Besides the gloomy monsoons, it’s also raining biopics and remakes this season. And this trend isn’t only limited to Bollywood because recently news surfaced that Mahesh Bhatt’s semi-autobiographical, Arth, is the first Bollywood film to be remade in Pakistan.
This may be the first time Pakistan is rebooting a Bollywood film, which is about frayed relationships, love and its complexities, and heartbreaks, but Bollywood has actually delved into that zone previously. It was the year 1985 when two Pakistani films were remade in India. Qurbaani and Meherbaani were the two films that were the inspiration for Adhikaar and Alag featuring Rajesh Khanna and Tina Munim.
Hammad Chaudhry of HKC Entertainment, in collaboration with AAA Motion Pictures is the producer of the film while superstar Shaan Shahid will be directing the film which is titled, Arth 2. Shaan who became popular among Indian audiences with Khuda Ke Liye, also plays the lead character in the film alongside Humaima Malick, Mohib Mirza and Uzma Hassan.
In an interview to a leading daily, Hammad stated how, “Arth 2 is a contemporary take on relationships in modern Pakistan but the essence of the original is intact. Today’s generation is far more progressive and open to watching such realistic cinema”.
The original film which starred ace actors such as Shabana Azmi, Kulbhushan Kharbhanda and Smita Patil, was about an advertising filmmaker’s extra marital affair with a model and its repercussions on the deserted wife.
The wife’s struggle to break free from this entanglement is very poignantly depicted in this tale of crumbling marriages and heartaches. Besides the film, the soundtrack of the film composed and performed by Jagjit Singh and Chitra remains popular till date.
The Pakistani version of Arth is all set to release in December this year.
