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Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam

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Wikipedia article




'Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam' is a 1999 Indian Hindi-language romantic drama musical film directed by Sanjay Leela Bhansali. It was released internationally as 'Straight From the Heart'. The film stars Salman Khan, Ajay Devgn and Aishwarya Rai. Based on Rashtriyashayar Jhaverchand Meghani's play 'Shetal ne Kathe', the film narrates the story of a newlywed man who discovers that his wife is in love with another man, and decides to unite them. The film has been described as a loose adaptation of Maitreyi Devi's Bengali novel 'Na Hanyate', although the film itself does not credit it as a source.

It was filmed throughout the Gujarat-Rajasthan border region, in addition to Budapest, Hungary, which was used to represent Italy. The film premiered in the Indian Panorama section at the 1999 International Film Festival of India. The Bengali film 'Neel Akasher Chandni' was inspired by this movie.

The film was a commercial success and emerged as one of the highest-grossing Indian films of the year, earning . It received predominantly positive reviews from critics. 'Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam' received 17 nominations at the 45th Filmfare Awards, including Best Actor (Khan and Devgn), and won 7 awards, including Best Film, Best Director (Bhansali), and Best Actress (Rai) and Best Male Playback Singer (Udit Narayan).

Plot



Nandini is the daughter of Pundit Darbar (Vikram Gokhale), a renowned proponent of Indian classical music. It is announced that a young man named Sameer (Salman Khan) will be arriving to stay with the Darbar family, as he wants to grasp the intricacies of Indian classical music under the guidance of the Pundit. He is accommodated in Nandini's room, causing her to take a dislike to Sameer. At first the two tease and prank one another, but soon enough they fall deeply in love. The two spend romantic moments during several family events, including weddings and festivals.

One day, the pair are caught rehearsing their wedding vows by the Pundit and he is enraged since he has already planned Nandini's wedding with Vanraj, who had fallen in love with her during her cousin Anu's wedding. Sameer is banished from the household and the Pundit quits singing since he believes Nandini has brought shame to the family. Sameer is asked never to meet Nandini again. Although he eventually leaves for Italy, he writes letters to Nandini asking her to join him, but his letters do not reach her. After a futile suicide attempt, Nandini reluctantly weds Vanraj. He tries to consummate their marriage on their wedding night, but Nandini is disgusted by his approach and acts coldly towards him. He asks her for an explanation but she chooses to remain silent.

Nandini finally receives Sameer's letters and Vanraj walks in on her reading them. He is enraged and initially decides to return her to her parents, but soon realizes that since she is in love with another man, the right thing to do would be to unite the pair. Vanraj seeks his parents' consent, which they give after disagreeing at first. Nandini and Vanraj arrive in Italy but come up against dead ends searching for Sameer. During their search, they are mugged and Nandini is shot in the arm. Moved by Vanraj's gentleness and affection towards her, Nandini begins to warm up to him. Eventually, they are able to locate Sameer through his mother, and Vanraj dutifully arranges for their meeting on the night of Sameer's debut concert. He then bids goodbye to Nandini and walks away heartbroken.

Upon meeting Sameer, she apologises to him and tells him that she has come to love Vanraj. She reflects on the unwavering love and devotion that Vanraj has showered upon her throughout their relationship, and realises that Vanraj is her true soul mate. Sameer realizes that she doesn't have that love for him which he saw in her long back. Heartbroken, Sameer lets her go back to Vanraj which she readily accepts and Sameer breaks down after she leaves and his mother consoles him. She runs back to Vanraj and tells him that she cannot live without him

. Vanraj adorns a mangala sutra around her neck and they embrace each other.

Cast



*Salman Khan as Sameer Rosselline

*Ajay Devgn as Vanraj

*Aishwarya Rai as Nandini Darbar

*Zohra Sehgal as the grandmother

*Vikram Gokhale as Pundit Darbar

*Smita Jaykar as Amrita

* Rekha Rao as Kamna

* Kenny Desai as Bhairaon

*Sheeba Chaddha as Anupama

* Kanu Gill as Vanraj's mom

* Rajeev Varma as Vikramjeet

*Vinay Pathak as Tarun

*Helen as Mrs. Rosselline

* Dimple Inamdar as Shilpa

* Akash Karnataki as Bharat

Release



DVD

In 2000, Video-sound company in the United States, released the official DVD edition of the film with a "making of" segment. The main feature was presented in an aspect ratio of 1.85 and the original Dolby Digital 5.1 mix.

The second release was by Digital Entertainment Inc. This was a collectors' edition two-disc set, filled with supplementary features. These included:

* Making of the film

* IIFA 2000 and Zee Gold awards, 2000

* Television Promos

* Theatrical Trailer

* Subtitles in English, Spanish, French, Japanese and Arabic

* Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Audio

* Anamorphic Widescreen Presentation

* Information Booklet

Shemaroo and Eros International released single-disc editions in the India market, sans supplementary features.

The movie was released under its English title 'Straight From The Heart'. This DVD was released by Pathfinder Home Entertainment, which was a port of the Digital Entertainment Inc. edition, sans supplementary features.

OTT



Eros International holds rights to this film and has released it in VCD and DVD formats, but without any picture and sound enhancement. The high-definition version of this film is available on the Eros Now website in its uncut format, with improved picture and sound quality.

World television premiere

The film's television premiere was on Sony Entertainment Television.

Reception



'Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam' was well received by most critics especially for its emotional content, cinematography and music as well as the performances of the lead actors and a surprising performance by guest star Helen.

Ken Eisner said "this three-hour spectacular is stuffed with songs, romance, comedy, devotional material, and color-soaked dance numbers that are huge even by Hindi standards." Michael Dequina writing for 'TheMovieReport.com' said of the three leads "Rai, in a luminous, award-winning performance (largely considered her big dramatic breakthroughand justifiably so), fills in the conflicted emotional shades that Khan fails to bring with his one-dimensional presence; and Devgn's soulful subtlety does its job in suggesting Sameer to be a more formidable romantic adversary than viewers would see him as being." The reviewer for 'Filmfare' felt it was a "once in a decade type of extravaganza" and wrote, "Cinematographically, the movie is flawless and by virtue of this fact alone, a must-see. It aims at capturing poetry on screen without becoming pretentious. The music by Ismail Darbar is simply enchanting. The film juxtaposes Indian thematic content with exotic foreign locales."

'Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam' was a Hit at the Indian box office, becoming the third highest grossing of the Bollywood films of 1999 with 200 million. It also did well in the foreign box office with 85 million.

Soundtrack



The soundtrack had lyrics by Mehboob and music by Ismail Darbar. Voices in the soundtrack include those of Kavita Krishnamurthy, Alka Yagnik, Kumar Sanu, Udit Narayan, Hariharan, Vinod Rathod, Sultan Khan, Shankar Mahadevan, KK and others. It received nine Filmfare Awards nominations in the music and singing categories and produced some winners as well. Vikas Bhatnagar of Planet Bollywood gave the soundtrack 10 out of 10 stars and said it has "cemented it's [sic] place in the history books of greatest ever Hindi soundtracks." According to the Indian trade website, box office india the film's soundtrack sold 35,00,000 units making it one of the best selling Indian music album of 1999.

Track listing



Accolades



Notes



References






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