Dabangg


Dabangg is a 2010 Indian Hindi-language action comedy film directed by Abhinav Singh Kashyap and produced by Malaika Arora and Arbaaz Khan under Arbaaz Khan Productions with Dhilin Mehta under Shree Ashtavinayak Cine Vision. The film stars Salman Khan, Sonakshi Sinha, Arbaaz Khan and Sonu Sood in the lead roles, while Om Puri, Dimple Kapadia, Vinod Khanna, Anupam Kher, Mahesh Manjrekar and Mahie Gill feature in supporting roles. The film marks the debut of Sinha as an actress, Arbaaz Khan as a producer and Kashyap as a director. Arora makes a special appearance in the song "Munni Badnaam Hui".
Dabangg is set in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. It was made with a budget of 30 crore and marketed at 12 crore. The film was shot primarily in the town of Wai in Maharashtra, while other major scenes were shot in the United Arab Emirates.
Dabangg was released during Eid on 10 September 2010 in nearly 2,100 cinemas worldwide, where it received positive reviews from critics, with praise for the performances of the cast, the action sequences, soundtrack and humour. It went on to gross worldwide and became the highest-grossing Hindi film of 2010.
Dabangg has won several awards—the National Film Award for Best Popular Film Providing Wholesome Entertainment and six Filmfare Awards, including Best Film and Best Female Debut. The film was remade in Tamil as Osthe, with Sood reprising his role, and in Telugu as Gabbar Singh. It was followed by two sequels: Dabangg 2 and Dabangg 3. The latter serves as a partial prequel, describing a flashback which formed the events of Dabangg.

Plot

Chulbul Pandey is a young boy who lives with his younger half-brother Makkhanchand "Makkhi" Pandey, stepfather Prajapati Pandey and mother Naini Devi in Lalganj, Uttar Pradesh. Chulbul has a troubled relationship with Prajapati and Makkhi. After 21 years, Chulbul becomes a cop and calls himself as Robin Hood Pandey, where he still lives with his family. Makkhi is in love with Nirmala, whose father Masterji opposes their relationship. Chulbul falls in love with a girl named Rajjo, whom he meets during a police chase culminating in an encounter.
A corrupt political leader named Chedi Singh meets Chulbul and both quickly become enemies. Makkhi asks Prajapati to arrange his marriage with Nirmala, but Prajapati refuses because he needs money to repay the loans he took to make his factory and believes that he can acquire money through his son marrying a rich girl. In desperate need of money, Makkhi steals some cash from Chulbul's cupboard and gives the stolen cash to Masterji, hoping that he will permit Makkhi to marry Nirmala.
Meanwhile, Chulbul proposes marriage to Rajjo, who rejects as she has to take care of her drunkard father Hariya. Chulbul arrives home to find his mother Naini Devi dead, where he goes to Prajapati to make peace as he is the only family left. However, Prajapati rejects and despises him as an outcast. Makkhi invites Chulbul to his marriage with Nirmala, where Chulbul convinces Hariya to allow him to marry her. Hariya commits suicide as he knows that Rajjo will not marry anyone while he is alive. Chulbul takes Rajjo to Makkhi's exuberant wedding. Realising that Makkhi has stolen his money to finance the wedding, Chulbul marries Rajjo in an impromptu ceremony. Masterji feels disgraced and cancels Makkhi's wedding with Nirmala.
Still feeling annoyed that Chulbul jeopardised his wedding, Makkhi beats up one of the workers in his factory due to a small mishap. The worker goes to the police station with his mother to file a complaint. Rather than simply ask Makkhi to apologise to the worker, Chulbul brutally beats up Makkhi in public to disgrace him.
Chedi takes advantage of the situation and takes Makkhi along with Prajapati to the police station.
Not wishing to aggravate the matter any further, Prajapati resolves the situation by accepting an apology.
Chulbul meets a political leader named Dayal Sahu aka Dayal Babu, who also dislikes Chedi.
With his help, Chulbul adulterates Chedi's breweries and wrongly frames him for it attacks.
Enraged, Chedi burns Makkhi's factory where Prajapati suffers from a heart attack and is hospitalised. Makkhi goes to Chedi for help, where Chedi agrees to finance Prajapati's treatment if he delivers a crate of mangoes to Dayal Babu's house.
Unbeknownst to Makkhi, Chedi has placed a bomb inside the crate, which explodes after he leaves, killing Dayal Babu. Chedi gives Makkhi a task to kill Chulbul. Makkhi accepts, but ends up confessing to Chulbul that Chedi made him plant the bomb unknowingly. Chulbul forgives him and reconciles with Prajapati. Chedi also reveals that he killed Naini to retrieve his money back from Chulbul. During a final confrontation between Chulbul and Chedi, Makkhi reveals to Chulbul that it was Chedi, who killed Naini. Chulbul finally kills Chedi by suffocating him with the exhaust pipe of a tractor and arranges Makkhi's marriage with Nirmala.

