Ghajini (2008 film)

Ghajini is a 2008 Indian Hindi-language action thriller film directed and co-written by A. R. Murugadoss in his Hindi film debut. A remake of the director's Tamil film of the same name, the film stars Aamir Khan, Asin Thottumkal, Jiah Khan and Pradeep Rawat. In the film, Sanjay Singhania, a powerful entrepreneur, suffers from anterograde amnesia after a violent attack on him and his fiancee Kalpana. The film marks Asin's Hindi film debut and the penultimate film of Jiah Khan before her death in 2013.

The film's plot was inspired from Memento and Happy Go Lovely. Khan and Murugadoss co-wrote the film, with Khan suggesting changes to suit the taste of Hindi audience. Allu Aravind, Madhu Mantena and Tagore Madhu jointly acted as the producers, while the film was distributed by Geetha Arts. A. R. Rahman composed the soundtrack and musical score, while cinematography and editing were handled by Ravi K. Chandran and Anthony.

Ghajini was theatrically released on 25 December 2008, where it became the highest-grossing Indian film of the year and the first Bollywood film to cross the ₹100 crore mark domestically, creating the 100 Crore Club. Ghajini's paid preview collections were ₹ 2.7crore. It went on to become the highest-grossing Indian film of all time until it was surpassed by 3 Idiots and Chennai Express. Aamir's character was featured in a 3D video game titled Ghajini – The Game, which is based on the film.

Plot
Sunita, a medical student, is investigating the anterograde amnesia case of Sanjay Singhania, the chairman of Air Voice, a telecommunications company. Sunita does her investigation against her professor Dr. Debkumar Mitra's wishes as Sanjay is being under criminal investigation. Sanjay, who loses his memory every 15 minutes, uses a system of photographs, notes and tattoos on his body to recover his memory and remember his mission of avenging the murder of his fianceé Kalpana Shetty, who was killed by Ghajini Dharmatma, a kingpin and a notable socialite in Mumbai.

Meanwhile, Inspector Arjun Yadav investigates a murder committed by Sanjay. He knocks Sanjay unconscious during a scuffle at his apartment and finds two diaries in his drawer. Arjun reads the first diary and learns that Sanjay, a successful entrepreneur, met Kalpana, a struggling model, after planning to install an advertising billboard above her apartment. When his agents approach Kalpana about it, her boss misinterprets it as a romantic advance and encourages her to accept. Kalpana decides to pose as Sanjay's girlfriend. After learning about the false rumor, Sanjay plans to confront Kalpana but starts to like her after seeing her altruistic nature. He poses as Sachin Chauhan, a newcomer model, and lies to Kalpana about his identity. Sanjay falls deeper in love with her and, at the end of the first diary, proposes to her. Kalpana, surprised, asks for the night to think it over. Sanjay decides to reveal his true identity if she agrees but to walk away if she doesn't.

As Arjun starts reading the second diary, Sanjay attacks and ties him up. Sunita locates the apartment, finds Arjun tied up, and learns of Sanjay's murder plot. She steals his diaries and frees Arjun. Sanjay appears suddenly. As Sunita and Arjun escape, Arjun is hit by a bus. Sunita informs Ghajini that Sanjay is coming after him. Sanjay learns of this and goes to attack her at her dormitory, where he is arrested and sedated. Ghajini is informed by the police about Sanjay's belongings and poses as Sanjay's friend. Soon, Sanjay's employees and doctor arrive and take him home. Ghajini and his men destroy his pictures and cover his tattoos, leaving him with no memory of the past.

After Sanjay gets arrested, Sunita reads the diaries and learns about Kalpana. In the second diary, Kalpana accepts the proposal on the condition that she purchases three Ambassador cars due to a past commitment. One thing leads to another, and Sanjay decides to tell her the truth about himself later. The diary ends abruptly when Sanjay has to go overseas for a few days.

After some research, Sunita eventually learns Kalpana travelled to Goa, where she stumbled across and freed a group of girls from a sex trafficking ring racketeered by Ghajini. Back in Mumbai, Ghajini confronts Kalpana when she discovers two of the girls went missing and then she walks away in disgust. Later that night, a constable calls Kalpana and informs her that Ghajini has set out to kill her and his henchmen are hiding inside her house. Kalpana is unable to save herself and Sanjay rushes to her home after she calls him and finds Kalpana stabbed. Ghajini hits Sanjay in the head with an iron rod, which results in a brain injury, before killing Kalpana with the same rod, in front of him.

After learning this, Sunita reminds Sanjay of Kalpana's murder and helps him track Ghajini to his local area. Sanjay kills his men but has a memory loss fit while searching for Ghajini, who takes advantage of the situation and stabs Sanjay. As Ghajini prepares to kill Sunita the same way he killed Kalpana, Sanjay recovers his memory and kills Ghajini in the same way.

Six months later, Sanjay returns as the chairman of Air Voice and is volunteering at an orphanage named after Kalpana. Sunita gifts him the cement pad with Sanjay and Kalpana's foot impressions and Sanjay feels Kalpana beside him.

