Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s iconic 1975 comedy film Chupke Chupke has remained a cult favourite among generations of Hindi cinema fans. It’s one of those rare films that should never be touched. But now it’s about to get a reboot, that too by Luv Ranjan, known for making films only misogynists find funny and fence-sitters find inoffensive at best.
In collaboration with Bhushan Kumar, who has produced films like Hate Story 2 and 3 under the T-series banner, Luv Ranjan will be producing the film. So far, it has been revealed that Rajkummar Rao is potentially be reprising Dharmendra’s role in the original. One might think that having Rao on-board bodes well for the reboot, but Rao is in that sweet phase of his career right now where he can afford to make a few mistakes (think Behen Hogi Teri or Shaadi Mein Zaroor Aana). Here’s hoping there’s no truth to these reports.
Based on Upendranath Ganguly’s story Chhadobeshi, Gulzar had penned the dialogues of the film that starred Dharmendra, Sharmila Tagore, Amitabh Bachchan, Jaya Bachchan, Om Prakash, Asrani, David Cheulkar and Keshto Mukherjee. Not to mention the classic music the film had courtesy of another legend, SD Burman.
This is a reboot that frankly nobody wants. Nobody who has seen and loved the original, at least. Mukherjee was known as the pioneer of “middle cinema” in India, and his films – be it Gol Maal, Abhimaan, or Namak Haraam – are timeless classics.
There are very few people who have been able to do justice to Shakespeare’s work while giving it a modern “upgrade”, Bollywood filmmaker Vishal Bhardwaj being one of the rare ones and neither Luv Ranjan nor Bhushan Kumar instill that kind of faith when it comes to retreating an old classic with its due respect.
When Dharmendra’s son Sunny Deol was asked about the reboot he said something we can all agree with, “I wouldn’t touch a thing like that,” before adding “I wouldn’t want to do (that) because the magic that they created, we can’t create. I have been upfront that I don’t want to do these kind of things because they are legends and why and what they did, it cannot be done. It’s impossible.”
Now only time will tell how the reboot shapes up, but truth be told, we are definitely not holding our breath for this one.
