Darr

The film begins with Kiran (Juhi Chawla), a beautiful college student, returning home to her brother Vijay (Anupam Kher) and his wife Poonam (Tanvi Azmi) for Holi celebrations. She is 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 has 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 kills the two cops assigned for their protection and defaces the newly married couple's home with graffiti that declares his love and which causes them more distress. 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.

The film was inspired by the 1991 American film Cape Fear.[2][3] Sanjay Dutt was the original choice of the role of 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 could not accept due to other commitments.

Later on, Aamir Khan (who had worked on Chopra's Parampara) was cast as Rahul.[4] 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 selected Divya Bharti for the female lead.[5][6][7] Therefore, he opted out of the film although Divya was later replaced by Juhi Chawla.

After Aamir Khan left the film, Shah Rukh Khan was cast as Rahul. Darr helped bring Shah Rukh Khan to stardom and he went on to star in all of Chopra's films. Rishi Kapoor and Jackie Shroff were offered Sunil's role before Sunny Deol. Mithun Chakraborthy was also a strong contender for Sunil's role along with Rishi Kapoor and Jackie Shroff.

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.

The film's title Darr was suggested to Yash Chopra by Hrithik Roshan and Uday Chopra.[8]

The soundtrack for Darr was composed by the duo Shiv-Hari (Shiv Kumar Sharma and Hariprasad Chaurasia). It was the second best-selling Bollywood soundtrack album of the year.[9] The soundtrack album sold about 4.5 million units in India,[10] earning at least ₹10.8 crore (equivalent to ₹63 crore or US$8.8 million in 2019).[11] Rakesh Budhu of Planet Bollywood in his review gave the album 7.5 stars out of 10.[12]

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
Planet Bollywood	[12]

All lyrics are written by Anand Bakshi.

At the domestic Indian box office, Darr became the third highest-grossing film of 1993, after Aankhen and Khalnayak, and was declared a blockbuster.[13] In India, it was released on 190 screens, with 19.96 million tickets sold. Its domestic gross was ₹15.73 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$48 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 ₹5.58 crore.[14] Worldwide, it grossed ₹21.31 crore,[1] equivalent to ₹366 crore (US$51 million) when adjusted for inflation.[lower-alpha 1]

Darr was remade in Kannada as Preethse, starring Upendra as Chandu (Rahul) Shiva Rajkumar as Surya (Sunil) and Bollywood actress Sonali Bendre playing Kiran.[15] The film also partially inspired the 2005 Tamil Chinna, starring Arjun Sarja and Sneha in lead roles. The Telugu film Tapassu also borrowed some scenes from Darr.

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.[16][17]

• Chowdhury, Purna (2010). "Bollywood Babes: Body and Female Desire in the Bombay Films Since the Nineties and Darr, Mohra and Aitraaz: A Tropic Discourse". In Mehta, Rini Bhattacharya; Pandharipande, Rajeshwari V. (eds.). Bollywood and Globalization: Indian Popular Cinema, Nation, and Diaspora. Anthem Press. pp. 56–60. ISBN 978-1843318330.

• Darr on IMDb