Dulhe Raja

Plot Synopsis

K.K. Singhania (Kader Khan) owns a five star hotel, but a small dhaba owned by small-timer Raja (Govinda) in his premises puts his hotel business in jeopardy. Soon, the battle between K.K. Singhania (Kader Khan) and Raja (Govinda) leads to hilarious situations.

Plot

K.K. Singhania (Kader Khan) buys an expensive hotel "Maharaja International" from P.K. Diwani (Dinesh Hingoo). Later on, Singhania finds that a dhaba inside the hotel complex run by a petty guy Raja (Govinda) acts as a hitch to the earnings of the hotel. Hilarity starts henceforth, when every ploy used by Singhania to dislodge Raja's dhaba ends in a smoke.

Singhania's daughter Kiran (Raveena Tandon) is in love with a man named Rahul (Mohnish Behl). Rahul is financially aided by a confederate Bishambar Nath (Prem Chopra). At the same time, Raja develops a fascination for Kiran. Raja, who is already a thorn in Singhania's side, proclaims his love for Kiran before Singhania. He persistently begs Singhania for Kiran's hand only to be refused by Singhania.

However, Singhania knows that Rahul is a rogue whose pursuit is to lure young women and later abandon them after exploiting their wealth. So he warns Kiran not to marry Rahul. After a strife between Singhania and Kiran, the former says that Kiran is allowed to marry any man, be he a destitute or Singhania's enemy, without his refusal but Rahul.

One day, Raja knocks down the top floor of Singhania's hotel after Singhania tries to demolish his dhaba using a municipality bulldozer. Enraged at this, Singhania vehemently declares Raja as his greatest enemy. Kiran overhears this, and decides to thwart her father's decision that Kiran is allowed to marry any man, be he a destitute or Singhania's enemy but Rahul. She starts a mendacious love affair with Raja gaining the latter's affection.

Kiran's plan succeeds when Singhania objects Raja. Raja thwarts Singhania at every juncture. Singhania decides to marry his daughter to the son of his friend and plans to announce their engagement at her birthday party. However Raja gate crashes the party and foils Singhania's plan.

The story takes a turn when Kiran dumps Raja and declares Rahul as her ultimate man. Raja warns her of Rahul's true intentions. He sides with Singhania and tries to convince of her father's reasons. Singhania changes his mind about Raja and announces that he would marry his daughter to him. Kiran departs for Rahul's home, and Rahul finds it a great opportunity to acquire Singhania's entire wealth as his daughter is now in his custody. He assaults Kiran, confines her in his home and demands Singhania by phone his entire wealth and property as a pay-off for his daughter's life.

Raja learns about Rahul's vicious plan and decides to rescue Kiran. He conspires with Singhania to dupe Bishambar of his wealth. He arrives at Rahul's house and hoodwinks him and his accomplices that they become hostile at one another. He beats up Rahul when Singhania arrives with some documents, apparently to transfer his entire wealth to Bishambar. Delighted at attaining Singhania's entire assets, Bishambar signs the papers without reading them, but later finds that they are not the property papers as he expected, but his confession of kidnapping Kiran and threatening her life. The papers further state his desire for his cloths and other belongings to be seized by his men forcibly. His men snatch away his possessions when police arrives and arrests Rahul, Bishambar and their associates.

In the final scene, Singhania, Kiran and Raja unite.

Cast

Music

Songs of the film were scored by Anand-Milind who presented some remarkably striking numbers for the album. The frisky "Suno Sasurjee Ab Zidd Chhodo" became significantly popular, followed by "Ankhiyon Se Goli Maare" picturised on Govinda and Raveena Tandon which is pretty identical to the perky romantic songs sought-after at that period, like "Ole Ole" (Yeh Dillagi) and "Husn Hai Suhaana" (Coolie No. 1). In the few years that followed 1998, the film was relayed on some Indian TV channels on which a snippet of the song "Ankhiyon Se Goli Maare" was shown as a trailer of the film. Other songs of the film are pleasant to the ears, but the aforesaid two went on to become the most popular songs of the album. Mention may be made that an instrumental version of the song "Ankhiyon Se Goli Maare" synchronizes the credit display at the beginning of the film. The lyrics were created by Sameer.

Soundtrack

All lyrics written by Sameer; all music composed by Anand-Milind.

Reception

One song from the movie, Kahan Raja Bhoj, Kahan Gangu Teli, provoked protests from a Nagpur-based organisation, the Vidarbha Teli Samaj Mahasangh, on the grounds that it offended the members of their community; they wrote a letter of protest to then-Chief Minister Manohar Joshi, condemning the approval given by the state government to the song and calling for it to be banned. Another song, Ankhiyon Se Goli Maare, would later become the inspiration for a film of the same name by director Harmesh Maholtra.

Trivia

1. During the 90s, the Govinda—director David Dhawan collaboration yielded many superhit comedy movies. Contrary to the customary notion, 'Dulhe Raja' — an entirely comedy film released in 1998, was directed by Harmesh Malhotra, who had to his credit movies like Nagina (1986), Paappi Devataa (1995), Kismat (1995) etc.

2. Johnny Lever received the Filmfare Best Comedian Award in 1999 for the movie.

3. A song from the movie- Ankhiyon Se Goli Maare, would later become the inspiration for a film of the same name by director Harmesh Maholtra.

4. The movie was remade in Kannada as Shukradeshe in 2001.