Ek Hasina Thi (2004)

A woman falls for a charming and mysterious businessman. The whirlwind romance turns sour when she is framed for his underworld crimes. Now, finally out of prison she is ready for sweet revenge.

Director:

Sriram Raghavan

Writers:

Sriram Raghavan, Pooja Ladha Surti

Stars:

Saif Ali Khan, Urmila Matondkar, Seema Biswas

2 wins & 11 nominations.

Cast

Credited cast:
Saif Ali Khan	...	Karan Singh Rathod
Urmila Matondkar	...	Sarika Vartak
Seema Biswas	...	ACP Malti Vaidya
Aditya Srivastava	...	Kamlesh Mathur
Pratima Kazmi	...	Pramila (as Pratima Kajmi)
Madan Joshi
Zakir Hussain	...	Sanjeiv Nanda
Abhay Bhargav
Rasika Oak
Seema Adhikari	...	Dolly
Gopal K. Singh	...	Abhijeet (as Gopal Singh)
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Sheeba Chaddha
Rasika Joshi	...	Gomti the Prison Queen
Kavita Kaushik	...	Karan's girlfriend who lives in Delhi
Gulfam Khan

Storyline

Sarika and Karan are employed in a big city called Mumbai in India. They meet, have a date, and find that they are attracted to each other. They do not know nor care of each others' backgrounds, and get married. They start to live in a small apartment. One day Karan asks Sarika to deliver a parcel for him via an Indian airline, which she does. The authorities stop her, and a search reveals that she was carrying drugs in the parcel, and she is arrested. After her arrest, Karan visits her and assures that this is all a big misunderstanding, and she will be found not guilty and let out soon. This does not happen, Sarika is found guilty, is convicted and sentenced to a long jail term. While in prison, it slowly and painfully dawns on her that she has been used, and wants to avenge this. In order to get even with Karan, she must first of all either wait for the sentence to get over or be more daring and escape, take Karan by surprise and avenge her humiliation. Which way will Sarika take?

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Plot Keywords:

prison | love | revenge | arrest | murder | 

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Genres:

Crime | Romance | Thriller

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Details

Country:

India

Language:

Hindi English

Release Date:

24 February 2004 (Kuwait)

Also Known As:

There Was a Beautiful Girl

Box Office

Budget:

INR 80,000,000 (estimated)

Company Credits

Production Co:

K Sera Sera, S.R.B. Films, Varma Corporation

Technical Specs

Runtime:

120 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital EX

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Goofs

When ACP Malti Vaidya is sitting in the hotel, she's shown first sucking on a long cigarette (unlit), then in the next shot, is lighting the same cigarette with a noticeably shorter and already smoked cigarette.

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Connections

References The Bone Collector (1999)

User Reviews

Amazing

What makes this movie so good and convincing is that it strays from every Bollywood stereotype out there. The plot moves quickly and does not lag. There are no forced song and dance scenes as this is not the type of movie for that and I am glad that the director did not force these into this movie. The acting is superb and there are many western elements such as storyline and direction that make this piece fabulous and a piece for people that are not familiar with Bollywood films to watch.

It does get a bit cheesy when Saif Ali Khan breaks out the martial arts moves but Urmilla's acting is wonderful. You can see her character transform convincingly and Saif Ali Khan as the menacing bad guy is quite the fit! It's a revenge story finally told right in the fluff that clutters the few gems of Bollywood cinema.

It's a movie that did not have it's vision compromised for the sake of trying to fit in to Bollywood. I would definitely recommend this movie to everybody, especially those that have not seen an Indian film before and who are curious.