Jaani Dushman: Ek Anokhi Kahani

Plot

Divya (Manisha Koirala) and Karan Saxena (Sunny Deol) are in love and plan to marry. Karan has a younger step-brother, Vivek who he looks after as though he were his own brother. Divya and Vivek hang out with quite a few young people of their own age, Atul, Vijay, Prem, Ashok, Viktor, Abdul, Nita, Rashmi, Niki, and Priti.

Two male members named Rajesh and Madan try to sexually molest Divya, and get a sound thrashing from Karan. After apologizing, these two members decide to avenge their beating and humiliation. Soon after Karan leaves for a business trip abroad. Divya, begins to have premonitions of a past life and later learns she was the lover of Kapil a snake with magical powers, in a previous life.

Their love life was shattered by an angry sage who cursed them with separation until the 21st century. Divya, who was called Vasundhara in her previous life, dies after this curse, and is reborn as Divya. She and Kapil (Armaan Kohli) reunite, however she is left torn as to what to do about her relationship with Karan.

Rajesh under the prestext of inviting Divya to Atul's party, impersonates the voices of the male members of there gang and tricks her into coming to an abandoned fort. Divya, arrives and they sexually molest her to such an extent that Divya kills herself. Divya's, friends arrive and she curses them thinking that all of her friends were involved in the rape. The rest of the friends are completely unaware of anything and are innocent.

Kapil learns of her death and comes back to life to get revenge from all of the group. As a result Madan is killed on the same day as Divya and then Rajesh is killed on his wedding night by Divya ghost.

This is followed by Victor being run over by Kapil on a motorbike and Abdul being electrocuted to death. Atul & his friends don't have a chance to tell Divya that they're truly innocent. The college principal Joseph (Raj Babbar), who is also a professor of parapsychology, gives the group of friends a necklace and assures them that they cannot be harmed when they are wearing the necklace. Atul doesn't believe in any of this. However, when he is attacked by Kapil, he realizes he survived because the necklace was stuck on his hand. However later Atul is badly injured by Kapil and he goes into a coma.

Divya then enters Prem's body and kills Ashok. Prem is thus accused of committing murder and he is sentenced to be hanged by the court. Vijay is pushed off a gym roof. Vivek, afraid he's next, calls his big brother Karan (Sunny Deol).

Karan arrives to rescue Vivek, but before that, Kapil stabs Vivek using Karan's image. Karan is arrested after Vivek accused Karan of stabbing him. Atul comes out of coma and tries to save Vivek. Atul gets stabbed by Kapil while trying to save Vivek. Kapil chases Vivek. Atul, unable to destroy Kapil or save Vivek's life, goes to the same priest, who gave the lockets. Atul asks the priest to save Vivek's life. Atul then dies due to blood loss from his injuries.

Karan shows up to stop Kapil from killing Vivek. Karan gets killed by Kapil. Principal Joseph resurrects Karan with outerworld powers, granting him supernatural powers like Kapil. Karan kills Kapil. Vivek turns out to be the only survivor along with his brother Karan. Kapil and Vasundhra reunite in heaven.

Cast

Manisha Koirala as Vasundhara/Divya

Armaan Kohli as Kapil

Sunny Deol as Karan Saxena

Sonu Nigam as Vivek Saxena

Akshay Kumar as Atul

Rambha as Nitha

Sunil Shetty as Vijay

Aditya Pancholi as Ashok

Aftab Shivdasani as Prem Srivastav

Kiran Rathod as Rashmi

Sharad Kapoor as Victor

Rajat Bedi as Rajesh

Siddharth Ray as Madan

Arshad Warsi as Abdul

Raj Babbar as Principal Joseph

Amrish Puri as Maharaj (Sadhu)

Johnny Lever as Parwana, Vivek's servant

Upasana Singh as Nikki, Vivek's maid

Atul Agnihotri as Driver

Raza Murad as Preeti's father

Kiran Kumar as Inspector

Aman Verma as TV show host

Casting

Salman Khan was offered Sonu Nigam's role but declined due to date issues. Pooja Batra was the first choice for the role opposite Sunil Shetty. Chandrachur Singh and Jas Arora were considered for Aditya Pancholi and Sharad Kapoor's role. Shah Rukh Khan was offered Akshay Kumar's role but he declined it because he was filming Kal Ho Naa Ho.

Critical reception

This flim received negative reviews from critics. Ronjita Kulkarni of Rediff.com rated the film 1.5/10 saying "The performances are half-hearted and the characters half-baked". He also called the film "unoriginal and disappointing". Akshay Kumar was the only with watchable performances, Sunil Shetty was barely average & Sunny Deol was wasted in this movie because he did less scenes than his previous movies.

Box office

According to Boxoffice-india the film had an "average to good" opening and did decent business in its first few days but quickly negative word of mouth started spreading and by the end of the first week collections saw a huge drop, ultimately resulting in the film being declared a huge flop in just its second week. Altogether the film grossed only Rs 10 thousand in its four weeks run at the box office.