Coolie No. 1 is a 2020 Indian Hindi-language comedy masala film directed by David Dhawan and produced by Vashu Bhagnani. A reboot of the 1995 film of the same name, which itself is a remake of the 1993 Tamil film Chinna Mapillai, the film stars Varun Dhawan, Sara Ali Khan and Paresh Rawal. When a matchmaker is insulted by Jeffrey Rozario, a rich businessman, he vows to exact revenge. As a result, he makes a porter pretend to be a rich man and marries him off to Rozario's daughter.
The film was set to be theatrically released in India on 1 May 2020, but was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[2] Later, it was released on 25 December, during Christmas on Amazon Prime Video. The film got overwhelmingly negative reviews and was panned by critics and audience alike.[1] This film is considered one of the worst films of Varun Dhawan.
The trouble becomes double when Jeffrey comes to town to visit his daughter and son-in-law but spots Raju as a coolie at the train station. Jeffrey creates a ruckus, saying that Raju is a fraud who posed as a rich prince and married his daughter. Spontaneously, Raju pretends to not recognise Jeffrey and shoos him away. Raju comes home dressed as Raj and explains that Jeffrey must have seen his twin brother Raju who his father threw out due to his drinking and gambling addictions. Jeffrey buys this story and decides to get Anju married to Raju, so that both his daughters will live filthy rich lives.
Varun Dhawan said In a short time interview with Indo-Asian News Service, producer Bhangani said that David Dhawan wanted to remake the Tamil film Chinna Mapillai (1993).[7] Other sources point the Telugu film Coolie No. 1 (1991) as the original story.[8][9] Karthik Keramulu of Film Companion notes that the Coolie No. 1 (1995) was a remake of Chinna Mapillai, but also took inspiration from Coolie No. 1 (1991).[10]
Two of the popular songs from the Coolie No. 1 (1995) - "Husn Hai Suhana" and "Main Toh Raste Se Jaa Raha Tha", originally composed by Anand-Milind and written by Sameer were recreated for the film with the original vocals and singers being retained.[20][21][22]
The film was panned from critics, who rejected its irritative performances, loose writing, stale humor, and some unrealistic situations[23] Shubhra Gupta of Indian Express rated it 1 out of 5 stars, calling it a "zero wit, no flair".[24] Taran Adarsh of Bollywood Hungama rated it 3.5/5 stars, calling it funny and entertaining.[25] Writing for Film Companion, Anupama Chopra called the film "offensive and unfunny".[26] Hindustan Times rated the film 1/5 stars and called the film limp spoof of the original.[27]
Coolie is a 1983 Indian action comedy film, directed by Manmohan Desai and written by Kader Khan. The film stars Amitabh Bachchan as Iqbal Aslam Khan, a railway coolie, who was separated from his mother Salma (Waheeda Rehman) due to Zafar's (Kadar Khan) obsession with her causes the destruction of her family and her mental breakdown. Years later, fate unites her sons, Iqbal and Sunny (Rishi Kapoor) and they set out to save Salma from Zafar's captivity. It also starred Rati Agnihotri, Shoma Anand, Suresh Oberoi and Puneet Issar.
The film is also infamous for a fight scene with co-star Puneet Issar, during which Bachchan had a near-fatal injury due to a miscalculated jump. In the final cut of the film, the fight scene during which he got injured was frozen and a message appears marking the scene as the one in which he was injured. The original script showed Bachchan dying after Kader Khan shot him. But later on, after the injury-and-recovery episode, Desai thought that this would have a negative impact on the movie as well as a bad feeling in the audience, decided to change the ending. The modified ending has the hero recover after his operation.[3][4]
Years pass, and Iqbal and his uncle work as coolies. Iqbal has grown up to be a dashing, confident young man, and is considered the leader of the local coolies. During an incident with a man named Mr. Puri, a coolie is beaten up badly, to which Iqbal is infuriated. Mr. Puri is beaten up, but Iqbal is wrongfully imprisoned for his actions. On the same day, however, he is set free. He organizes a labor strike, which brings the station to its knees. Sunny, a young, budding reporter, is covering the story. While speaking to Sunny, Iqbal sees a picture of Sunny's mother who turns out to be Salma. In another attempt to get Salma back, Iqbal rushes to her house to bring her back after all these years, but, to his horror, Salma does not recognize him. Zafar is infuriated at Iqbal's trespass. His crooks, disguised as police officers, near-fatally beat Iqbal, while he takes Salma to the psychiatrist to administer electric shocks on her so that her memory never returns. Sunny threatens to publish all of Zafar's crimes in the newspapers the following day if he does not return Salma to him.
