Mr. India (1987) - A worth watching complete entertainer & the history of Invisible Man in Hindi films.

MR. INDIA (1987) is a brave, experimental yet hugely successful Bollywood kind of science fiction directed by Shekhar Kapoor, who at present is a well-known filmmaker in Hollywood too with a few notable English films to his credit.

Incorporating the concept of an invisible man in a comical avatar, the film is one of the most appreciated entertainers of Hindi Cinema appealing to everyone from the age of 5 to 75 without an exception. Having a fast paced, thoroughly engaging script, well supported by a talented cast (Anil Kapoor, Sridevi, Amrish Puri, Satish Kaushik, Anu Kapoor along with a group of energetic kids) and melodious music (Laximkant Pyarelal) MR. INDIA can certainly be rated as a rare entertaining combination of a science fiction, comic venture, kids venture and a tense thriller all together.

The film gave Hindi Cinema few iconic benchmarks led by the fabulously portrayed character of MOGAMBO saying “Mogambo Khush Hua” played by Amrish Puri, fondly remembered even today. Plus Satish Kaushik as Calender, the talented kids singing the medley and Sridevi sensuously saying ‘I Love You’ to no-one visible around are still used as spoofs in several film sequences even after almost three decades. Moreover, one lesser talked about feature of the entertaining classic remains its racy Background score which surely made all its exciting sequences related to the invisible Anil Kapoor, reach another level of excellence.

Looking at the film’s basic content, it surely took its major inspiration from the world famous story of H. G. Wells, and the renowned writer is widely known as the original creator of “The Invisible Man” concept in the world of literature.

Now there are many movies made on this particular subject in various parts of the world with a storyline woven around “The Invisible Man”. But interestingly, Shekhar Kapoor was not the first one to make a film on this concept in India. Because before Shekhar adapted the subject with Anil Kapoor, there were in fact quite a few Hindi movies made on this particular concept starting from 1957 with Ashok Kumar.

1. In 1957, Nanabhai Bhatt made a movie with the title of “Mr. X” in which Ashok Kumar played the role of Mr. X and invisible man.

2. In 1964, Shantilal Soni made a film titled “Mr. X in Bombay” wherein Kishore Kumar enacted the role of an Invisible Man.
In this film, Kishore Kumar gets hold of a medicine which can make him Invisible, and then he fights all the villains in the story with his newly found power. But strangely the director, Shanti Lal Soni, used this invisibility theme only in the climax and the main part of the movie talked about an entirely different storyline.

3. In 1965, Nanabhai Bhatt returned with his original theme used in “Mr.X” along with Ashok Kumar in a film called “Aadhi Raat Ke Baad”, which also revolved around the same theme of the Invisible Man as a kind of sequel.

4. In 1971, K. Ramanlal came with his movie with the title "Elaan" which revolved around a ring, which when kept in mouth could make the person invisible.

5. In 1988, Khwaja Ahmed Abbas had made a lesser known film called “Ek Aadmi a.k.a. Mr. X” which had Amol Palekar & Imitaz Ali playing the invisible man along with Shabana Azmi in the lead.

6. However the best work on the theme, unarguably still remains “Mr. India” released in 1987. A classic with great performances and a Hit soundtrack too, which can easily be included in the list of “The Most Entertaining Movies of Indian Cinema till date”.

7. But even after this most successful film already made on the theme, film-makers continued to make projects on the same subject post 1987. In 1993, Shantilal Soni again revisited his old passion and made Sanjeev Kumar go invisible in his “Professor Ki Padosan”.

Here an interesting back-stage story about this particular film is that it was 75% complete when unfortunatley its leading man, Sanjeev Kumar died and the producer of the film, found himself in a fix. At that moment, Manmohan Desai (after seeing the incomplete film) came to his rescue and suggested that Sanjeev Kumar be made invisible in the remaining portions of the film changing the plot as required. So the storyline was then altered and the film was released with a different story in 1993, long after the death of Sanjeev Kumar.

 8. And more recently it was Tushar Kapoor in 2004, following the trend in Ram Gopal Verma produced and Prawal Raman directed “Gaayab” which was also a failure at the box office.

So that gives us an account of almost half a century long fascination of Bollywood with the theme of Invisible Man, winner of which obviously remains Shekhar Kapoor’s MR. INDIA without any possible doubts. 

Cheers!