Rangeela (film)

Plot

A street-toughened orphan by the name of Munna (Aamir Khan) is befriended by some kind folks, whose effervescent daughter Mili (Urmila Matondkar) soon grows to be his best buddy. Both gravitate toward the Mumbai movie industry. While Mili finds occupation as a movie extra, Munna earns his livelihood selling movie tickets in the black market.

Mili has ambitions of becoming an actress. Fortune glances her way, when she dances her way into a movie star's attentions. This actor, Raj Kamal (Jackie Shroff), arranges for her to be auditioned for the heroine's role in his upcoming movie called Rangeela. Mili's shortcomings amount to distractions, but thanks in no small way to Munna and Raj, she lands the role.

Raj and Munna both fall for Mili, but Mili is too busy making the movie to notice any of this. She starts spending a lot of time with Raj during the filming. Munna tries many times to tell Mili that he loves her, but he is unable to, or Raj gets in the way. Eventually, feeling inferior, Munna decides to leave Mili to Raj, who can give her a better life than he can. The matter is not resolved though, as Mili hears of this on the film's opening night. She asks Raj to help her find Munna, which he does after realizing that Mili seems to love Munna and not him.

Mili stops Munna in the midway, misunderstandings get cleared and the lovers unite.

Cast

Reception

Rangeela opened with a positive response and was declared a Super-hit in the box office, grossing over 210 million. It was also the fourth biggest grosser of 1995. Urmila Matondkar became an overnight sensation, and her fame was bolstered by hits like 'Tanha Tanha' and 'Rangeela Re'. Her designer Manish Malhotra also received instant fame. The movie proved to be a turning point for Aamir's career, whose chemistry with Urmila was also appreciated. The choreography of 'Rangeela' also deserves a special mention. The amazing dance sequences led by choreographers Ahmed Khan and Saroj Khan were considered classic and appealing. Rangeela's music was also highly successful that helped the film to achieve victory at the box office. The film was highly successful at the box office. Box Office India declared it a 'Blockbuster'.

Soundtrack

The soundtrack featured 7 songs composed by A. R. Rahman with lyrics penned by Mehboob and an instrumental theme song. The audio was released in September 1995 by Rahman's mother Kareema and the soundtrack proved immensely popular upon release. It is listed in almost all lists of best Bollywood soundtracks.

The soundtrack fetched Rahman two filmfare awards, Filmfare Best Music Director Award and Filmfare RD Burman Award for New Music Talent. Mehboob got two nominations for Filmfare Award for Best Lyricist, for the tracks "Kya Kare" and "Tanha Tanha". Shweta Shetty and Kavita Krishnamurthy were nominated for Filmfare Award for Best Female Playback Singer for their respective tracks.

Rangeela marked the return of the then 62-year-old veteran playback singer Asha Bhosle, who sang two super hit songs for the movie. Asha, like her sister Lata Mangeshkar, had long retired from accepting playback singer awards, but she received the Filmfare Special Award that year for her rendition of the song "Tanha Tanha".

The song "Yaaro Sun Lo Zara" was originally composed for a Telugu film Super Police as "Baabu Love Cheyyara". The soundtrack was also released in Tamil, with title Rangeela itself and lyrics penned by Vairamuthu. However, the reused track "Yaaro Sun Lo Zara" was not included in the Tamil version.

Compact Cassettes are the only media to enjoy audio tracks during those days in INDIA. TIME AUDIO company launched the audio cassettes of this movie for Rs 36 only. The cassettes sold like hot cakes during those days. It is very unfortunate that VINYL industry had closed its door just 2 years back of this movie release. Otherwise every one had enjoyed the movie songs in VINYL discs too.

But now Audio CD's and MP3's are available to listen to this evergreen album. The soundtrack rights are now acquired by Tips Music Company.