Wanted To Have Contemporary Take On ‘Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro’: ‘Bahut Hua Sammaan’ Director

Mumbai: Filmmaker Ashish R Shukla says his attempt with the latest political satire “Bahut Hua Sammaan” was to give a modern-day spin to the 1983 cult classic “Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro”. Directed by Kundan Shah, “Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro” mixed comedy with themes of corruption and unemployment. It film featured actors Naseeruddin Shah, Ravi Baswani, Om Puri, Pankaj Kapur, Satish Kaushik, Satish Shah, Neena Gupta, Bhakti Bharve and Deepak Qazir.

“Bahut Hua Sammaan” chronicles the story of two small-time con-men engineering students (Raghav Juyal, Abhishek Chauhan) who decide to rob a bank as per a master plan by been-there, know-it-all soul in their college ‘Baba’, played by Sanjay Mishra. Shukla, who recently helmed the SonyLiv webseries “Undekhi”, said the film is politically charged but doesn’t lean towards any ideology. “We wanted to make a contemporary take on ‘Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro’ with a lot of ’80s music which I love. Thankfully I had access to the whole SaReGaMa library from where I’ve used 33 forgotten songs mostly from Bappi Lahiri and some unique voices like Sharon Prabhakar to give it a unique flavour. “The film is also political in nature but it does not follow any single ideology, rather it contradicts every ideology and shows their loopholes whether it’s left, right or centre,” Shukla said in a statement. The film was scheduled to release in summer but the coronavirus-induced nationwide lockdown delayed the plans. Shukla said he is elated with the response coming his way for “Bahut Hua Sammaan”, which released on Friday on Disney+ Hotstar. “We wanted to make a film that is relevant today without any overdose of intellect to keep it accessible and fun. It’s great to see the positive reviews and mouth publicity that is happening since its release.” The film also stars Ram Kapoor, Nidhi Singh and Namit Das.