Dabangg

About the film

Dabangg (transl. Fearless) is a 2010 Indian Hindi-language action comedy film directed by Abhinav Singh Kashyap and produced by Malaika Arora and Arbaaz Khan under Arbaaz Khan Productions with Dhilin Mehta under Shree Ashtavinayak Cine Vision. The film stars Salman Khan, Sonakshi Sinha, Arbaaz Khan and Sonu Sood in the lead roles, while Om Puri, Dimple Kapadia, Vinod Khanna, Anupam Kher, Mahesh Manjrekar and Mahie Gill feature in supporting roles. The film marks the debut of Sinha as an actress, Arbaaz Khan as a producer and Kashyap as a director. Arora makes a special appearance in the song "Munni Badnaam Hui".

Dabangg is set in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. It was made with a budget of ₹30 crore and marketed at ₹12 crore. The film was shot primarily in the town of Wai in Maharashtra, while other major scenes were shot in the United Arab Emirates.

Plot

Chulbul Pandey is a young boy who lives with his younger half-brother Makkhanchand "Makkhi" Pandey, stepfather Prajapati Pandey and mother Naini Devi in Lalganj, Uttar Pradesh. Chulbul has a troubled relationship with Prajapati and Makkhi. After 21 years, Chulbul becomes a cop and calls himself as Robin Hood Pandey, where he still lives with his family. Makkhi is in love with Nirmala, whose father Masterji opposes their relationship. Chulbul falls in love with a girl named Rajjo, whom he meets during a police chase culminating in an encounter.

A corrupt political leader named Chedi Singh meets Chulbul and both quickly become enemies. Makkhi asks Prajapati to arrange his marriage with Nirmala, but Prajapati refuses because he needs money to repay the loans he took to make his factory and believes that he can acquire money through his son marrying a rich girl. In desperate need of money, Makkhi steals some cash from Chulbul's cupboard and gives the stolen cash to Masterji, hoping that he will permit Makkhi to marry Nirmala.

Meanwhile, Chulbul proposes marriage to Rajjo, who rejects as she has to take care of her drunkard father Hariya. Chulbul arrives home to find his mother Naini Devi dead, where he goes to Prajapati to make peace as he is the only family left. However, Prajapati rejects and despises him as an outcast. Makkhi invites Chulbul to his marriage with Nirmala, where Chulbul convinces Hariya to allow him to marry her. Hariya commits suicide as he knows that Rajjo will not marry anyone while he is alive. Chulbul takes Rajjo to Makkhi's exuberant wedding. Realising that Makkhi has stolen his money to finance the wedding, Chulbul marries Rajjo in an impromptu ceremony. Masterji feels disgraced and cancels Makkhi's wedding with Nirmala.

Production

Salman Khan grew a moustache after consulting with his brother and prepared his hair to suit his role. For the former, he had to try out nearly fifty styles in a span of four months before commencement of the filming. Photo-shoots were held to finalise his look. Abhinav Kashyap, in an interview with Bollywood Hungama, revealed that initially he had considered a few others for the role of Chulbul Pandey, but eventually changed his mind and approached Salman. Kashyap had seen Arbaaz in Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na, doing a cameo and approached him to be a part of the project. After reading it, he had instantly accepted to produce and star in it. Sonu Sood was selected for playing the lead antagonist. He revealed that his character was that of a "youth leader with grey shades." Mahesh Manjrekar was later approached to play the father of Sinha's character, although he had plans to quit acting.

In April 2009, Sonakshi Sinha signed for her debut role. Salman had seen her at a function engaging in dancing and offered her the role. Speaking about it, she said that she had lost a weight of 30 kg over two years to prepare for her character of a village girl by "a combination of proper diet and vigorous exercise". She added that she had been "observing people and trying to pick up nuances" as a step of further preparation. Malaika Arora, who had performed a few item numbers in her career, most notably in Dil Se.., was confirmed to do the same in the film. This was the first of its kind in her home production.

Dabangg's shooting took place primarily in Wai, Maharashtra and the United Arab Emirates. The shooting commenced in September 2009. Production designer Wasiq Khan drew over 100 sketches detailing out every set in the film. The cinematography was performed by Mahesh Limaye. The first schedule began in the town of Wai and continued for 45 days, during which Sonu Sood, the main antagonist fractured his nose. A schedule, primarily involving a song shoot, was captured in the Khalid Bin Al Waheed station in Dubai, making Dabangg the first film to be shot there. Some scenes were also filmed at the Emirates Palace hotel in Abu Dhabi.

Music

The 10-song soundtrack album consisted of five original songs, four remixes and one theme song. Lalit Pandit wrote and composed the item number "Munni Badnaam Hui" while the music director duo Sajid–Wajid composed the remainder of it. Faaiz Anwar and Jalees Sherwani wrote the lyrics for those tracks. The audio rights of Dabangg were sold for about ₹90 million (US$940,000) to T-Series, and the album was launched on 6 August 2010 in Delhi. It received positive response and the album performed well on the charts after its release. The tracks "Tere Mast Mast Do Nain" and "Munni Badnaam Hui" were successful upon release and topped the music, radio and streaming charts.

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