Hum Paanch

1980 163’ col Hindi d Bapu pc S.K. Film Ents st S.R. Puttanna Kanagal sc M.V. Raman dial Rahi Masoom Raza lyr Anand Bakshi c Sharad Kadwe m Laxmikant-Pyarelal, S.P. Balasubramanyam lp Sanjeev Kumar, Shabana Azmi, Mithun Chakraborty, Naseeruddin Shah, Deepti Naval, Raj Babbar, Gulshan Grover, Amrish Puri, Kanhaiyalal

Bapu’s first Hindi film remade Puttanna Kanagal’s Paduvarahalli Pandavaru (1978), derived from a popular Mahabharata legend set in feudal UP. The villainous zamindar Veer Pratap Singh (Puri) is Duryodhan, his sidekick Lala (Kanhaiyalal) is Shakuni and their opponents are the drunken holy man Krishna (Kumar), Bhima (Chakraborty), Arjun (Babbar), etc. The good and the bad perform with straightfaced conviction (which prevents the film from becoming a comedy) a story reduced to a series of action thrills. In many respects this feudal drama ironically echoed Benegal’s Nishant (1975), a resemblance reinforced by the presence of Puri, Azmi and Shah.

Film