Underplayed Gems

Chameli Ki Shaadi (1986)

Chameli Ki Shaadi poster
Original title
चमेली की शादी
Directed by
Basu Chatterjee
Genre
romantic comedy
Country
India
Runtime
2h 17m
Rated
U
Rating
6.8 of 10 from 6 voters
Elsewhere
IMDb
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How it feels

A young couple from different castes tries to win over their disapproving families. They get help from a couple of quirky friends to plan their wedding.

romanticlight-heartedplayfulupbeatfeel-goodcomedicfast-pacedoptimistic

What happens

Chameli Ki Shaadi (lit. 'Chameli's wedding') is a 1986 Indian Hindi-language comedy film directed by Basu Chatterjee, who also co-wrote it with Prakash Mehra, which in turn was adapted from Dhadkanein by Om Prakash Sharma. The film starred Anil Kapoor, Amrita Singh, Om Prakash, Amjad Khan, Pankaj Kapoor, Annu Kapoor and Bharati Achrekar. The story follows Charan (Anil Kapoor) and Chameli (Singh), who love each other, fighting their families' (Pankaj Kapoor, Annu Kapoor and Achrekar) opposition on account of belonging to different castes, with the help of Mastram (Prakash) and Harish (Khan). Following Mehra's interest in adapting his Dhadkanein, Sharma granted him his permission to do so. Anil Kapoor was contacted by Mehra to appear in the film, which he did, despite low salary. Singh followed, and soon after regular Mehra collaborators Prakash and Khan joined the film too, along with Chatterjee collaborator Pankaj Kapoor. The music was composed by yet another Mehra collaborators Kalyanji–Anandji and the lyrics were by Mehra himself and Anjaan. The film's themes include casteism and feminism. The film had its release on 21 February 1986 and became a box-office hit, grossing ₹4.50 crore (equivalent to ₹61 crore or US$6.4 million in 2023) against a production budget of ₹1.50 crore (equivalent to ₹20 crore or US$2.1 million in 2023). It has since gained a cult following. It was remade as a Rajinikanth-starrer Tamil-language film Mappillai in 1989, and a Hindi-language remake has been in development hell. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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