Cast

 * Aamir Khan as Sanjay Singhania / Sachin Chauhan, a rich businessman; the chairman of a telecommunications company, Air Voice; who later suffers from short-term memory loss after a tragic incident caused by Ghajini, being solely motivated, thus, to kill him and his cohorts
 * Asin as Kalpana Shetty, a model who gains publicity by falsely proclaiming herself to be the girlfriend of Sanjay Singhania, but soon becomes his love interest, later getting killed by Ghajini
 * Jiah Khan as Sunita Kalantri, a medical student, who tries to study the case of Sanjay Singhania and his amnesiac problem, even though she is forbidden to do so
 * Pradeep Rawat as Ghajini Dharmatma, a gang honcho and the mastermind of many illegal and criminal ventures who is targeted by Sanjay
 * Riyaz Khan as Inspector Arjun Yadav, a police inspector who is investigating the murders Sanjay committed (voiceover by Rajesh Khattar)
 * Khalid Siddiqui as Pankaj Shroff, Sanjay's private assistant and an Air Voice manager
 * Tinnu Anand as Satveer Kohli, Kalpana's boss
 * Sai Tamhankar as Amrita Kashyap, Sunita's friend
 * Supreeth Reddy as Ghajini's henchman
 * Mahendra Ghule as Ghajini’s henchman
 * Vibha Chibber as Havaldar Vaijayanti
 * Sunil Grover as Sampat, a model who is being trained as the fake Sanjay Singhania
 * Rajendran as Ghajini's henchman
 * Firdausi Jussawalla as Dr. Peston Wadia
 * Sonal Sehgal as ad model

Cameo appearance
 * Anjum Rajabali as Dr. Debkumar Mitra, Sunita's professor

Development
It was rumoured earlier that the film was titled Kajri. It is a remake of the Tamil film, Ghajini (2005). Aamir Khan, who had never before worked in a remake film in his career, was initially hesitant to do the film, but was convinced by Suriya, the original star of the Tamil Ghajini, who told him he was "the only one who could do justice to the character." Suriya was a fan of Khan, and had some involvement in the film's development, discussing minute details with Khan for two years during the film's development.

Casting
Priyanka Chopra was offered the role as Kalpana, but was later replaced by Asin, who reprised her role from the original Tamil film.

Khan was involved in the film's creative writing process, deciding what should remain from the original Tamil Ghajini and what changes should be made. Murugadoss revealed that the altered climax of the film was rewritten by Khan. According to Murugadoss:

"We didn't make too many changes in the rest of the film. Every time I'd suggest a change in Ghajini from the original, Aamir would firmly cut it down, saying we should stick to the Tamil script. But he decided we should rewrite the climax. The entire location, incidents and dialogues for the climax were re-written by Aamir. I think the Hindi version is far better than the Tamil Ghajini because of the changes Aamir made."

Influences
Murdagoss's original 2005 Tamil version of Ghajini was inspired by the American film Memento (2000), which itself was adapted from the short story "Memento Mori". The film stars Guy Pearce as Leonard Shelby, a former insurance fraud investigator searching for the man he believes raped and killed his wife during a burglary. Leonard suffers from anterograde amnesia, which he contracted from severe head trauma during the attack on his wife. Certain concepts like writing notes behind instant Polaroid photographs and tattooing facts on his body are also similar. According to Khan, "Ghajini is not a remake or even slightly inspired by Memento, but rather a remake of the Tamil film, Ghajini". However, he acknowledged that Murgadoss's original Tamil film was at least partly inspired by Memento, stating, "Murgadoss had heard about a film called Memento and the concept had really fascinated him. Without having seen the film he went ahead and wrote his own version of the script and screenplay. Having finished his script, he then saw Memento, found it very different from what he had written, and went ahead and made Ghajini."

The CGI opening brain sequence was inspired by the 1999 film Fight Club by David Fincher. This sequence was also used in the Tamil version of the film.

The film's title is a reference to Mahmud of Ghazni, the tenth-century Sultan of Ghaznavid Empire whose name is pronounced "Ghajini" in Tamil. Several comical scenes in the film are similar to Happy Go Lovely (1951). The scene where Kalpana (Asin Thottumkal) helps a blind man to cross the road is similar to the French film Amélie.

Filming
Shooting started in Chennai in May 2007. Climax was shot in Old City, Hyderabad. Other filming locations included Bangalore, Cape Town in South Africa, the Deadpan Desert in Namibia and Mumbai. Aamir Khan had spent a year working out at the gym, training for his role. This film marked the Bollywood debut for Asin. The film's production budget was inr 650000000.

Release
Ghajini was released on 25 December 2008 with an estimated 1,500 prints worldwide, including 1,200 prints (digital and analogue versions) in the domestic market, making it the largest Bollywood release at that time. The domestic rights were sold to Geetha Arts for ₹530 million, while satellite, overseas and home media rights were sold at a total of ₹400 million, breaking the records of Shah Rukh Khan's film Om Shanti Om's ₹730 million.

