2409:4042:2EA6:3210:0:0:6FCB:D702 at 03:03, 4 May 2022

2022-05-04T03:03:18Z

imported>Sahajitbro at 06:25, 24 August 2021

2021-08-24T06:25:23Z

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{{Short description|1992 Hindi film directed by Rajiv Rai}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=November 2015}}
{{Use Indian English|date=November 2015}}
{{Infobox film
| name = Vishwatma
| image = Vishwatma.jpg
| caption = Release poster
| director = [[Rajiv Rai]]
| producer = [[Gulshan Rai]]
| writer =
| narrator = Naseeruddin Shah
| starring = [[Sunny Deol]] [[Naseeruddin Shah]] [[Chunky Pandey]] [[Sonam (actress)|Sonam]] [[Divya Bharti]] Jyotsna Singh [[Amrish Puri]]
| music = [[Viju Shah]]
| cinematography = Romesh Bhalla
| editing = Naresh Malhotra
| studio =
| distributor = [[Trimurti Films]]
| released = {{Film date|df=yes|1992|01|24}}
| runtime = 181 minutes
| country = India
| language = Hindi
| gross = {{INRConvert|9.5|c|year=1992|lk=c}}<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://boxofficeindia.com/showProd.php?itemCat=198&catName=MTk5Mg==|title=Boxofficeindia.com|date=14 October 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131014053544/http://boxofficeindia.com/showProd.php?itemCat=198&catName=MTk5Mg==|archive-date=14 October 2013}}</ref>
}}
Vishwatma ({{lit|Worldly soul}}) is a 1992 Indian [[Action film|action]] [[Thriller film|thriller]] [[film]] co-written and directed by [[Rajiv Rai]].<ref>{{Cite web|last=Bollywoodirect|date=2019-01-24|title=27 Years of Vishwatma (24/01/1992).|url=https://bollywoodirect.medium.com/27-years-of-vishwatma-24-01-1992-35c47be2128a|access-date=2021-06-26|website=Medium|language=en}}</ref> It stars [[Sunny Deol]], [[Chunky Pandey]], [[Naseeruddin Shah]], [[Divya Bharti]] and [[Sonam (actress)|Sonam]] along with an ensemble supporting cast of [[Amrish Puri]], [[Gulshan Grover]], [[Sharat Saxena]], [[Mahesh Anand]] and [[Raza Murad]]. [[Viju Shah]] composed the [[soundtrack album]] and [[Film score|background score]], which upon release has achieved major acclaim. The film had an excellent opening note<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://boxofficeindia.com/showProd.php?itemCat=198&catName=MTk5Mg==|title=Boxofficeindia.com|date=14 October 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131014053544/http://boxofficeindia.com/showProd.php?itemCat=198&catName=MTk5Mg==|archive-date=14 October 2013}}</ref> and was declared a 'Hit' by [[Box Office India]].<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.boxofficeindia.com/showProd.php?itemCat=198&catName=MTk5Mg==&PHPSESSID=6fe1a3b410a7c9d0d1a9654574eeab02 |title=Archived copy |access-date=18 January 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080118013258/http://www.boxofficeindia.com/showProd.php?itemCat=198&catName=MTk5Mg==&PHPSESSID=6fe1a3b410a7c9d0d1a9654574eeab02 |archive-date=18 January 2008 |url-status=live |df=dmy-all }}</ref>

Vishwatma marked Rai's third directorial venture after the blockbuster [[Tridev]] (1989) and was initially planned to be a [[sequel]] to the same. It was the most-expensive Indian film at the time of its production; being extensively shot in [[Kenya]] and, it was the first Indian film to be shot there.<ref>{{Cite web|date=2017-02-24|title=Bollywood in Kenya, home to deserts, colourful tribal culture, & exciting wildlife attractions|url=https://www.bollywoodpresents.com/bollywood-in-kenya/|access-date=2021-07-07|website=Bollywood Presents|language=en-US}}</ref> The chartbuster song 'Saat Samundar' was shot at Bubbles Discothèque, a popular [[nightclub]] at [[Nairobi]] in those days. The modern-sounding song struck a chord and till now, enjoys a massive [[Cult following|cult status]] among Indian audience.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Pandya|first=Sonal|title=25 years of Vishwatma: 5 ways 'Saat Samundar Paar' song still lives on|url=https://www.cinestaan.com/articles/2017/jan/24/3980/25-years-of-vishwatma-5-ways-saat-samundar-paar-song-still-lives-on|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201013191431/https://www.cinestaan.com/articles/2017/jan/24/3980/25-years-of-vishwatma-5-ways-saat-samundar-paar-song-still-lives-on|archive-date=2020-10-13|access-date=2021-07-07|website=www.cinestaan.com}}</ref>

