Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
Aishwarya Rai Bachchan | ... | Ameeran / Umrao Jaan (as Aishwariya Rai) | |
Shabana Azmi | ... | Khanum Jaan | |
Sunil Shetty | ... | Faiz Ali (as Suneil Shetty) | |
Abhishek Bachchan | ... | Nawab Sultan | |
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Bikram Saluja | ... | Ashraf |
Ayesha Jhulka | ... | Khurshid Jaan | |
Puru Rajkumar | ... | Gauhar Mirza (as Puru Raj Kumar) | |
Parikshit Sahni | ... | Ameeran's father | |
Kulbhushan Kharbanda | ... | Maulvi | |
Divya Dutta | ... | Bismillah Jaan | |
Himani Shivpuri | ... | Bua Hussaini | |
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Maya Alagh | ... | Ameeran's mother |
Vishwajeet Pradhan | ... | Dilawar Khan (as Viswajeet Pradhan) | |
Javed Khan | ... | Pir Baksh | |
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Anwar Madeem | ... | Mirza Hadi Ruswa |
Ameeran lives a poor-lifestyle with her mom, dad, and brother, Jamal, in Faizabad, British India. When her dad testifies against the local corrupt cop, Dilawar Khan, Khan swears to avenge this humiliation, and several years later, abducts Ameeran, holds her for ransom. When no money is forthcoming, he sells her. Ameeran ends up in a brothel run by Lucknow's Madame Khanum Jaan, where she is taught dance and poetry, and is subsequently re-named Umrao Jaan. Years later, Umrao has matured, is a well-known Courtesan with many patrons, chief amongst them are Nawab Sujat Ali Khan and his son, Sultan. Umrao and Sultan fall in love with each other, much to the chagrin of Sujat, who instructs Sultan either to give up Umrao or to lose his inheritance, and Sultan chooses Umrao. He gives up his father's palatial house and goes to live in the brothel, but re-locates to live with his uncle in Gadi after being taunted by Khanum Jaan. Umrao has a new admirer, Nawab Faiz Ali, who proposes to take her ... Written by rAjOo (gunwanti@hotmail.com)
I happened to watch original Umrao Jann just a few days back by chance and instantly fell for classic movies. As soon as this remake was released i went especially to theater to watch and i didn't regret as it was equally good. Story was not completely a copy of original one ,instead some more good ideas were added. I think it wont be fair to both REKHA and ASH to compare them with each other as both performed equally well and were a perfect choice for the character as it demanded some thing beyond than just the verbal performance. Songs are really touchy esp SALAAM and JIS ZINDAGE NAY AP SE MILWA DIYA HAMAIN. Though the duration of the movie is too long for the typical Indian movie (which is the only not-so-good aspect to some extent) but if considered it was inevitable for such a story. Its not that Abhishak didn't perform well, he did an OK job, its just that he doesn't have the typical NAWAB FEATURES, or may b we are looking forward to his upcoming DHOOM 2 featuring him as the cool cop, so perhaps having that image in mind i just couldn't digest him playing a NAWAB in this movie. Rest the sets were good and the costumes too, though the dialogs if written with more depth would have added more to it. Anyway overall everybody did a good job. And one last thing,even if the movie didn't do well on box office, Ash should get best actress award this year. What do u say??