In 1983, Amitabh Bachchan suffered a mishap during the Diwali celebrations when he burnt his left hand. As a result, he was seen keeping his left hand in his pocket, which became a style of his character.
Prakash Mehra got a camera which can be used for shooting than there is no need for dubbing. It was used in this film. Om Prakash got an Award for best performance in this film.composer Bappi Lahiri his 2nd film with Amitabh. The script of this film was given to Kader Khan about 4 months before the shooting started so he could concentrate more, thats why the dialogues are very good.
In the song "Mujhe Naulakha Mangwa De Re", when Amitabh Bachchan hit the ghungroo on his left hand, his real blood was shown and it was not artificial colour.
For this movie, Kishore Kumar got all the five nominations for best male playback singer at the Filmfare Awards, the highest for any singer at the Filmfare Awards. He won he award for the song "Manzilein Apni Jagah".
During the height of height of the war between Manmohan Desai and Prakash Mehra, Manmohan Desai made the comment "Only a sharaabi can make a film like Sharaabi, while a Mard can only make a movie like Mard". Not to be out done, Mehra responded "Only a Coolie could stoop so low and make a comment like that".