Iqbal and Sunny become friends, and both find love; Iqbal with a Christian girl Julie D'Costa and Sunny with his childhood sweetheart, Deepa. Meanwhile, Aslam has been imprisoned for a crime he did not commit. When he is finally let out, Julie tries to kill him in a graveyard because she thought he had murdered her father, John D'Costa, but, as the revolver is empty, she cannot fire. Aslam explains that Zafar had murdered her father, and framed Aslam, to which Julie believes him. Things are looking up, but the coolies uncover a banking and housing scandal against them. After a series of run-ins with the corrupt parties, Iqbal finds himself in a fight to the death with Zafar. Salma returns at a very pivotal scene in the film, during the election standoff between the communist workers under Iqbal and the capitalist lords under Zafar with her old memories intact and she publicly testifies against Zafar and how he destroyed her family. In the crowd is an old man, who turns out to be Iqbal's long-lost father Aslam. Also, Iqbal's uncle recognizes a birthmark on Sunny, proving that Sunny was indeed the son he thought he had lost in the great flood. The family is reunited, much to the fury of Zafar, who then proceeds to shoot Aslam but accidentally shoots and kills Iqbal's beloved mamu (maternal uncle) who cared for him in his youth. Zafar then abducts Salma. Iqbal and Sunny both chase after the evildoers, killing Mr. Puri (who dies from a heart attack due to the mental pressure of the chase) and Vicky (who falls out of Zafar's car and is run over by an oncoming truck) in the process, until Iqbal corners Zafar in a masjid. The holy shroud from the dargah shrine flies onto Iqbal's chest, and Iqbal defiantly faces Zafar with the belief in God's protection from harm with His name on his chest. He is shot several times by Zafar, but he continues to chase Zafar up the minaret, saying a part of the azaan with each shot. With the last of his strength, he cries the takbir and pushes Zafar off the parapet, killing him instantly, and Iqbal collapses into his mother's arms. Coolies from all faiths pray hard for his recovery, and Iqbal recovers from his injuries to the joy of all.
The script was written by Kader Khan, who also stars as the film's antagonist. In addition to having Bachchan play a Muslim protagonist, Khan incorporated elements of Islamic Sufi mysticism into the script, including various Sufi motifs and references.[5]
Before the film started Bachchan asked Kannada legendary actor Rajkumar to make his cameo in the film.[6][7] There was mutual respect between Amitabh and Rajkumar and they were both admirers of each other.
The film became famous even before its release when Amitabh Bachchan was critically injured on 26 July 1982 in the intestines while filming a fight scene with co-star Puneet Issar at the Bangalore University campus, which almost cost him his life.
Despite the critical injury, Bachchan recovered remarkably and resumed shooting on 7 January 1983. In the final cut of the film, the fight scene during which he got injured was frozen and a message appears marking the scene as the one in which he was injured. Manmohan Desai did this on Amitabh's wish.
Born in Guyana, and living in Toronto, Mohabeer was recently recognized as the best female filmmaker for the 2020 film submissions by the Berlin Underground Film Festival, and has made a variety of feature essay documentaries and shorts. Building on her aesthetic style developed in Coconut/Cane and Cutlass (1994), Mohabeer traces a creative archive of queer Indo-Caribbean lives in Canada by asking how Caribbean people negotiate the freedoms and limits of queer life in Canada, attendant to the body through race, gender, sexuality, dis/ability, illnesss, pleasure and desire.
Visualizing the intergenerational lives, histories, creole identities, familial relations and sexualities of a diverse range of subjects from the queer Indo-Caribbean and Black Caribbean diasporas, the film is a nuanced poem of queer Indo-Caribbean diasporic creole identities; weaving mixtures of Black and Indian, Portuguese and Indo-Caribbean, Indo-Chinese-Caribbean, genderqueer, disabled and elder body, and drag gender identity performance.
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Coolie Killer is a 1982 Hong Kong action movie with elements distinctively similar to the kind of movies John Woo would make, but it debuts way before Woo's quintessential entry into the genre, A Better Tomorrow, and is often cited as the real progenitor of heroic bloodshed cinema, kicking off a film-making trend that is still relevant in the action genre today.
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