Film Sirf Tum clocks 25 years Producer Boney Kapoor reacts
Film Sirf Tum clocks 25 years
Producer Boney Kapoor reacts
Boney Kapoor produced and 1999 released film Sirf Tum featuring Sanjay Kapoor, Priya Gill and Sushmita Sen, clocked 25 years on June 4. The film is remembered for its unusual plot and chartbuster songs and a big success at the box office.
According to Boney Kapoor, he went on a wild hunt for Sushmita Sen. He had approached Raveena Tandon
Pooja Batra and Dipti Bhatnagar.
Reacting to 25 years of “Sirf Tum”, Sanjay Kapoor says he has often said that it was his “bad luck” that Sirf Tum worked and it encouraged him to look for more acting assignments…
Sanjay had put in hard work in Sirf Tum and so were Priya Gill and Sushmita Sen. Not to forget Jackie Shroff, he was superb.
Notably, the song ‘Dilbar Dilbar’ turned out to be a big hit and even today it rings in ears. The song was picturised in Houston, USA. There’s an interesting story about how he got to know about the locations.
They were shooting for Pukar 2000 and he was talking to the various action directors in the USA. One action director had come with a showreel. In this showreel, he saw this place with a waterfall, a skyscraper with a Gothic structure on the top, etc and suggested to Sanjay to shoot the song in these places. In the 1995 released original version in tamil Kadhal Kottai was filmed in Rajasthan.
To ill luck, director Agathiyan and the cinematographer Thangar Bachan didn’t get the visa. Farah Khan was choreographing the songs for Pukar in the USA and shot ‘Dilbar’. Ashok Mehta, the DOP of Pukar, stepped in too. The song was filmed in 3 days.
Boney further added that one day he will account for this from Bhushan Kumar. Dilbar Dilbar’ has been remixed multiple times and so has ‘Hawa Hawaai’ from Mr India.
The film has a strong repeat value. The climax is nail-biting…
In fact, he had told the director that in the climax, the audience should get so involved that they should put their feet up in the seats, fearing that their legs would get wet in the rain! We had rain machines and a number of fire engines for that scene in Delhi.
They showed real rainfall as well in a few shots and a lot of hard work went for that scene.
In fact, the film originally was 3 ½ hours long. He had permanent distributors and screened this version to them. They didn’t have faith in the product while he was confident. They all said, ‘Boney saab, the money which we gave you, you can keep it. We’ll adjust it in the next film. But we won’t release the film on MG (minimum guarantee)’!
Hence, Boney eleased the film all over India on his account and it turned out to be a big money spinner. His partners, Nitin Manmohan, Sunil Manchanda and Gautam Kumar, who funded the film, also left him, but he reimbursed the money to them.
Sanjay Kapoor’s earlier films had failed so he left. Also, Mukul Anand, who was associated with them had passed away. This was the reason they gave him for exiting from the project.
When asked were Sanjay Kapoor and Priya Gill the original choices, he said yes.
It’s so overwhelming to know that in June 1999, Biwi No 1, Sirf Tum and Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam were all running together in cinemas…
And in those days, the best time for films to release was June, July and August. Because there is no exam tension in this period. Schools had just reopened and there were also many festivals and holidays in that period, especially in August.
News Edit K.V.Raman
