Darr

Darr: A Violent Love Story
Theatrical Release Poster
Directed by	Yash Chopra
Produced by	Yash Chopra
Written by	Honey Irani Javed Siddiqui
Starring	Juhi Chawla Sunny Deol Shah Rukh Khan Anupam Kher Tanvi Azmi Dalip Tahil
Music by	Shiv-Hari
Cinematography	Manmohan Singh
Edited by	Keshav Naidu
Production company	Yash Raj Films
Distributed by	Yash Raj Films
Release date	24 December 1993 (1993-12-24)
Running time	177 minutes
Country	India
Language	Hindi
Budget	₹3.25 crore[1]
Box office	est.₹25.73 crore[1]

Darr: A Violent Love Story (English: Fear) is a 1993 Indian psychological romantic thriller film directed by Yash Chopra under the banner of Yash Raj Films, inspired by the movie Cape Fear. It stars Juhi Chawla, Sunny Deol and Shah Rukh Khan in leading roles. In the film, Shah Rukh Khan played the role of an obsessive lover. The film also stars Anupam Kher, Tanvi Azmi and Dalip Tahil.

The film was well received by critics and audiences, earning the film and its actors' accolades, it was declared a "blockbuster" at the domestic as well as overseas box office. It has attained classic status over the years and is regarded as one of Chopra's best. Darr was later remade in Kannada as Preethse.^[2]

Plot

The film begins with Kiran (Juhi Chawla), a college student, returning home to her brother Vijay (Anupam Kher) and his wife Poonam (Tanvi Azmi) for Holi celebrations and being obsessively stalked along the way by Rahul (Shahrukh Khan), her classmate who has a crush on her. Kiran's boyfriend Sunil (Sunny Deol) is a Navy-Marine Commando officer, and is on a mission to free a child hostage from some terrorists on the high seas. Sunil saves the child hostage. Sunil's Captain Mehra (Dalip Tahil) is also the father of Rahul. Rahul tries to be friendly with Sunil in order to be closer to Kiran.

When Kiran reaches home, she is continually stalked by Rahul on the phone. This causes much stress to herself and her family. He crashes Kiran's family's Holi celebrations incognito as a member of the band. Sunil asks Kiran to offer the band some money for their performance, where Rahul, veiled in Holi colours, whispers "I love you, K-K-K-Kiran" to Kiran, which disturbs her greatly and a foot chase ensues to find the hooligan who's invaded their house, but Rahul soon disappears into the crowd.

When Rahul receives the news of Kiran and Sunil's engagement, he tries to shoot and kill Sunil when the couple is out shopping for a wedding ring. He misses his aim and Sunil begins to chase him, from which Rahul narrowly escapes being recognized by Sunil.

Kiran and Sunil get married but Rahul still refuses to give up on Kiran. He defaces the newly married couple's home with graffiti declaring his love, causing more distress to them. To get away from the stalker, Sunil takes Kiran on a surprise honeymoon to Switzerland. Learning their location through devious means, Rahul turns up at their hotel in the Alps. Kiran recognizes him from college and the couple welcomes him to be part of their festivities. That very evening, Sunil finds out from Kiran's brother Vijay that Rahul is the one who has been Kiran's stalker all along. He sends Kiran away on a boat and confronts Rahul. Rahul tries to run, but Sunil catches up with him in a forest where they have a fight. Rahul stabs Sunil with a knife after feigning surrender, and leaves him for dead. He then goes to the boat and tries to forcefully abduct Kiran, he wants to marry Kiran without her consent. But Sunil comes back and brutally beats him before shooting and killing him. Kiran and Sunil then return to India and reunite with their family.

Cast

• Shah Rukh Khan as Rahul Mehra
• Sunny Deol as Sunil Malhotra
• Juhi Chawla as Kiran Awasthi Malhotra
• Anupam Kher as Vijay Awasthi, Kiran's brother
• Tanvi Azmi as Poonam Awasthi, Vijay's wife
• Dalip Tahil as Captain Mehra, Rahul's father

Production

Sanjay Dutt was the original choice of the role of lead antagonist Rahul, but Chopra was unable to finalize him because of his jail sentence due to illegal possession of arms. Sudesh Berry was then considered for the role, but was rejected after a screen test. Ajay Devgan was offered the role of Rahul, but he couldn't accept due to other commitments.

Later on, Aamir Khan (who had worked on Chopra's Parampara) was cast as Rahul.^[3] Khan later had other issues with the filming as he was not happy with the way Deol's character repeatedly punched his character in a fight sequence. He was further discontented when Chopra refused to give him and Deol a joint narration of the script.^[4] Therefore, he ultimately opted out of the film altogether.

After Aamir Khan left the film. Shah Rukh Khan was cast as Rahul. Darr helped bring Shah Rukh Khan to stardom and he went onto feature in Chopra's every directorial venture after this film. Rishi Kapoor and Jackie Shroff were offered Sunil's role before Sunny Deol.

Nitish Bharadwaj was approached for Sunil's role after Rishi Kapoor and Jackie Shroff rejected the role. This is because of his immense popularity as Lord Krishna's role in B.R. Chopra's Mahabharat. But Nitish rejected the role claiming that the role is not as challenging as it would be.

Soundtrack

The soundtrack for Darr was composed by Shiv Kumar Sharma and Hariprasad Chaurasia. The film also features the song "Ooops Up" by Snap! and various versions of "Right Here Waiting", originally recorded by Richard Marx.^[5]

It was the best-selling Bollywood soundtrack album of the year.^[6] The soundtrack album sold about 4.5 million units in India,^[7] earning at least ₹10.8 crore (equivalent to ₹56 crore or US$7.8 million in 2017).^[8] Rakesh Budhu of Planet Bollywood in his review gave the album 7.5 stars out of 10.^[9]

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
Planet Bollywood	[9]

All lyrics written by Anand Bakshi.

Box office

At the domestic Indian box office, Darr was the third highest-grossing film of 1993, after Aankhen and Khalnayak, and was declared a blockbuster at the box office.^[10] In India, it was released on 190 screens, with 19.96 million tickets sold. Its domestic gross was ₹19.73 crore, including a net income of ₹10.74 crore, which is equivalent to ₹184.4 crore (US$26 million) when adjusted for inflation.^[1] Its domestic gross is equivalent to ₹339 crore (US$47 million) when adjusted for inflation.^{[lower-alpha 1]}

At the overseas box office, Darr was the year's highest-grossing Indian film of 1993, grossing $500,000 (₹1.58 crore).^[11] Worldwide, it grossed ₹21.31 crore,^[1] equivalent to ₹366 crore (US$51 million) when adjusted for inflation.^{[lower-alpha 1]}

Remakes

Darr was remade in Kannada as Preethse, starring Upendra as Chandu (Rahul) Shiva Rajkumar as Surya (Sunil) and Bollywood actress Sonali Bendre playing Kiran.^[12]

The teaser trailer of five-part web series Darr 2.0 was released on YouTube on August 30, 2016. It is to be a retelling of the film in a contemporary setting, portraying cyber-stalking and digital crimes. The web series is produced by Ashish Chopra under the banner of Y-Films and is directed by Vikash Chandra. Screenplay and dialogues are by Nikhil Taneja and Shubham Yogi.^[13][14]

Awards

Notes

References

External links

• Darr on IMDb