Bhool Bhulaiyya

Bhool Bhulaiyya

You might have seen the original movie Manichitrathaazu in Malayalam and had admired Shobhana (who had won national award for her performance) and Mohan Lal. Decades later you would have seen the same movie in remade in Kannada as Aptamitra wherein Soundarya gave one of her best performances in Kannada with Vishnuvardhan playing the lead. The hit parade continued and the same movie was remade in Tamil and Telugu as Chandramukhi with Rajnikanth playing the lead and Jyotika in the role played by Shobhana in the original. Cut to 2007 and Priyadarshan brings to you the same tale to the Hindi audiences with Bhool Bhulaiyya starring Akshay Kumar, Shiney Ahuja, Vidya Balan, Amisha Patel, Paresh Rawal etc.,

For any south Indian who has watched the movie in their respective state languages, the story of the movie isn’t necessary to be told I believe. But for others here it goes in brief. The film revolves around a small village/town where the people are very conservative and superstitious. Badri (Manoj Joshi) heads a Brahmin family whose ancestral palace is believed to be haunted. One day, Siddharth (Shiny Ahuja) and Avni (Vidya Balan), the son and daughter-in-law of Badri's elder brother return to their native village from America and decide to settle down for a month in their ancestral palace. Events take on a twist when Avni opens a locked forbidden room. As a result, unnatural events start taking place inside the palace. Badri and Batuk Shankar (Paresh Rawal) try to ward off the evil eye with the help of a priest and a parapsychologist. The blame comes to rest squarely on Radha (Amisha Patel), Badri's adopted daughter. Siddharth brings in his American friend, psychiatrist Dr. Aditya Shrivastav (Akshay Kumar), who uses modern analytical techniques to find out the culprit and solve the mystery.

Interesting inded! Having seen the one of the movies, any person would compare the present one with them. But Priyadarshan doesnt let down anyone. The movie has got the best treatment it could have got. He has given his touch to the movie by putting in comedy which goes very well with the story. He gets the best out of all his comedians in the movie. Paresh Rawal. Rajpal Yadav and Asrani handle the comedy part very well till Akshay’s entry. Once Akshay enters, its fully he who overshadows others with his right timing and punching dialogues. And Priyan has managed the plot well to interlace the comedy tracks with the main track. Shiney has given a good performance as Siddharth. Vidya Balan is pleasant to watch and is good with her acting. She has shown that she isn’t just a one film wonder. Akshay Kumar is at his best with his good timing sense for comedy and emotes well when he has to help out his friend in solving the mystery. Paresh Rawal’s comedy would be remembered for a long time for sure. Rasika Joshi as Paresh’s wife is impressive and evokes lots of laughter with comic sense. Rajpal Yadav is just ok. Amisha Patel has given a controlled performance(!!) Vikram Gokhale as the priest who chips in to help to ward off the ghost is good. Vineeth is good when it comes to classical dancing and he complements well with Vidya in the penultimate climax scene.

Priyan has decided to get away with only three songs in the movie thus not hindering the narration at any point. ‘Labon Pe’, ‘Allah Hafiz’ and ‘Mere Dholna’ are the three songs which come in the movie at the right time. Mere Dholna is a nice classical number with good choreography. Labon Pe is a romantic number and has been shot well. The main attraction – the title track only comes during the titles at the end since it was made for promotion purposes. And that song makes us sit till the credits roll and lights fade off. Music by Pritam is good. Background music by Ranjit Barot haunts at times. S.Thiru has shot the movie well in picturizing the haunted palace with different shades and colors suiting the scenes and the mood. The screenplay is good but it runs a bit slow during the second half.

Priyan again proves that he is good in comedy and does not go overboard anywhere. Though he has changed the story at places to suit the different region of audiences, he succeeds in keeping up the tempo and the suspense.

A good watchable movie for full funny and some scary moments. Watch it for Akshay, Paresh and Vidya Balan's performances. Don’t miss it!! But watch it without comparing with its original and the remakes in other languages.