''Major Saab'' (: Respected Major) is a 1998 Indian

Hindi Modern Standard Hindi (, ), commonly referred to as Hindi, is the Standard language, standardised variety of the Hindustani language written in the Devanagari script. It is an official language of India, official language of the Government ...

-language

action film The action film is a film genre that predominantly features chase sequences, fights, shootouts, explosions, and stunt work. The specifics of what constitutes an action film has been in scholarly debate since the 1980s. While some scholars such as D ...

directed by

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

, starring

Amitabh Bachchan Amitabh Bachchan (; 11 October 1942) is an Indian actor who works in Hindi cinema. He is often considered one of the greatest, most accomplished and commercially successful actors in the history of Indian cinema.* * * * * With a cinemati ...

Ajay Devgn Vishal Veeru Devgan (born 2 April 1969), known professionally as Ajay Devgn, is an Indian actor, film director, and producer. One of the most prolific actors of Hindi cinema, Devgn has appeared in over Ajay Devgn filmography, 100 films and ha ...

Sonali Bendre Sonali Bendre Behl (born 1 January 1975), known professionally as Sonali Bendre, is an Indian actress predominantly known for her work in Hindi and Telugu films. Considered as one of the leading actresses of the 1990s and early 2000s, Bendre s ...

, Ashish Vidhyarthi, and Nafisa Ali.

Plot

The plot concerns playboy Virendra "Vir" Pratap Singh. A clause in the will of his wealthy father forces him to enter a military academy in order to inherit the wealth. Vir's repeated attempts to get himself discharged are foiled by Major Jasbir Singh Rana. Then Virendra falls in love with Nisha, the sister of a gangster named Shankar. Shankar wants Nisha to marry the son of his friend Parshuram Bihari and hatches a plot to separate the couple, by pretending to accept Vir, however soon beats him up badly and attempts to break both his arms and legs. After that, the Major then begins training Vir to regain his strength and fight those who wronged him to win Nisha back. Finally, both are accepted by Shankar. However, Bihari kills Shankar and tries to force Nisha to marry his son, but is foiled by the Major and Vir.

Cast

as Major Jasbir Singh Rana *

as Virendra "Vir" Pratap Singh *

as Nisha * Nafisa Ali as Dr. Priya Rana * Ashish Vidhyarthi as Shankar * Mohan Joshi as Parshuram Bihari *

Shahbaaz Khan Shahbaz Khan (real name Haider Khan) is an Indian actor from Indore, Madhya Pradesh. He is famous for playing lead roles in television serials such as ''Chandrakanta (1994 TV series), Chandrakanta'', ''The Great Maratha'', ''The Sword of Tipu ...

as Vicky * Naveen Nischol as Brig. Satish Khurana * Mushtaq Khan as Hanuman Prasad * Avtar Gill as Commissioner of Police *

Dinesh Hingoo Dinesh Hingoo (born 13 April 1940) is an Indian actor who played comic and supporting roles in Hindi films. He has appeared in over 300 films, from ''Taqdeer (1967)'' to ''Be Careful (film), Be Careful (2011)'', and is known for his laughter an ...

as Jai Singhaniya (special appearance) *

Kulbhushan Kharbanda Kulbhushan Kharbanda (born 21 October 1944) is an Indian actor who works in Hindi and Punjabi films. He is best known for his role as the antagonist Shakaal in '' Shaan'' (1980), Starting off with the Delhi-based theatre group ' Yatrik' in the ...

as Raja Thakur (guest appearance) * Siddharth Ray * Jasbir Thandi as Cadet Amrik singh * Pradeep Rawat as Subeidar Singh

Production

The film was shot at National Defence Academy, Pune,

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

and

Mumbai Mumbai ( ; ), also known as Bombay ( ; its official name until 1995), is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra. Mumbai is the financial capital and the most populous city proper of India with an estimated population of 12 ...

Release

Before the release,

Ministry of Defence A ministry of defence or defense (see American and British English spelling differences#-ce.2C -se, spelling differences), also known as a department of defence or defense, is the part of a government responsible for matters of defence and Mi ...

objected to portrayal of armed forces and National Defence Academy. The makers made all the changes recommended by Ministry of Defence and the film was releassed on scheduled date of 26 June 1998.

Reception

India Today ''India Today'' is a weekly Indian English-language news magazine published by Living Media, Living Media India Limited. It is the most widely circulated magazine in India, with a readership of close to 8 million. In 2014, ''India Today'' laun ...

wrote, "The Indian army has been objecting to this set-in-NDA saga and Bachchan's been justifying factual errors saying it's only a movie. An army major and several cadets spend their time trying to unite two lovers. The script is full of loopholes. The Big B is angry - nothing new. Devgan is sincere and Bendre insipid. Waste of talent."

Box office

The film was a moderate success at the box office, it earned 18 crore. It was also the 9th highest-grossing film of the year ( Bollywood films of 1998).

Soundtrack

The music is composed by Anand Raaj Anand and

Aadesh Shrivastava Aadesh Shrivastava (4 September 1964 – 5 September 2015) was a music composer and playback singer who worked in Indian films. Initially, he had worked as a drummer to music composers including R. D. Burman, Rajesh Roshan before working indepe ...

. Lyrics are penned by Anand Raj Anand and Dev Kohli. Initially Anand Raj Anand wanted to sing the song 'Akeli Na Bazaar Jaya Karo' and 'Pyar Kiya toh Nibhana' by himself, but could not due to circumstances, about which he spoke in an interview. However, the whole album gained hugh popularity and tracks like 'Akeli Na Bazaar jaya karo', 'Sona Sona' and 'Pyaar Kiya toh Nibhana' became hit. In 2017, the song 'Pyar kiya toh Nibhana' was recreated with Armaan Malik and Shruti Pathak as singers. Then in 2021 it was recreated by Jonita Gandhi, Millind Gaba and Abhijeet Vaghani on T-Series Mixtape.

Track listing

References

External links

* * {{Youtube, 5SxHASnClvI, Major Saab
The Hindu article
1998 films 1990s Hindi-language films Films scored by Aadesh Shrivastava Films scored by Anand Raj Anand Indian action films 1998 action films Films shot in Pune Films shot in Australia Films shot in Mumbai Indian Army in films