Bollywood and Plagiarism: Remakes and Inspirations(2008)

While brousing through the net I came through a concept called BoPla- short for Bollywood Plagiarism. Someone suggested this index to keep tab on Bollywood Plagiarism like the SENSEX for Stock Exchange. With more films from other languages being copied in bollywood without due credit, I think its a good idea. With each Bollywood release, we could recalculate the BoPla and work out if plagiarism in Bollywood is really killing the creativity of bollywood film makers. Let’s begin with analyzing all major Bollywood releases in 2008. And let’s work out how many have been plagiarized, copied, lifted, inspired and the one-in-a-while officially remade. The were 70 major Hindi releases last year, and let’s try to calculate how many fall into the BoPla category.

• 1920: Vikram Bhatt’s mix and match of Exorcist and Exorcism of Emily Rose
• Anamika: Anant Mahadevan writes and directs his own version of Alfred Hitchcock’s Rebecca
• Aamir: Straight lift of Filipino film Cavite (i actually liked this film before knowing that its a straight lift).
• Bachna Ae Haseeno: A cross between John Tucker must Die and Teen Deviyan
• Dasvidaniya: A lift of The Bucket List, but nicely done.
• De Taali: An urbanised remake of the Telugu film Totti Gang
• Dil Kabaddi: Based on Woody Allen’s Husbands and Wives
• Don Muthuswami: A lift of Sly Stallone starrer Oscar
• Dostana: Pretty close to I now pronounce you Chuck and Larry
• Ek-the power of One: Remake of Telugu film Athadu.
• Ghajini: Remake of Ghajini and a poor copy of Memento
• God Tussi Great Ho: Even the poster was a lift of Bruce Almighty
• Golmal Returns: Plot pretty close to the 1973 film Aaj ki Taaza Khabar
• Hari Puttar: The desi-fied Home Alone
• Hello: Official screen adaptation of Chetan Bhagat’s terrible novel (credited).
• Heroes: Motorcycle Diaries
• Hijack: yet another Die-Hard lift.... Parts of it from Airforce One.
• Karzzzz: A remake of Karz with additional zzzs. Originally stolen from The Reincarnation of Peter Proud.
• Krazzy 4: Rakesh Roshan got caught for stealing Ram Sampath’s tune, but still stole the plot of The Dream Team
• Kismat Connection: Aziz Mirza is inspired by Just My Luck
• Kidnap: A poor remake of Shattered
• Maharathi: Based on Gujarati play of same name (credited).
• Mere Baap Pahle Aap: remake of Malayalam film Ishtam
• Mission Istanbul: Loosely based on John Grisham’s novel The Firm. The legal firm is changed to a News Channel.
• One Two Three: Blame it on the Bellboy
• Race: Abbas Mastan continue copying - this time from Goodbye Lover.
• Rub a Ru: Lifted from If Only
• Shaurya: Samar Khan adapts A Few Good Men
• Sorry Bhai: Dan in Real life
• Sunday: A remake of the Telugu film Anukokunda Oka Roju
• U, Me Aur Hum: Ajay Devgan is inspired by The Notebook
• Ugly aur Pagli: Korean film 'My Sassy Girl' lifted by hollywood with the same name and then lifted to bollywood.
• Via Darjeeling: Different scenario, but still inspired by Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon Of all the above - only Hello and Maharathi are authorized “adapted” screenplays. The rest are plain remakes, lifts, copies and inspirations. Out of 70 Hindi films, 32 are non-originals. And among orginals, only Jaane Tu and Singh is King could work at the box office. The rest were maha-flops like Drona. So, that gives a BoPla index a count of 46%. That means more than half of the filmmakers still have the nerve make original Bollywood movies. They ought to be jailed.