The film received critical acclaim upon release from contemporary as well as modern [[Critic|critics]], with praise drawn towards its [[screenplay]] and action sequences.<ref>{{Cite web|date=2019-01-24|title=Vishwatma: Bollywood's Flashiest Story of Patriotism in Pardes|url=https://www.arre.co.in/bollywood/vishwatma-republic-day-patriotism/|access-date=2021-07-07|website=Arré|language=en-US}}</ref> It earned over {{INR|95 million}} in its total theatrical run worldwide and was the [[List of Bollywood films of 1992|sixth highest-grossing Indian film of 1992]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://boxofficeindia.com/showProd.php?itemCat=198&catName=MTk5Mg==|title=Boxofficeindia.com|date=14 October 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131014053544/http://boxofficeindia.com/showProd.php?itemCat=198&catName=MTk5Mg==|archive-date=14 October 2013}}</ref> The [[soundtrack]] created a rage and was very much successful.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Mohanty|first=Anish|date=2021-06-05|title=Viju Shah on 10 of his favourite compositions and the stories behind them|url=https://planetbollywood.com/wp/spotlight/viju-shah-on-10-of-his-favourite-compositions-and-the-stories-behind-them/|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210605065503/https://planetbollywood.com/wp/spotlight/viju-shah-on-10-of-his-favourite-compositions-and-the-stories-behind-them/|archive-date=2021-06-05|access-date=2021-07-07|website=Planet Bollywood|language=en-US}}</ref> It proved to be a major launchpad for Chunky Pandey as well as for debutanté [[Divya Bharti]], who went on to achieve the limelight in Bollywood.<ref>{{Cite web|last1=KATIYAR|first1=ARUN|last2=|first2=|last3=|first3=|last4=|first4=|title=Cheaper to work with, Nubile Young Things become a rage in Bollywood|url=https://www.indiatoday.in/magazine/society-the-arts/story/19920331-cheaper-to-work-with-nubile-young-things-become-a-rage-in-bollywood-766074-2013-06-21|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210709191404/https://www.indiatoday.in/magazine/society-the-arts/story/19920331-cheaper-to-work-with-nubile-young-things-become-a-rage-in-bollywood-766074-2013-06-21|archive-date=2021-07-09|access-date=2021-07-07|website=India Today|language=en}}</ref>

==Plot==
Prabhat Singh ([[Sunny Deol]]) is an honest and dedicated police officer, but he usually has no time for his family and due to this, his father is constantly at loggerheads with him.

Prabhat's father believes in peace and opposes bloodshed /disturbance in his country. Prabhat is now placed on a mission to apprehend the most dreaded crime Lord "Ajgar Jurrat" ([[Amrish Puri]]), who currently lives in [[Kenya]] but operates in India.

Things take a turn for the worse when Prabhat kills Ajgar's brother in an encounter.

An angered Ajgar abducts and kills Prabhat's young school-going brother. Prabhat's family is devastated and his father blames him for his brother's death and disowns him from the family. Prabhat moves to a remote corner of a distant village in India.

Meanwhile, one of Ajgar's men - Madan Bhardwaj ([[Mangal Dhillon]]) - turns against him and threatens to turn him into the police ASAP. Fearing an arrest warrant, Ajgar has Madan killed on the night of his wedding. After that, Ajgar's son rapes Madan's wife, leaving her traumatised. Thus, Madan's brother Akash Bhardwaj ([[Chunky Pandey]]) swears revenge on Ajgar.

Later on, Ajgar flees to Kenya and it's almost impossible to bring him back to India in order to try him in court. So, the police commissioner ([[Dalip Tahil]]) decides to approach Prabhat as he is the only one who can achieve the impossible.

After seeing the necessity of the situation (Madan's murder etc.), Prabhat's dad also changes his mind and decides to apologize for disowning Prabhat. To make amends, he tries to persuade Prabhat to take on the mission to capture Ajgar and bring some justice.

Prabhat agrees to take on the mission but insists that Akash also join him, to which Akash agrees. These two join hands and take the next flight all the way to Kenya.

In Kenya, they find Madan's sister-in-law Renuka ([[Sonam (actress)|Sonam]]), who's also on the same secret mission, so she helps them get nearer to Ajgar and offers them some more details on his whereabouts. She informs them that here Ajgar is a respected citizen in Kenya, so it is much harder to apprehend him, but Prabhat and Akash seek the help of an honest cop, Surya Pratap ([[Naseeruddin Shah]]) to apprehend Ajgar. Surya is reluctant to put Ajgar behind bars at first, but then Renuka informs Surya of the truth behind his wife's mysterious suicide — his wife had committed suicide due to none other than Ajgar's foolish and vile son who had tried to molest her.

When Surya learns that Ajgar's son was the reason behind his wife's untimely and tragic death, he confronts Ajgar but is captured. Prabhat and Akash rescue Surya and the three join hands in the mission to catch Ajgar and his team once and for all.

