Raja

1995 168’ col/scope Hindi d/co-p Indra Kumar pc Maruti International co-p Ashok Thakeria sc Rajiv Kaul, Praful Parekh dial Tanveer Khan lyr Sameer c Baba Azmi m Nadeem Shravan, Naresh Sharma lp Sanjay Kapoor, Madhuri Dixit, Mukesh Khanna, Dalip Tahil, Rita Bhaduri, Mushtaq Khan, Adi Irani, Paresh Rawal

Raja (Kapoor) supports his elder brother Brijnath (Rawal) when the latter’s business empire is ruined by a fire and he is crippled. The film’s villain, Ranasaab (Khanna), had promised his daughter Madhu (Dixit) to Raja when Brijnath was rich, but now callously refuses to let the young couple meet and perpetrates all manner of evil. As adults, Raja and Madhu meet and fall for each other again and eventually marry while bringing the villains to book. Dixit outperforms hero Kapoor with numerous solo ‘highlights’ - Manmohan Desai’s phrase for autonomous vignettes with little relation to plot and designed mainly to showcase the star’s versatility - and two major song hits, Nazrein mili and Akhiyan milao. Indra Kumar’s third hit in a row (after Dil, 1990, and Beta, 1992) made Dixit, by way of Hum Aapke Hain Koun...! (1994), for a brief period into the most valuable star in the Hindi cinema.

Film