Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam

Plot

Nandini (Aishwarya Rai Bachchan) is the daughter of Pandit Darbar (Vikram Gokhale), a renowned proponent of Indian classical music.

Into this carefree life enters Sameer (Salman Khan), a young man who wants to grasp the intricacies of Indian classical music under the guidance of Pandit Darbar. Sameer stays with the Darbar family and Nandini is forced to give up her room to Sameer. Nandini takes a dislike to Sameer, and the two play pranks on each other, but soon realise they are in love. Their love blossoms around weddings, festivals and family get-togethers.

One day the pair are caught rehearsing their wedding vows and dreaming of their future together by Pandit Darbar, who becomes furious with them as he has already planned Nandini's wedding with Vanraj (Ajay Devgan). Sameer is banished from the household as Darbar has quit singing because of Nandini being impure. Sameer is asked never to meet Nandini again. Sameer does not leave India immediately. He stays in town and writes letters to Nandini asking her to join him, but his letters do not reach her in time. Nandini reluctantly goes through the marriage with Vanraj, who had fallen in love with Nandini during her cousin Anu's (Sheeba Chaddha) wedding.

On their wedding night, Vanraj notices Nandini's cold, distant behaviour and tries to ask her why she is not reciprocating his love. He asks her for the truth, promising he will help her no matter what. Nandini doesn't reply which angers him.

Vanraj soon catches her reading love letters by Sameer. Vanraj is shattered and drags her back home. At first he is extremely furious because Nandini hasn't said the truth. Realizing that Nandini is in love with another man, he decides to unite the two lovers by going to Italy in search of Sameer. Vanraj seeks his parents' consent, they initially reject but eventually give way.

Nandini and Vanraj arrive in Italy, but come up against dead ends searching for Sameer. During their search, they get mobbed and Nandini is shot in the arm. Moved by Vanraj's gentleness and affection towards her, Nandini begins to warm up to Vanraj. Eventually they get news about Sameer through his mother (Helen), and Vanraj dutifully arranges for their meeting on the night of Sameer's debut concert. His job done, Vanraj bids goodbye to Nandini and walks away heartbroken.

On meeting with Sameer, she apologises to him and tells him that she has come to love Vanraj. She reflects on the unwavering love and devotion that Vanraj has showered upon her throughout their relationship, and realises that Vanraj was her true soul mate. She runs to Vanraj, who tells her that he cannot live without her. She hands him her wedding chain and Vanraj adorns it around her neck and they embrace each other with dazzling fireworks in the background of Budapest.

Cast

DVD release

In 2000, Video-sound company in the United States, released the official DVD edition of the film with a "making of" segment. The main feature was presented in an aspect ratio of 1.85 and the original Dolby Digital 5.1 mix.

The second release was by Digital Entertainment Inc. This was a collectors' edition two-disc set, filled with supplementary features. These included:

Shemaroo and Eros International released single-disc editions in the India market, sans supplementary features.

The movie was released under its English title Straight From The Heart. This DVD was released by Pathfinder Home Entertainment, which was a port of the Digital Entertainment Inc. edition, sans supplementary features.

Reception

Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam was well received by most critics — especially for its emotional content, cinematography and music — as well as the performances of the lead actors and a surprising performance by guest star Helen.

Anupama Chopra said "this three-hour spectacular is stuffed with songs, romance, comedy, devotional material, and color-soaked dance numbers that are huge even by Hindi standards." Michael Dequina writing for TheMovieReport.com said of the three leads "Rai, in a luminous, award-winning performance (largely considered her big dramatic breakthrough--and justifiably so), fills in the conflicted emotional shades that Khan fails to bring with his one-dimensional presence; and Devgan's soulful subtlety does its job in suggesting Sameer to be a more formidable romantic adversary than viewers would see him as being." The reviewer for Filmfare felt it was a "once in a decade type of extravaganza" and wrote, "Cinematographically, the movie is flawless and by virtue of this fact alone, a must-see. It aims at capturing poetry on screen without becoming pretentious. The music by Ismail Darbari is simply enchanting. The film juxtaposes Indian thematic content with exotic foreign locales."

Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam was a Hit at the Indian box office, becoming the third highest grossing of the Bollywood films of 1999 with ₹ 200 million. It also did well in the foreign box office with ₹ 85 million.

Soundtrack

The music was composed by Ismail Darbar with lyrics by Mehboob and sung by KK, Kavita Krishnamurthy, Kumar Sanu, Alka Yagnik, Udit Narayan, Hariharan, Shankar Mahadevan and others. It received nine Filmfare Awards nominations in the music and singing categories and produced some winners as well. Vikas Bhatnagar of Planet Bollywood gave the soundtrack a perfect 10 out of 10 stars and said it has "cemented it's [sic] place in the history books of greatest ever Hindi soundtracks."