Coolie (1983 Hindi film)

Coolie
Film poster
Directed byManmohan Desai
Written byKader Khan
Smt. Jeevanprabha M. Desai
K.K. Shukla
Produced byKetan Desai
StarringAmitabh Bachchan
Rishi Kapoor
Rati Agnihotri
Waheeda Rehman
Shoma Anand
Kader Khan
Puneet Issar
Satyen Kappu
Nilu Phule
CinematographyPeter Pereira
Edited byHrishikesh Mukherjee
Music byLaxmikant–Pyarelal
Distributed byAasia Films Pvt. Ltd.
M.K.D. Films Combine
Release date
  • 2 December 1983 (1983-12-02)
Running time
168 minutes
CountryIndia
LanguageHindi
Budgetest.35 million[1]
Box office210 million[1]

Coolie is a 1983 Indian action comedy film, directed by Manmohan Desai and written by Kader Khan. The film stars Amitabh Bachchan as Iqbal Aslam Khan, a railway coolie, who was separated from his mother Salma (Waheeda Rehman) due to Zafar's (Kader Khan) obsession with her. This obsession causes the destruction of her family and her mental breakdown. Years later, fate unites her sons, Iqbal and Sunny (Rishi Kapoor) and they set out to save Salma from Zafar's captivity. It also starred Rati Agnihotri, Shoma Anand, Suresh Oberoi and Puneet Issar.

The film was released on 2 December 1983 and became the highest-grossing film of the year.[2] It did 180 million (US$17.76 million) in gross revenue. It made over 10 million (US$986,397.58) per territory, a rare achievement for the time and was a huge blockbuster.

The film is also infamous for a fight scene with co-star Puneet Issar, during which Bachchan had a near-fatal injury due to a miscalculated jump. In the final cut of the film, the fight scene during which he got injured was frozen and a message appears marking the scene as the one in which he was injured. The original script showed Bachchan dying after Kader Khan shot him. But later on, after the injury-and-recovery episode, Desai thought that this would have a negative impact on the movie as well as a bad feeling in the audience, decided to change the ending. The modified ending has the hero recover after his operation.[3][4]

According to film expert Rajesh Subramanian Manmohan Desai a great admirer of Hrishikesh Mukerjee requested the veteran director cum editor to edit Coolie.

  1. ^ a b "Coolie (1983) Hindi Movie Review, Budget and Box Office Collection". Bollywood Product. 8 July 2021. Archived from the original on 1 August 2021. Retrieved 18 December 2021.
  2. ^ "Top Earners 1983". boxofficeindia.com. Archived from the original on 1 February 2009. Retrieved 15 July 2017.
  3. ^ Sampath, Parinatha (2 August 2013). "Amitabh Bachchan's near-fatal accident". The Times of India. Archived from the original on 2 July 2015. Retrieved 6 December 2015.
  4. ^ Ronamai, Raymond (10 October 2012). "I Was Clinically Dead for a Couple of Minutes, Says Amitabh Bachchan". International Business Times. Archived from the original on 27 November 2015. Retrieved 6 December 2015.