Reception

Box office

The film only did moderately well at box-office; it was able to recover its budget cost mainly due to business from big cities but did not turn out to be a massive hit contrary to everyone's expectations. It earned an excess of net in India. Its total domestic gross was , and its overseas gross was $150,000, bringing its worldwide gross to . It was the year's 17th highest-grossing Indian film. The lack of publicity and tough competition from other films of that year were reasons for its average business. Santoshi also attributes the failure to the fact that the film was not released and distributed well due to a new distributor. All of these films were very strong in their box office presence and ''Andaz Apna Apna'', belonging to a different genre, could not compete well. It has however, in subsequent years, achieved a

cult classic A cult following refers to a group of fans who are highly dedicated to some person, idea, object, movement, or work, often an artist, in particular a performing artist, or an artwork in some medium. The lattermost is often called a cult classic. ...

status among Hindi audiences.

Critical reception

While reviewing ''

Grand Masti ''Grand Masti'' (), also referred to as ''Masti 2'', is a 2013 Indian Hindi-language adult comedy film directed by Indra Kumar and produced by Ashok Thakeria. The film is a sequel to the 2004 film '' Masti'', and the second installment of '' M ...

'' in 2013, critic

Khalid Mohamed Khalid Mohamed is an Indian journalist, editing, editor, Film criticism, film critic, screenwriter and film director. He formerly worked for the ''Hindustan Times'' and was the lead editor for ''Filmfare'' magazine. He is the son of Bollywoo ...

described ''Andaz Apna Apna'' in the "collection of excellent comedies" from Hindi cinema. Film critic

Raja Sen Raja Sen (born 10 November 1955) is an Indian film and television director and the winner of three National Film Awards from Kolkata, West Bengal, India. He is the father of actress Rimi Sen. Career Raja Sen first received recognition with '' ...

called it a "cornball classic" and "one of the greatest comedies in recent times." In 2014, comedian

Aditi Mittal Aditi Mittal is an Indian stand-up comedian, actress and writer. One of the first women to do stand-up comedy in India, Mittal has been rated amongst India's top 10 stand-up comedians by ''The Times of India''. CNNIBN.com named her as one of the ...

wrote: "Writing about ''Andaz Apna Apna'', I have realized, is like writing about mother's love. Everyone has their own version of how it affects them, what lines they remember the most." The film was featured in ''

Filmfare ''Filmfare'' is an Indian English-language fortnightly magazine published by Worldwide Media. Acknowledged as one of Indian most popular entertainment magazines, it publishes pieces involving news, interviews, photos, videos, reviews, events, a ...

s 100 Days series. It is available on the streaming platform

Netflix Netflix, Inc. is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service and production company based in Los Gatos, California. Founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California, it offers a ...

and Prime Video.

Legacy

Several dialogues from this film like "Teja main hu. Mark Idhar hai", "Crime Master Gogo, Mogambo ka Bhatija", "Do dost ek cup me chay piyenge" etc., are popular. It went on to be an inspiration for the plot element of the Tamil film ''Ullathai Allitha'', the Telugu film ''Veedevadandi Babu'' and the Kannada film ''Galate Aliyandru''. It was also reported that the climax of 1973 film ''

'', including the set and the action, was shot-to-shot copied in this film. Andaz Apna Apna didn't have a bound script most of the dialogues were improvised by the cast and crew during the shoot of the film. The film was featured in ''

s 100 Days series. It was voted as the 2nd best Bollywood comedy film of all time in an online poll conducted by ''

The Indian Express ''The Indian Express'' is an English-language Indian daily newspaper founded in 1932. It is published in Mumbai by the Indian Express Limited, Indian Express Group. In 1999, eight years after the group's founder Ramnath Goenka's death in 1991, ...

''. The plot elements of the film were used in many languages as ''

'' (1996), ''

'' (1997) and '' Galate Aliyandru'' (2000). ''Andaz Naya Naya'' is a Bollywood animated 3D film, which is an official remake of ''Andaz Apna Apna'', but it has been shelved due to unknown reasons. Producer Sidharth Jain began to question if the film would do any good at the box office because Indian animated films do not get the good market, so Jain shelved the film after being 35% done.

Nominations

References

External links

* * {{Rajkumar Santoshi 1994 films 1990s buddy comedy films Films directed by Rajkumar Santoshi 1990s Hindi-language films 1994 romantic comedy films Indian buddy comedy films Indian romantic comedy films Films shot in Ooty Hindi films remade in other languages Hindi-language comedy films Indian action comedy films