Darr: A Violent Love Story
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Yash Chopra
Written by	Honey Irani Javed Siddiqui
Produced by	Yash Chopra
Starring	Sunny Deol Juhi Chawla Shah Rukh Khan
Cinematography	Manmohan Singh
Edited by	Keshav Naidu
Music by	Shiv-Hari
Production company	Yash Raj Films
Distributed by	Yash Raj Films
Release date	24 December 1993 (1993-12-24)
Running time	177 minutes
Country	India
Language	Hindi
Budget	₹32.5 million[1]
Box office	est. ₹213 million[1]

Darr: A Violent Love Story (Hindi pronunciation: [ɖər]; transl. Fear) is a 1993 Indian Hindi-language psychological thriller film directed and produced by Yash Chopra under his banner Yash Raj Films. The film stars Sunny Deol, Juhi Chawla and Shah Rukh Khan in the lead roles with Annu Kapoor, Tanvi Azmi and Anupam Kher in supporting roles, and Dalip Tahil in a special appearance. In the film, Rahul (Khan) is obsessed with Kiran (Chawla) and stalks her constantly. However, Rahul goes berserk when she gets engaged to Sunil (Deol), a navy officer, and he decides to forcefully claim Kiran for himself.

Darr released on 24 December 1993, coinciding with the Christmas weekend, and was a major commercial success and declared a blockbuster at the box-office, and was the third-highest grossing film of the year in India, and the highest-grossing Indian film of the year in the overseas markets. It received critical acclaim from critics and audiences upon release, with praise for the direction, screenplay, soundtrack, cinematography, costumes and the performances of the cast, with particular praise directed towards Chawla and Khan's performances.

For Chawla, this was her fourth consecutive box-office hit of the year, thus solidifying her career as a leading lady in the 1990s. Khan's portrayal of an obsessive lover, was applauded by critics and the audiences alike. It won National Film Award for Best Popular Film Providing Wholesome Entertainment at the 41st National Film Awards. The film received 10 nominations at the 39th Filmfare Awards, including Best Film, Best Director (Chopra), and Best Villain (Khan), and won 2 awards, including Best Comedian (Kher).

Plot

Beautiful college student Kiran Awasthi visits her brother Vijay and his wife Poonam upon her return home. Rahul Mehra, a student who is in love with her but hasn't told her, is relentlessly following her. An officer in the Indian Navy named Sunil Malhotra is the love of Kiran's life. Rahul's father is Avinash Mehra, his captain.

Rahul makes an effort to get along with Sunil in order to be near Kiran. Rahul keeps calling her when she gets home and asks her to avoid Sunil, but despite her fear, she rejects Rahul's authority over her. She and her family are frightened when he visits her on both her birthday and Holi. Kiran and Sunil become engaged thanks to Vijay and Poonam, who think the stalker would never bother Kiran again.

Upon learning this, a furious Rahul attempts to murder Sunil but is unsuccessful. When Sunil is chasing Rahul, the stalker he doesn't know is Rahul, he has an accident and is taken to the hospital. Kiran chooses to flee the city so that the stalker won't harm her beloved any longer but is apprehended by Sunil, who marries her that very night. Rahul is enraged by this and vows to take Kiran for himself. He kills the police officers sent to protect the pair and defaces the couple's new home with graffiti reading "Shaadi mubarak Kiran" and "Tum meri ho Kiran" (You are mine, Kiran).

This horrifies Kiran, who worries that she might lose her mind. Sunil books extra tickets to Goa so the stalker thinks the pair is in Goa and travels there in place of Switzerland, which serves to divert and soothe the woman. Rahul falls for the ruse and looks everywhere in Goa in vain. Instead, he meets Vikram "Vicky" Oberoi, a friend from college, who is ill. Rahul then makes an effort to get to know Kiran's brother and sister-in-law by paying them daily visits in an effort to learn where Kiran is.

Vicky calls Rahul and invites him to meet him. When he does, he discovers him on his deathbed, pleading with Rahul to kill him since he can no longer bear the anguish. After a brief pause, he kills his companion while creating the illusion that Vicky was the stalker. Kiran's family believes the stalker committed suicide after failing to find Kiran and relax. Rahul is informed of her true whereabouts, and he shows up at her hotel.

He is acknowledged by Kiran and Sunil, who invite him to join their celebrations. Sunil later learns that Rahul was Kiran's stalker all along. As Rahul begs for compassion, he confronts Rahul and beats him up before sending Kiran off on a boat. When Sunil hesitates, Rahul stabs him and then abandons him to perish. Later, as Rahul arrives at the boat, he tries to marry Kiran without her will and informs her that Sunil has passed away. Despite her pleading and begging, he hands her his mother's old saree and orders her to wear it.

Kiran locks herself in a room in the boat. When the boat's door is smashed and Kiran is yanked back out by Rahul and agrees to marry Rahul, then it is discovered that Sunil didn't actually pass away and he returns to save Kiran. Sunil fights Rahul and ends up killing him. Kiran and Sunil visit their relatives once more in India.

