Awarapan

About the film

Awarapan (transl. Vagrancy) is a 2007 Indian Hindi-language romantic crime action film directed by Mohit Suri, written by Shagufta Rafique, and produced by Mukesh Bhatt. An uncredited remake of the South Korean film A Bittersweet Life, it stars Emraan Hashmi, Shriya Saran, Mrinalini Sharma, and Ashutosh Rana. In the film, gangster Shivam Pandit (Hashmi) is ordered by his boss Bharat Malik (Rana) to watch over Reema (Sharma), Malik's secret Pakistani mistress.

Awarapan was theatrically released on 29 June 2007. Despite receiving positive reviews from critics, the film emerged as a commercial failure, but later gained cult status, eventually being regarded as one of Hashmi and Suri's best works.

Plot

Shivam is a heartbroken and introverted atheist, gangster, and right-hand man of Bharat Malik, a criminal gangster and businessman who runs a chain of hotels in Hong Kong. Shivam is given responsibility for one of the hotels, which he bears capably, making it much more successful than Malik's other hotels. Malik holds Shivam in the highest esteem due to Shivam's loyalty, reliability, and business acumen. He treats him like an adored son, entrusting him with almost everything, more so than his biological son Ronnie. This is the cause of much jealousy on Ronnie's part against Shivam, but due to Malik's outspoken support for Shivam, Ronnie does not dare to oppose him openly. Shivam has a very close childhood friend, Kabir, who assists him with everything. Meanwhile, Malik's brother Rajan and Rajan's spoilt son Munna hold a grudge against Shivam because of Shivam's repeated conflicts with Munna.

One day, Malik asks Shivam to keep an eye on his young mistress Reema, whom he suspects of having an affair with someone else, while he is away on a brief business trip. Reema is a young Pakistani girl, devout Muslim, and a victim of sex trafficking, whom Malik had "bought" in the Bangkok flesh market. If Reema is found cheating on Malik, Shivam must inform him immediately.

In his interactions with Reema, Shivam recalls his lost love, Aliyah, in a series of flashbacks. Aliyah was a devout Muslim whom Shivam had met by chance in the marketplace one day. The duo eventually fell in love, but when her father saw them together, he confronted them and physically reprimanded Aliyah. He also exposed Shivam's gangster background to a shocked Aliyah, leading to Shivam instantly offering her father his gun, saying that he was willing to let go of everything, start anew, and legitimately provide for Aliyah if he was allowed to be with her. Aliyah's father recovers from his initial surprise quickly and shoots at Shivam with the gun, who ducks to avoid the bullet. The bullet hits Aliyah instead, killing her and temporarily driving Shivam over the edge. A feeling of guilt and sorrow at Aliyah having died because he tried to save his own life remains with Shivam thereafter. Aliyah's father instantly commits suicide when he realizes what he has done.

Production

Some scenes were shot in Lahore, making it one of the few Indian films to have been filmed in Pakistan. Other scenes were filmed in Hong Kong and Bangkok.

Soundtrack

The soundtrack was composed by Pritam. The vocals were provided by Mustafa Zahid, Suzanne D'Mello, Rafaqat Ali Khan and Annie Khalid. The lyrics were written by Sayeed Quadri, Asif Ali Baig and Annie Khalid. All the remix versions were produced by DJ Suketu and arranged by Aks.The soundtrack was highly appreciated by the audiences and critics and was one of the top albums of 2007.

Reception

Taran Adarsh from Bollywood Hungama gave the film 3.5 stars out of 5 and praised the direction, music, dialogue and performances, while noting the film's excessive violence could act as a deterrent for several viewers. Rajeev Masand gave the film 3 stars out of 5 and felt the film had an "international look" owing to its action scenes and the Hong Kong skyline; he also praised the music and found the carnage sequences to have a "strange beauty". However, he criticized the slow pace, violence content and felt the film did not get to the characters' emotional core. Jaspreet Pandohar from BBC similarly gave the film 3 stars, describing it as an "engaging, albeit violent, drama" and praising Hashmi's performance, while feeling disappointed that more was not made of the issue of human trafficking.

Khalid Mohamed from Hindustan Times gave the film 2 stars out of 5 and criticized the slow pacing, violence, while praising Hashmi's performance and Pritam's music. Ajit N. from Rediff.com gave the film 1.5 stars out of 5 and felt Rana and Saran were wasted.

Sequel

A sequel, Awarapan 2 directed by Nitin Kakkar is scheduled to release on 14 August 2026. Emraan Hashmi will reprise his role alongside Disha Patani and Shabana Azmi in pivotal roles.

Key details