Review of Hero

Hero (II) (1983)
6/10
Lambi Judai
23 January 2006
This is the movie that shot Jackie Shroff to stardom and for which he still obliges to Subhash Ghai. The movie, in spite of having a simple story line became instant hit owing to its very sensitive touch of direction and great music. 'Ding dong o baby sing song' clicked with the Indian audience after they had already developed a taste for Hindi songs sung in western style - popularly called as Indi pop- introduced by Nazia Hassan . The latter (from the movie 'qurbani') also started a trend of roping in Pakistani singers for Bollywood soundtrack. Hero had Reshma sing the song 'Lambi Judai'. The baritone 'quawwali-like' voice of reshma fascinated the Indian audience so much that two decades later when Ila Arun reproduced the style in 'choli ke peeche kya hai' (again in Ghai's movie Khalnayak) the Indian masses swung to it in a dejavu.

Coming back to the movie, it was also the introduction of the pretty girl Menakshi Sheshadri to the masses (though this was her third movie). The story goes like this, Jaikishan (alias Jackie dada) is henchman with a loyal gang who on the instructions of his master Amrish Puri, kidnaps the pretty daughter of a cop. The rest is the love story where the girl falls in love with her kidnapper and her haughty and dictatorial father, after an initial resistance had to give up to the indomitable love.

Songs are sung when the police raids the gang's jungle hideouts to recover the girl, who is now a cohort of the gang; motorcycle races are won by the protagonist against the other suitor of the girl; high octane emotions in the family to accept a vagabond for son in law; hero's internal conflict of breaching his loyalty(to his godfather) for love etc. etc. Overall a good potpourri and a complete family entertainer which stayed in our early eighties hearts for years. A PERFECT BOLLYWOOD MUSICAL.
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