Cast

  • Salman Khan as Chulbul Pandey, Police Inspector aka Robin Hood Pandey
  • Sonakshi Sinha as Rajjo Shreshawat
  • Arbaaz Khan as Makkhanchand "Makkhi" Pandey
  • Vinod Khanna as Prajapati Pandey
  • Dimple Kapadia as Naini Devi
  • Sonu Sood as Chedi Singh
  • Mahesh Manjrekar as Hariya Shreshawat
  • Om Puri as Kasturilal Vishkarma
  • Anupam Kher as Dayal Babu
  • Mahie Gill as Nirmala
  • Tinu Anand as Masterji, Nirmala's father
  • Murli Sharma as ACP Malik
  • Ram Sujan Singh as Chaubeji
  • Rajeev Sharma as Toluram Rastogi
  • Amitosh Nagpal as Sumant Kumar Shreshawat
  • Malaika Arora as Munni in the item number "Munni Badnaam Hui"

    Production

Casting

Salman Khan grew a moustache after consulting with his brother and prepared his hair to suit his role. For the former, he had to try out nearly fifty styles in a span of four months before commencement of the filming. Photo-shoots were held to finalise his look. Abhinav Kashyap, in an interview with Bollywood Hungama, revealed that initially he had considered a few others for the role of Chulbul Pandey, but eventually changed his mind and approached Salman. Kashyap had seen Arbaaz in Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na, doing a cameo and approached him to be a part of the project. After reading it, he had instantly accepted to produce and star in it. Sonu Sood was selected for playing the lead antagonist. He revealed that his character was that of a "youth leader with grey shades." Mahesh Manjrekar was later approached to play the father of Sinha's character, although he had plans to quit acting.
In April 2009, Sonakshi Sinha signed for her debut role. Salman had seen her at a function engaging in dancing and offered her the role. Speaking about it, she said that she had lost a weight of 30 kg over two years to prepare for her character of a village girl by "a combination of proper diet and vigorous exercise". She added that she had been "observing people and trying to pick up nuances" as a step of further preparation. Malaika Arora, who had performed a few item numbers in her career, most notably in Dil Se.., was confirmed to do the same in the film. This was the first of its kind in her home production.

Filming

Dabanggs shooting took place primarily in Wai, Maharashtra and the United Arab Emirates. The shooting commenced in September 2009. Production designer Wasiq Khan drew over 100 sketches detailing out every set in the film. The cinematography was performed by Mahesh Limaye. The first schedule began in the town of Wai and continued for 45 days, during which Sonu Sood, the main antagonist fractured his nose. A schedule, primarily involving a song shoot, was captured in the Khalid Bin Al Waheed station in Dubai, making Dabangg the first film to be shot there. Some scenes were also filmed at the Emirates Palace hotel in Abu Dhabi.
The film, involving around five action sequences, was choreographed by S. Vijayan, who previously served as the stunt director of Wanted, and shot over 60 days. Later, special effects were incorporated into those scenes. The songs were choreographed by Raju Khan and Shabina Khan, while Farah Khan choreographed the item number, "Munni Badnaam Hui". The shooting was completed in early June 2010, and the film went into post-production. A party was held to commemorate the completion of the shooting and the success of the theatrical promo. It was attended by the main cast and crew.

Music

The 10-song soundtrack album consisted of five original songs, four remixes and one theme song. Lalit Pandit wrote and composed the item number "Munni Badnaam Hui" while the music director duo Sajid–Wajid composed the remainder of it. Faaiz Anwar and Jalees Sherwani wrote the lyrics for those tracks. The audio rights of Dabangg were sold for about to T-Series, and the album was launched on 6 August 2010 in Delhi. It received positive response and the album performed well on the charts after its release. The tracks "Tere Mast Mast Do Nain" and "Munni Badnaam Hui" were successful upon release and topped the music, radio and streaming charts.

Marketing and release

Dabangg was described as one of the most anticipated films of the year by The Indian Express. The film's theatrical trailer, running for about two and a half minutes, was released on 23 July 2010, alongside Priyadarshan's Khatta Meetha. Khan promoted the film on the reality show Entertainment Ke Liye Kuch Bhi Karega, India's Got Talent and Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Singing Superstar. An event for the film was held at DLF Promenade in Vasant Kunj, New Delhi with the main cast in attendance, an exclusive merchandise for the film was launched. Another set of promotions was held at Nagpur and Hyderabad. It was reported to have broken pre-release records for hype by Cinematix, a filming awareness product originated by Ormax Media.
Dabangg released worldwide on 10 September 2010. Before the film's theatrical release, a special screening of the film took place at Film City on 6 September 2010. The premiere of Dabangg was held in Mumbai on 9 September 2010. It opened up across 1,800 screens in India and around 300 screens overseas. The film was released in 2300 theatres worldwide. It was also screened in Norway at an international film festival. The film's DVDs and VCDs were launched by the Reliance Big Home Video on 12 October 2010. It was released on YouTube on 28 January 2011 for free viewing to audiences in India. The satellite rights were pre-sold for to Colors.