Shaan

After the super duper success of Sholay the Sippy's came up with this lavish James Bond type action flick. I really can't give the Sippy's enough credit for making Shaan so different to Sholay. Whilst Sholay was a mesh of different genres Shaan is more or less a straight forward action epic. You can see it's inspiration from the title sequence, which is reminiscent of the Bond movies. Even the villain Shakaal's lair is modelled on that of a Bond villain's. Amitabh Bachan,Shashi Kapoor and Shatrughan Sinha perform well whilst Sunil Dutt and Rakhee Gulzar provide fantastic support. Even Kulbushan Karbanda was extraordinary as the evil Shakaal. Shaan also benefits from having a good number of villain character actors, from what I remember there was Dilip Tahil, Sharat Saxena,Goga Kapoor,Sudhir,Mac Mohan and quite a few more. Kulbushan Karbanda had a tough job on his hands trying to match upto the tyrant Gabbar Singh but he delivers. Although half of that credit goes to writers Salim Javed for creating such a fantastic villain in the form of Shakaal Let me take this opportunity to mention an interesting fact, I had seen Kulbushan Karbanda in many movies as a child and had seen Shaan over 30 times yet failed to recognise him as Shakaal because I had never seen him bald. The songs by R.D. Burman were great, especially Pyar Karnewale and Yamma Yamma. Salim Javed had a tough job on their jobs trying to write a script to rival their previous movie Sholay but they delivered. The script was good but the action scenes were fabulous. Shaan is further proof that with Amitabh on board the Sippy's can create classics, even further proof was their next venture Satte Pe Satta.

If you like James Bond, you'll love it!!!

Pure action, good roles, good songs! Bit different from the usual indian themes too.

Recommended!

Shaan tells the story of an honest inspector named DCP Shiv Kumar (Sunil Dutt) who lives a very peaceful life with his wife (Rakhee Gulzar), daughter and two brothers Ravi & Vijay. However, upon, investigating about different crimes in his area, he is killed in his line of duty. However, later on his two brothers Ravi (Shashi Kapoor) & Vijay (Amitabh Batchchan) was persuade by a circus master and a marks man (Shatrughan Sinha) that a man called Shakal (Kulbhushan Kharbanda) who keeps a man-eating crocodile was responsible for his death. They, however, after fighting a prolong battle of great difficulty they manage to reach the island where Shakal is holed up and killed him and also have there brother's revenge taken.

Film Length as shown in Censor Certificate is 5714.51mtr and No.of Reels 22. The running time of film should be 208 mins (3hr 28min). Whereas it is available only 2hr.47mins.

I consider Shaan to be one of the best Indian films ever made. It looks like a very professionally made film, which is quite rare in Indian Cinema.

The fight sequences are very good. Mr Sippy (the director) wisely chose to use the same style as in his previous blockbuster, Sholay. This adds a touch of realism to the fights, as opposed to the norm in Indian films, where we get to see the hero beat-up about 20 guys on his own.

Another highlight of the film was the music. Sippy had an original music soundtrack created for this film, as opposed to stealing bits and pieces from other films. This really does help to increase your enjoyment of the movie. I don't generally like the songs in Indian films, but they were quite good in this film.

The cast is excellent, with everyone performing well in their roles. I find that a lot of films with all-star casts suffer problems as the director tries to give everyone equal screen-time to the detriment of the plot. However, in this film, the whole cast gels. Shatrughan Sinha's character is wisely introduced half-way through the story, thus avoiding trying to introduce too many lead-characters at the start od the film. Amitabh Bachchan and Shashi Kapoor play well off each other as always. As usual, the female characters don't have much to do in the film, with the possible exception of Rakhee Gulzar.

The villain is brilliantly played by Kulbushan Kharbanda. It's blatantly obvious that this character (Shakal) is modelled on Blofeld from the James Bond movies, as is much of the film itself. One gets the feeling that the Sippy was trying to create a villain that would be remembered in Indian Cinematic history in the same way as his earlier creation, Gabbar Singh. Although Shakal is not remembered as fondly as Gabbar Singh by many people, he's still one of Indian Cinema's more memborable villains.

The plot of the movie is sometimes a bit silly (for example, we get the heroes dancing with their girlfriends in a bus soon after they discover that one their family members has been murdered). However, this is a minor criticism in an otherwise brilliant film.

If you like Indian films, Shaan is essential viewing. I'd give it 10 out of 10.