Saudagar

About the film

Saudagar (transl. Merchant) is a 1991 Indian Hindi-language action drama film, directed by Subhash Ghai. It stars Dilip Kumar and Raaj Kumar, the two acting giants of Hindi cinema in lead roles. It was the second film in which the two actors came together after the 1959 film Paigham. It featured the debut performances of Vivek Mushran and Manisha Koirala, the latter becoming a noted Bollywood actress in later years. Amrish Puri, Anupam Kher, Mukesh Khanna, Dalip Tahil, Gulshan Grover, Dina Pathak, Deepti Naval and Jackie Shroff star in key roles.

The story line is influenced by Romeo and Juliet and Mandhaari's role is parallel to that of Friar Laurence in Romeo and Juliet. It was also inspired by the 1985 Pakistani Punjabi movie Haq Mehar.

Plot

The movie starts with Mandhari, an old crippled man, telling a story of two friends to some kids. In the story, Rajeshwar Singh, a rich landlord's son, and Veer Singh, a poor farmer's son, become friends. They are naughty kids, calling each other as Raju and Veeru respectively. As the duo grow up, Raju decides to get his sister Palikanta's marriage arranged with Veeru. Neither his sister nor Veeru have any objections to the marriage.

However, as luck would have it, a girl's marriage in town is disrupted due to her in-laws demanding dowry. Veeru steps in to save the face of the girl and her parents by marrying her. While Raju is shocked by this development, his sister, who was secretly in love with Veeru, commits suicide. Devastated and distraught, Raju now declares that Veeru is solely responsible for everything that happened, making him his mortal enemy.

With these new developments, the duo has their territories marked. They come to an uneasy and unwritten truce: no one will kill a living soul from the other's territory, but anybody entering the other person's territory will be doing so at their own peril. Chuniya, kin of Raju, sees an opportunity to leech off the money of Rajeshwar by keeping the two sides at war. Chuniya has Veer's son Vishal killed, making the latter believe that Rajeshwar will stop at nothing to eliminate Veer.

Soundtrack

The music for the film was composed by the legendary duo of Laxmikant–Pyarelal, and the lyrics were written by Anand Bakshi.

Key details