The overseas distributors, Reliance Entertainment released the film with 300 prints in 22 countries, including 112 prints in the US and Canada, 65 prints in the UK and 36 prints in the UAE. Ghajini was also released in Norway, Germany, Denmark, Netherlands, Belgium, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Singapore. It had around 650 paid previews which fetched it around ₹70 million.

Home media
The two-disc collector's edition DVD was manufactured by Big Home Video and distributed by international distributor, Adlabs Films Ltd (New name is Reliance MediaWorks) on 13 March 2009.

Video games
A PC video game based on the film was manufactured and produced by FXLabs Studios Pvt Ltd and Geetha Arts, and marketed and distributed by Eros Home Entertainment: Ghajini – The Game. It is a third-person action game consisting of five levels of play; here the player controlled the protagonist Sanjay to accomplish missions using martial arts, weapons, and artefacts. It was hailed as India's first true 3D PC game with an MSRP of US$14.99. Although never officially rated, the distributor recommends that 15+ year old players partake in the game.

Mobile video games were also released by Indiagames based on the film including Ghajini The Game and Ghajini Ultimate Workout.

Controversy
Director A. R. Murugadoss was arrested shortly before the film's completion. According to Salem Chandrasekhar, the producer of the Tamil original, he had not bought the rights to remake the film in Hindi.

Anil Kapoor revealed that the director of the original film, Memento (2000) Christopher Nolan, from which Murugadoss ripped-off story, was very upset, he told Anil "I have heard that one of my films has been copied. I (Kapoor) said Ghajini. He was very upset about it. I told Aamir also. I told (Nolan) the film had just been released over there and is a big success. (He then said) Yeah, no money, no credit, no nothing.”

Critical response
On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film received an approval rating of 54% based on 13 reviews, with an average rating of 5.90/10.

Rajeev Masand of CNN IBN wrote "Ghajini isn't a particularly good film, but entertainment it delivers by the bucketful." Martin D'Souza of Bollywood Trade News Network notes its flaws in the script, while praising the action sequences. Taran Adarsh of Bollywood Hungama remarked that the movie "is a winner all the way". Nikhat Kazmi of The Times of India praised the performance by Aamir Khan as its high point. Zee News described Aamir's performance as his best to date.

Sukanya Verma of Rediff describes the film as "a sleek album of dark memories, which are terrifying to relive and shattering to experience". Noyon Jyoti Parasara of AOL India said, "Most comparisons often point out that a remake is not as worthy.Ghajini however succeeds when it is compared to the Tamil version directed by the same director." Anupama Chopra of NDTV said "Ghajini isn't a great film or even a very good one but I recommend that you see it. It is, as we used to say in the old days, paisa vasool. Kaveree Bamzai of India Today said that "This is brutality, choreographed by a poet, and therefore that much more compelling."

Gaurav Malani of India Times criticises its length while praising the performance of the cast. Raja Sen of Rediff criticised the performance of Asin while concluding, "overwhelming feeling is one of regret". Shubhra Gupta of Express India concluded that Ghajini is too long, too violent, and criticised Jiah Khan's acting and dancing skills, but praised the performances of Aamir Khan and Asin. Hindustan Times wrote "You'd like to give Ghajini a long-term memory loss. Kya, kyon, kahan? Murugadoss.? Aamir? Asin? Who? Got to jog my memory... maybe after 15 minutes."

Box office
Ghajini released worldwide on 25 December 2008, on Christmas Day. The film became the first-ever Bollywood film to open in double digits, collecting ₹102 million ($1.27 million) on its opening day, followed by ₹118 million ($1.47 million), ₹102.5 million ($1.28 million) and ₹87.5 million ($1.09 million), taking its four-day opening weekend collection to ₹410 million ($5.13 million). The film went past ₹1 billion ($12.5 million) domestically in its fourth week, thus becoming the first ever Bollywood film to cross ₹100 crore net domestically. It was the first Bollywood film to enter the 100 crore club.

Ghajini became the highest-grossing Indian film ever at the time, and was declared an "All Time Blockbuster". Its record was surpassed a year later by another Aamir Khan film, 3 Idiots (2009).

Soundtrack
The film has six songs, including two remixes, composed by A. R. Rahman and with lyrics penned by Prasoon Joshi.

Reception
Bollywood Hungama wrote, "The music of Ghajini is all set to make waves way into 2009 after the Christmas release of the film. When 'best of the best' list would be compiled at the year end, it would be hard to ignore Ghajini." Rediff.com gave it the highest possible rating of five stars with the reviewer praising Rahman saying, "This could just be one of his finest albums ever. Not just are the tracks great, but each one segues into the next with perfect unpredictability." According to the Indian trade website Box Office India, the soundtrack album sold about 1.9million units, making it the year's best selling Bollywood music soundtrack album.