In the end, the mission is successful and romance begins: Akash falls in love with Ajgar's daughter Sonia (Jyotsna Singh) and Surya begins to love Renuka and becomes thankful for her timely information and astute help. Prabhat falls for the Indian girl whom he had met at his hometown in India who had followed him all the way to Kenya - Kusum ([[Divya Bharti]]) - She sang the song "Saat Samundar Paar" for Prabhat, in the nightclub. Prabhat finally returns to India along with his friends - Surya and Akash and the captured criminal Ajgar. The couples Prabhat-Kusum, Surya-Renuka, and Akash-Sonia finally unite and rejoice.

==Cast==
* [[Naseeruddin Shah]] as Surya Pratap
* [[Sunny Deol]] as Prabhat Singh
* [[Chunkey Pandey]] as Akash Bharadwaj
* [[Divya Bharti]] as Kusum; Prabhat's Love interest
* [[Sonam (actress)|Sonam Kapoor]] as Renuka
* Jyotsna Singh as Soniya
* [[Raza Murad]] as Commissioner Pandey
* [[Gulshan Grover]] as Tapasvi Gunjal (Ajghar's henchman and fiancée of Soniya)
* [[Amrish Puri]] as Ajgar Jurrat
* [[Dalip Tahil]] as ACP Gupta
* [[Sharat Saxena]] as Commissioner B.L. Roy
* [[Tej Sapru]] as Bada Nilu
* [[Mahesh Anand]] as Rajnath
* [[Dan Dhanoa]] as Majhla Nilu
* [[Master Manjunath]] as Babu
* Anand Balraj as Chhota Nilu
* [[Alok Nath]] as Deepak Seth Prabhat's father
* Aparajita as Prabhat's mother
* [[Yunus Parvez]] as Mr. Verma (Verma ji)
* [[Dinesh Hingoo]] as Mr. Sharma (Sharma ji)
* Sanjay Kohli as Inspector Balbir Govot
* [[Rajesh Vivek]] as Dacoit Manohar Dev
* [[Vijay Arora]] as Central Jailer
* [[Kiran Kumar]] as Nagdansh Jurrat (Ajgar's brother)
* [[Mangal Dhillon]] as Madan Bhardwaj (Akash's brother)
* [[Vishwajeet Pradhan]] as Brother of Madan Bhardwaj (Uncredited)
* [[Samar Jai Singh]] as Brother of Madan Bhardwaj (Uncredited)

==Production==
After the mega-success of his 1989 film ''[[Tridev]]'', Rajiv Rai decided to embark on another action-thriller with three main male leads, and thus ''Vishwatma'' was conceived. Rai decided to go for a change of venue and planned to set much of the movie in Kenya. He wanted to cast the same three male leads as Tridev (Sunny Deol, Naseeruddin Shah, and Jackie Shroff). However, Jackie's son [[Tiger Shroff]] had just been born and his astrologer had advised him to not travel abroad for a year. Thus Rai, after considering to launch Suniel Shetty, a personal friend, opted to cast Chunky Pandey instead of Shroff as one of the leads.<ref name="auto">{{Cite web|url=https://www.cinestaan.com/articles/2017/jan/24/4004|title=25 years of Vishwatma: How Chunky Pandey replaced Jackie Shroff|first=Alex|last=Almeida|website=Cinestaan}}</ref>

Rai also reused many of the cast members from ''Tridev'', including Amrish Puri as the main villain, and Raza Murad, Dalip Tahil, Tej Sapru, and Dan Dhanoa as the secondary villains. One main difference being that while Sharat Saxena played a negative role in ''Tridev'', in this movie he had a positive role as the strict but comedic commissioner of the Kenya police. Rai also included a short narration about the meaning of "Vishwatma" by Naseeruddin Shah in the movie, something that he had done with "Tridev" as well.

Much of the shooting of the film was done in Kenya's main cities of [[Mombasa]] and [[Nairobi]]. The song "Saat Samundar" was shot at the "Bubbles Discotheque", a very popular club in Nairobi in those days. The climactic car chase was shot on the open plains of the Masai Mara National Wildlife Reserve. Many of the beach scenes were shot in Mombasa's various beaches and beach hotels.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.filmapia.com/where-is-it-shot/films/|title=Film Shooting Locations | Filmapia – reel sites . real sights|website=www.filmapia.com}}</ref>

The film also employs many [[Swahili language|Swahili]] phrases and words in its dialogue such as "Jambo" (Hello), "Mzuri sana" (Very nice), and "Mimi ni kubwa sana" (I am very big/great).

