Hero

This is the movie that shot Jackie Shroff to stardom and for which he still obliges to Subhash Ghai. The movie, in spite of having a simple story line became instant hit owing to its very sensitive touch of direction and great music. 'Ding dong o baby sing song' clicked with the Indian audience after they had already developed a taste for Hindi songs sung in western style - popularly called as Indi pop- introduced by Nazia Hassan . The latter (from the movie 'qurbani') also started a trend of roping in Pakistani singers for Bollywood soundtrack. Hero had Reshma sing the song 'Lambi Judai'. The baritone 'quawwali-like' voice of reshma fascinated the Indian audience so much that two decades later when Ila Arun reproduced the style in 'choli ke peeche kya hai' (again in Ghai's movie Khalnayak) the Indian masses swung to it in a dejavu.

Coming back to the movie, it was also the introduction of the pretty girl Menakshi Sheshadri to the masses (though this was her third movie). The story goes like this, Jaikishan (alias Jackie dada) is henchman with a loyal gang who on the instructions of his master Amrish Puri, kidnaps the pretty daughter of a cop. The rest is the love story where the girl falls in love with her kidnapper and her haughty and dictatorial father, after an initial resistance had to give up to the indomitable love.

Songs are sung when the police raids the gang's jungle hideouts to recover the girl, who is now a cohort of the gang; motorcycle races are won by the protagonist against the other suitor of the girl; high octane emotions in the family to accept a vagabond for son in law; hero's internal conflict of breaching his loyalty(to his godfather) for love etc. etc. Overall a good potpourri and a complete family entertainer which stayed in our early eighties hearts for years. A PERFECT BOLLYWOOD MUSICAL.

Subhash Ghai's Hero is a perfect example of a simple yet sweet film, something that is difficult to comprehend in this era of artificial films. A typical story of love winning against all the odds, the movie strikes a chord mainly because of good direction and a super musical score -- "Ding Dong" and "Tu mera janoo hai" are just two of the melodious numbers that still remain hummable even after all these years. There's a certain degree of simplicity in this movie that makes watching it a memorable experience. Performance wise it is Sanjeev Kumar -- in an interesting comic role -- and Meenakshi Seshadri -- her innocent face and somewhat gullible, somewhat strong character remains in the mind long after the movies is over -- who deserve all the praise. Jackie Shroff, in the title role is good but watching the movie one cannot help but think that Mr Ghai should have stuck to his first choice for the lead -- Sanjay Dutt. Sanju was the best man for this role and, moreover, after all these years he still is a successful "HERO" unlike Jackie. All in all a simple, sweet musical love story and one of Subhash Ghai's best works.