Cast

• Sunny Deol as Sunil Malhotra
• Juhi Chawla as Kiran Awasthi
• Shah Rukh Khan as Rahul Mehra (the main antagonist) love obsession with Kiran.
• Annu Kapoor as Vikram "Vicky" Oberoi, Rahul's friend.
• Tanvi Azmi as Poonam Awasti, Kiran's sister-in-law.
• Dalip Tahil as Avinash Mehra, Rahul's father and Sunil's superior in the Indian Navy.
• Anupam Kher as Vijay Awasti, Kiran's brother
• Piloo J. Wadia as the irritating hotel manager
• Vikas Anand as the psychiatrist

Production

Sridevi, who had previously worked with Chopra in Chandni (1989) and Lamhe (1991), was the original choice for the role of Kiran. The role was planned much like her previous roles in Chandni and Lamhe. However, she wanted Kiran to be the obsessed lover instead of the victim, however Chopra refused this change of plot, causing Sridevi to opt out.^[2] Madhuri Dixit was the next choice but she refused. Aishwarya Rai was screen tested for the role, but did not make the cut. Divya Bharti was then signed.

Sanjay Dutt was the original choice of the role of antagonist Rahul, but Chopra was unable to finalise him because of his jail sentence due to illegal possession of arms. Sudesh Berry was then considered for the role, but was rejected after a screen test.^[3] The role was then offered to Ajay Devgn who turned the role down due to other commitments.^[4][5]

Aamir Khan, who had previously worked with Chopra on Parampara the same year, was signed as Rahul. Chopra replaced Bharti with Juhi Chawla at Khan's request.^[6] However, problems arose when Khan asked Chopra for a joint narration of the script with him and Sunny Deol. Khan's reasoning for this was that since he and Deol were two leading actors, they could hear their roles and if they were both satisfied, no ego hassles would happen henceforth. However, Chopra refused to heed to such a request. Khan was also unhappy with the way Deol's character beat Rahul up in the film's climax. Khan was then removed from the project. Ironically, after the release of the film, Deol was miffed as he felt that the other male lead’s role was given more weightage than his, thus pledging to never work with Chopra and his banner again.

After Aamir Khan opted out of the film, Shah Rukh Khan was cast as Rahul. Darr ended up catapulting him to stardom, and he went on to star in all of Chopra's future directorial ventures.

Rishi Kapoor, Mithun Chakraborty and Jackie Shroff were offered the role of Sunil, but they refused. Nitish Bharadwaj was then approached for Sunil's role, due to his popularity as Lord Krishna in B. R. Chopra's Mahabharat. Bharadwaj rejected the role as he felt the role was not challenging enough. The role went to Sunny Deol, who was initially offered to play the antagonist on writer Honey Irani's request, however Deol declined due to not wanting to risk his career with a negative, hence choosing to play the protagonist.

The film's title Darr was suggested to Chopra by his younger son Uday Chopra (who was also an assistant director in the film) and actor Hrithik Roshan.^[7]

Soundtrack

The soundtrack for Darr was composed by the duo Shiv-Hari (Shiv Kumar Sharma and Hariprasad Chaurasia) and written by Anand Bakshi.

It was the second best-selling Bollywood soundtrack album of the year, being surpassed only by Baazigar (which also starred Khan).^[8] The soundtrack album sold about 4.5 million units in India,^[9] earning at least ₹10.8 crore (equivalent to ₹78 crore or US$9.8 million in 2023).^[10] Rakesh Budhu of Planet Bollywood in his review gave the album 8.5 stars out of 10.^[11]

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
Planet Bollywood	[11]

Box office

At the domestic Indian box office, Darr became the third highest-grossing film of 1993, after Aankhen and Khalnayak, and was declared a blockbuster.^[12] In India, it was released on 190 screens, with 19.96 million tickets sold. Its domestic gross was ₹15.73 crore, including a net income of ₹10.74 crore, which is equivalent to ₹184.4 crore (US$28.32 million) when adjusted for inflation as of 2017.^[1] Its domestic gross is equivalent to ₹339 crore (US$52.06 million) when adjusted for inflation as of 2017.^{[lower-alpha 1]}

At the overseas box office, Darr was the year's highest-grossing Indian film of 1993, grossing $500,000 (₹5.58 crore).^[13] Worldwide, it grossed ₹21.31 crore (US$6.78 million),^[1] equivalent to ₹366 crore (US$56.2 million) when adjusted for inflation as of 2017.^{[lower-alpha 1]}

Awards

Remakes

It was remade in Kannada as Preethse, starring Upendra as Chandu (Rahul), Shiva Rajkumar as Surya (Sunil) and Sonali Bendre playing Kiran.^[16] The film also partially inspired the 2005 Tamil film Chinna. The Telugu film Tapassu also borrowed some scenes from Darr.

The teaser trailer for an intended five-part web series Darr 2.0 was released on YouTube on August 30, 2016. It was set to be a retelling of the film in a contemporary setting, portraying cyber-stalking and digital crimes. The web series was set to be produced by Ashish Chopra under the banner of Y-Films and directed by Vikash Chandra. Screenplay and dialogues are by Nikhil Taneja and Shubham Yogi.^[17][18] The series was shelved.

Notes

References

Further reading

• Chowdhury, Purna (2010). "Bollywood Babes: Body and Female Desire in the Bombay Films Since the Nineties and Darr, Mohra and Aitraaz: A Tropic Discourse". In Mehta, Rini Bhattacharya; Pandharipande, Rajeshwari V. (eds.). Bollywood and Globalization: Indian Popular Cinema, Nation, and Diaspora. Anthem Press. pp. 56–60. ISBN 978-1-84331-833-0.

External links

• Darr at IMDb