== Soundtrack ==
{{Infobox album
| name = Vishwatma
| type = Soundtrack
| artist = [[Viju Shah]]
| cover =
| alt =
| released = September 1991
| recorded =
| venue =
| studio =
| genre = [[Soundtrack|Feature film soundtrack]]
| length = 42:24 min
| language = [[Hindi]]
| label = HMV RPG
| producer = [[Viju Shah]]
| prev_title = [[Tridev]]
| prev_year = 1989
| next_title = [[Mohra]]
| next_year = 1994
}}
After the success of the music of ''Tridev'', everyone expected [[Viju Shah]] to conjure magic with this film. The soundtrack was well received, selling 2{{nbsp}}million units and becoming the year's seventh best-selling [[Bollywood soundtrack]] album.<ref>{{cite web |title=Music Hits 1990-1999 (Figures in Units) |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100205042906/boxofficeindia.com/showProd.php?itemCat=284&catName=MTk5MC0xOTk5 |website=[[Box Office India]] |access-date=5 February 2010}}</ref> Its most popular song was "Saat Samundar Paar", written by [[Anand Bakshi]] and rendered by [[Sadhna Sargam]]. The song uses a [[Sampling (music)|sample]] from the [[Pet Shop Boys]] song "[[Heart (Pet Shop Boys song)|Heart]]" (1988). "Saat Samundar Paar" continues to play on radio stations and at discothèques (remixed) 20 years later. The Vishwatma theme is copied from Enigma's Hallelujah with only the female humming as Viju Shah's input. It features playback singers [[Amit Kumar (singer)|Amit Kumar]] and [[Kumar Sanu]] (for Naseeruddin Shah), [[Alka Yagnik]] (for Jyostna Singh), [[Sadhana Sargam]] (for Divya Bharti), [[Udit Narayan]] (for Chunkey Pandey), [[Sapna Mukherjee]] (for Sonam) and [[Mohammad Aziz]] (For Sunny Deol).

For the 2014 movie ''[[Kick (2014 film)|Kick]]'', the producer [[Sajid Nadiadwala]] bought the rights to the song "Saat Samundar" for Rs 1.5 crore. He did this to pay tribute to his late first wife Divya Bharti, on whom the song was picturized in ''Vishwatma''. In ''Kick'', the song plays in the background when [[Salman Khan]] is dancing in a disco.<ref name="auto"/>

The other songs that got noticed when the film was released were "Aankhon Mein Hain Kya", "Dil Le Gayi Teri Bindiya" and the title track. [[Sapna Mukherjee]] (who won her first Filmfare award with "Oye Oye — Tirchi Topi Wale" in ''Tridev'') sang two tracks in this film, but could not re-create the ''Tridev'' magic. REMAKE Remix
All the songs were penned by Anand Bakshi.
;Track list
{| class="wikitable" style="font-size:95%;"
! # !! Title !! Singer(s)
|-
| 1
| "Vishwatma'
| [[Naseeruddin Shah]]
|-
| 2
| "Aankhon Mein Hai Kya"
| [[Udit Narayan]], [[Mohammad Aziz]], [[Sadhana Sargam]] & [[Alka Yagnik]]

|-
| 3
| "Dil Le Gayi Teri Bindiya"
| [[Amit Kumar (singer)|Amit Kumar]], [[Sapna Mukherjee]], Mohammad Aziz & Udit Narayan

|-
| 4
| "Aadmi Zindagi"
| Mohammad Aziz
|-
| 5
| "Aadmi Zindagi II"
| Mohammad Aziz
|-
| 6
| "Toofan"
| Amit Kumar, Alka Yagnik, Sadhana Sargam, Sapna Mukherjee & Boney
|-
| 7
| "Saat Samundar Paar" (Part I)
| Sadhana Sargam
|-
| 8
| " "Pardesi Panchi Banka Saat Samundar paar Sad (Part II)
| Sadhana Sargam
|-
|9
| "Saat Samundar Paar" (Part III)
| Udit Narayan & [[Jolly Mukherjee]] LIVE Rajshree Bag
|-
| 10
| "Dil Le Gaye Teri Bindiya" (Part-II)
| [[Kumar Sanu]], Mohammad Aziz, Udit Narayan, Sadhana Sargam & Sapna Mukherjee
|}

==References==
{{reflist}}

==External links==
* {{IMDb title|id=0130350}}

{{Rajiv Rai}}

[[Category:Trimurti Films]]
[[Category:1992 films]]
[[Category:Indian films]]
[[Category:1990s Hindi-language films]]
[[Category:Films scored by Viju Shah]]
[[Category:Films set in Kenya]]
[[Category:Indian action thriller films]]
[[Category:Films directed by Rajiv Rai]]
[[Category:1992 action thriller films]]

Vishwatma - Revision history

2409:4042:2EA6:3210:0:0:6FCB:D702 at 03:03, 4 May 2022

imported>Sahajitbro at 06:25, 24 August 2021