Jaani Dushman: Ek Anokhi Kahani

About the film

Jaani Dushman: Ek Anokhi Kahaani (transl. Sworn Enemy: A Unique Story) is a 2002 Indian Hindi-language fantasy action thriller film directed and produced by Rajkumar Kohli, making it his last film as a director. The film stars Armaan Kohli and Manisha Koirala, along with an ensemble cast including Sunny Deol, Akshay Kumar, Suniel Shetty, Arshad Warsi, Sonu Nigam, Aftab Shivdasani, Aditya Pancholi, Rambha and Sharad Kapoor.

The film was Armaan Kohli's comeback film where he was reintroduced with a new name Munish Kohli. Before its release, the film generated considerable hype for its innovative special effects, uncommon in the industry at the time. It also marked the first film featuring both Akshay Kumar and Sunny Deol, two major action stars of the previous decade, though they had no scenes together.

Plot

Divya (Manisha Koirala) and Karan Saxena (Sunny Deol) are in love and engaged. Karan has a younger step-brother, Vivek (Sonu Nigam), whom he looks after as if he was his brother. Divya and Vivek study in the same college as their friends group. The group includes Atul (Akshay Kumar), Vijay (Suniel Shetty), Divya, Abdul (Arshad Warsi), Vivek, Ashok Kejriwal (Aditya Pancholi), Prem Srivastav (Aftab Shivdasani), Victor (Sharad Kapoor), Rajesh (Rajat Bedi) and Madan (Siddharth Ray).

Rajesh and Madan attempt to molest Divya. They are stopped and beaten up by Karan, who takes them to the college's principal, Professor Joseph. He agrees to let the incident go if Divya forgives them, which she later does. However, Rajesh and Madan decide to avenge their humiliation. Soon after, Karan goes to London for work. Under the pretext of inviting Divya to Atul's party, Rajesh imitates the voices of all the guys in the group and tricks her into coming to an abandoned fort earlier than the scheduled time for the party. Divya arrives, where she is brutally raped by Rajesh and Madan, prompting her to kill herself. Divya's friends arrive, and before dying she curses them, thinking that they all were involved in the rape.

Unknown to Divya, in her past life, she was a snake-woman Vasundhara and her partner was a snake-man named Kapil (Armaan Kohli), who had magical powers. Their happy life was shattered by an angry sage who cursed them with separation until the 21st century. Kapil had to undergo penance until the 21st century when Vasundhara will be reborn. He also gained supernatural strength, near-immortality, and the power to impersonate anything as a result of his penance. The sage warned him that he could be defeated or killed by one supernaturally powerful mortal being. Though Divya has just died, her spirit has survived. Kapil gets very angry to learn of her death and promises to get his revenge on everyone in the group. Divya’s spirit joins Kapil to avenge her humiliation and death, not against the two guilty members, but against all the male members in group.

Music and soundtrack

The music for the film’s songs was composed by Anand–Milind and Anand Raj Anand. All songs composed by Anand–Milind had lyrics penned by Sameer, whereas the songs composed by Anand Raj Anand had lyrics penned by Dev Kohli. The background score of the film was done by Sandeep Chowta. The film’s music was released on Universal Music India.

Reception

This film received highly negative reviews from critics. Ranjita 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".

Bollywood Hungama rated the film 1.5/5, stating, "The film has a huge cast, but only Sunny Deol and Akshay Kumar leave an impact. Munish "Armaan" Kohli & others don't impress much".

Box office

The film opened well at the box office, collecting about ₹13.5 million on its first day. It collected ₹14 million on its second day and ₹12.7 million on its third day, taking its opening weekend collection to ₹40.2 million.

However, the negative critical reception led to a drastic fall in the box office collection. Its first-week collection closed at ₹64.7 million. Its collection continued declining, and finally ended up at a domestic net of ₹107.1 million, resulting in the film being declared a "Flop" by Box Office India.

Key details