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Qurbani
1980 157’ col/scope Hindi d/p/ed Feroz Khan pc F.K. International st/sc K.K. Shukla dial Kadar Khan lyr Indivar, Farooq Kaisar c Kamal Bose m Kalyanji- Anandji lp Feroz Khan, Vinod Khanna, Zeenat Aman, Aruna Irani, Amjad Khan, Shakti Kapoor, Amrish Puri, Baby Natasha Chopra
Hugely successful action movie mobilising the traditional ‘yaari’ or male bonding story. The crook Rajesh Kumar (F. Khan) loves the night club singer Sheila (Aman). While he is in jail, she falls for the reformed gangster Amar (Khanna), but repudiates him when Rajesh is released. Rajesh saves Amar’s life on two occasions from the underworld leader Vikram (Kapoor) and Vikram’s sister Jwala (Irani), while the villains also frame Rajesh for the murder of another criminal, Raaka (Puri). The film is mainly concerned with notions of ‘qurbani’ or male sacrifice and the climax comes when in a British countryside, Amar sacrifices his life for Rajesh. The film was known also for the song Aap jaisa koi, performed by the Pakistani-British singer Nazia Hassan, one of the first songs in the style later made popular by composer Biddu for MTV. By way of a lengthy opening tribute the film was dedicated to Sanjay Gandhi, showing the cremation of his body and announcing that the film’s profits would be donated to charity in his memory. The controversial award of tax exemption to the film by the then-Maharashtra Chief Minister A.R. Antulay, who also extended the same facilities to Feroz Khan’s younger brother Sanjay Khan’s Abdullah (also 1980), was widely discussed in the media.