Roja (1992)

Roja lives in a Tamil village, and her sister is about to marry a man from the city, who decides to marry Roja instead and gets a job assignment in Kashmir, where some militants decide to kidnap them.

Director:

Mani Ratnam

Writer:

Mani Ratnam

Stars:

Arvind Swamy, Madhoo, Pankaj Kapur

5 wins & 1 nomination.

Cast

Credited cast:
Arvind Swamy	...	Rishi Kumar (as Arvind)
Madhoo	...	Roja
Pankaj Kapur	...	Liaqat
Nasser	...	Colonel Rayappa (as Naseer)
Shiva Rindani	...	(as Shiva)
Janagaraj	...	Chajoo Maharaj (as Janakraj)
Vaishnavi
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
C.K. Saraswathi
Sathyapriya
Sujatha

Storyline

Roja, a young woman born and brought up in Southern India, prays that the handsome young man coming to see her sister will be her future brother-in-law, only to have the tables turned on her when he openly choses her over her sister (as her sister loves another). So Roja marries Rishi and they leave the village to settle in the city, where both fall in love. Rishi, who works for the Indian Government, is instructed to go to the troubled state of Kashmir on a classified mission. Roja also goes along. Then her innocent world is shattered when Rishi is abducted and held for ransom by a group of jihadist militants who want an independent Kashmir and the release of a terrorist held by the Indian military forces. Will the passionate appeal of this young woman move cold and ruthless military and politician's hearts and minds? Two of the songs are worth remembering after watching the Hindi-dubbed version of the movie: "Dil hai chhotasa, chhotisi aasha, masti bhare man ki bholisi aasha, chand ...

---

Plot Keywords:

stockholm syndrome | kashmir conflict | terrorism

---

Genres:

Crime | Romance | Thriller

---

Details

Country:

India

Language:

Tamil Hindi Marathi Telugu

Release Date:

10 January 2003 (USA)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Madras Talkies, Hansa Pictures (P) Ltd., Kavithalayaa Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

137 min

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The soundtrack uses some uncredited seconds of the famous Bulgarian State Radio and Television Female Vocal Choir (Le Mystère de Voix Bulgares) that was an ethnic music-chart topper in the 1980s and 1990s.

---

Connections

Featured in And the Show Goes on: Indian Chapter (1996)

---

Soundtracks

"Rukkumani Rukkumani"
Sung by Balasubramaniam S.P., K.S. Chitra and Chorus [Tamil]
Sung by Baba Sehgal, Shweta Shetty and Chorus [Hindi]
Music composed by A.R. Rahman
Tamil Lyrics by Vairamuthu
Hindi Lyrics by P.K. Mishra

User Reviews

Wow

This movie gets a 10/10 simply because of its uniqueness but that does not mean that it is not without flaws. I'll get to that later. The terrorism component has been shown very disturbingly. The big flaw I feel is that which the director discovered but failed to exploit fully. I'm talking about the language barriers between the north and south and how frustrating it can be especially in the light of a tragedy. Well he might have actually done more than I can remember because I saw this movie more than a decade ago. The most important thing about this movie that it was AR Rehman's débutant music score, before which he was just doing just music for advertisements. Well done Mani Ratnam for exploiting AR Rehman fully.