Namastey London

About the film

Namastey London (transl. Hello London) is a 2007 Indian romantic comedy film directed and produced by Vipul Amrutlal Shah. It stars Rishi Kapoor, Akshay Kumar, Katrina Kaif, Nina Wadia, Javed Sheikh, Upen Patel and Clive Standen. Riteish Deshmukh appears in a cameo role.

Namastey London was theatrically released on 23 March 2007, and received positive reviews for its direction, screenplay, soundtrack, and Kumar's performance. It was a box office success, earning ₹71.40 crore worldwide, thus becoming the ninth-highest grossing Hindi film of 2007. Although critics noted similarities between the film and Manoj Kumar's Purab Aur Paschim (1970), Vipul Shah denied Namastey London was a remake. At the 53rd Filmfare Awards, Namastey London received 1 nomination – Best Actor (Kumar).

Plot

Indian-born Manmohan Malhotra relocated to London to establish himself and return to India, and he married Bebo; after four years, he obtained a visa for her so that she could live with him. Shortly thereafter, she gave birth to Jasmeet. Manmohan was always embarrassed by Bebo as she could not speak English and hence couldn't mingle with British people.

As a firm result he always left her out on important occasions while he was socialised. Bebo did not want Jasmeet to end up like her, so she got her educated in an English school and encouraged her to mingle with British friends. Jasmeet was transformed into Jazz, a young, beautiful girl modern in looks, talk, habits, and heart. But she is ashamed of her Indian heritage.

Her father had set her to meet a young person, Bobby Bedi, although the date turns out to be a disaster, and Bobby leaves and decides to reject her. Manmohan thinks that it is impossible to get him an Indian son-in-law, and his best friend, Parvez Khan, is in a similar situation with his son Imran, who also has a girlfriend, Susan. Manmohan takes his family on a tour of India and forces Jasmeet to marry Arjun Singh, who does not speak English.

Production

The first half of Namastey London was set in Punjab, while the second half took place in London. Consequently, the movie was filmed across 50 locations in the UK, including Slough, Windsor, Bromley, and various parts of London. Iconic London landmarks featured prominently, such as the London Eye (seen at least nine times), Tower Bridge, Millennium Bridge, St Paul's Cathedral, Greenwich, Buckingham Palace, Canary Wharf, Big Ben, Trafalgar Square, and the National Gallery. The Punjab scenes were shot near Chandigarh.

Soundtrack

The soundtrack album was released on 27 January 2007 and received good reviews. The songs were composed by Himesh Reshammiya. Salim–Sulaiman composed the film score. All songs were penned by Javed Akhtar.

Release and reception

The film was released on 23 March 2007 worldwide.

Shooting for the film began on 16 August 2006 and ended on 7 September 2006.

Priyanka Chopra was the original choice for Jazz but was replaced by Katrina Kaif.

Box office

Namastey London opened to a good response and mainly picked up momentum after the second and third day of its release, a major reason being India's exit from the 2007 Cricket World Cup. The film did extremely well in the northern parts of India, especially in Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh. It also did well in Mumbai and in the first week of its release collected ₹73,575,657. The film was also received well in other parts of the country. The success of the film ended a long spell of box office failures since the release of Salaam-e-Ishq: A Tribute to Love which released in January 2007. The film went on to gross ₹714,102,500 worldwide, making it one of the top hits of 2007.

The film was also successful overseas. It debuted at number 9 on the UK charts and similarly debuted within the top 20 in the United States and Australian charts. The film collected £238,841 in the first week of its release. As of 27 July 2007, the movie grossed an estimated $15,273,747 in five territories, which included the United States ($4,149,772), Australia ($197,148), India ($17,267,662), Malaysia ($15,285), and the United Kingdom ($9,021,900).

Remake and sequel

The film was unofficially remade in Bengali as Paran Jai Jaliya Re starring Dev and Subhashree Ganguly. The Kolkata High Court in December 2009 banned the screening of the film for plagiarism after a petition was filed by the film's producers.

In March 2011, Shah had announced a sequel, Namaste England. Kumar and Sonakshi Sinha were initially signed to play the leads in the sequel. Namaste England was released in October 2018 with Parineeti Chopra and Arjun Kapoor starring.

Key details