Twin movies are fairly common in Bollywood, and they tend to
follow the same basic formula. Identical twins are separated at birth.
One twin grows up poor and feisty, raised by humble working folk. The
other twin grows up wealthy and meek, terrorized by evil rich relatives
who are after their money, though the rich twin usually also has a
good-hearted but vulnerable relative that they need to protect. Just
when it seems all hope is lost, the twins accidentally trade places,
with the poor twin overcoming the villains, the rich twin developing a
spine, and everybody gaining a love interest. Kishen Kanhaiya (1990) follows this formula as well, but with some surprising tweaks.
The film begins just as you might expect; tragic birth, dead mother, one twin spirited away to be raised by the midwife, while the other is left with his wealthy and now widowed father, Sunderdas (Shreeram Lagoo). While Sunderdas is a devoted parent, he’s overwhelmed, and decides to marry Kamini (Bindu), the sister of his employee Gendamal (Amrish Puri). Gendamal and Kamini are, of course, evil, and soon Gendamal arranges for Sunderdas to take a convenient fall, leaving him mute and paralyzed. Thanks to a complicated will, though, Gendamal needs to keep Sunderdas and baby Kishen alive until Kishen’s 24th birthday, then force the young man to sign over the property. And in order to make this possible, Gendamal and Kamini raise the boy through terror and abuse. By the time he grows into an adult (and is played by Anil Kapoor), Kishen is basically a servant, completely cowed by his uncle, stepmother, and her illegitimate son Mahesh (Dalip Tahil).
Kanhaiya (Anil Kapooor), on the other hand, was raised by the midwife (Subha Khote), and has grown up fearless, lazy, and a bit shady, but basically good hearted. Kanhaiya is obsessed with movies, and spends his days at the movie theater, dressed in fancy clothes borrowed from his best friend Lobo (Johnny Lever). After inadvertently picking a fight with a much larger man, his filmi fisticuffs catch the eye of fellow cinemaniac Anju (Madhuri Dixit), daughter of wealthy and cranky businessman Vidya Charan (Saeed Jaffrey), who happens to be a close friend of Gendamal.
And at this point, with the characters clearly established, that you’d expect the twins to switch places. But no, not yet. Both brothers have fully developed romantic subplots under their own identities, rather than meeting their love interests while switched. Kishen falls for milkmaid Radha (Shilpa Shirodkar), and surprisingly, Gendamal is all for the match, figuring that a wife would help keep Kishen docile, and an educated woman would be harder to control.
Kanhaiya, meanwhile, grows closer to Anju, who assumes that he’s also the child of a rich family. While pursuing this relationship. Kanhaiya casually and repeatedly humiliates Anju’s “uncle” Sridhar (Ranjeet), a business associate of her father’s. Sridhar has an unhealthy interest in Anju, and is nasty enough to expose Kanhaiya’s poverty, have the young man brutally beaten, kill his adopted mother, and then shoot him in the head.
Kishen, meanwhile, suddenly grows a spine and refuses to mark the papers transferring control of the family fortune, because Radha doesn’t want him to. Gendamal does not take this refusal well, and orders Mahesh to kill Kishen and dump his body in the sea. And then, with Kishen presumed dead and Kanhaiya’s life in ruines, Kanhaiya’s adoptive father explains the switch, and Kanhaiya deliberately assumes Kishen’s identity in order to root out the villains and perhaps discover what happened to his twin.
Kishen is not really dead, of course. Anju discovers him wandering the city street and thinks he’s Kanhaiya; he cannot contradict her, because he has amnesia. Anju tries to help him recover his memories by dressing up as Raj Kapoor, but surprisingly it doesn’t work.
Kishen Kanhaiya hits many of the same story beats as, say, Seeta Aur Geeta, but it steers clear of some of the twin movie cliches. (Kanhaiya lets all the nice people know who he is as soon as possible, for instance, so there’s no tearful rejection by the family he’s trying to save.) It’s an old story, but different enough to be interesting, and the cast is full of people I like, so I thoroughly enjoyed this movie.
The film begins just as you might expect; tragic birth, dead mother, one twin spirited away to be raised by the midwife, while the other is left with his wealthy and now widowed father, Sunderdas (Shreeram Lagoo). While Sunderdas is a devoted parent, he’s overwhelmed, and decides to marry Kamini (Bindu), the sister of his employee Gendamal (Amrish Puri). Gendamal and Kamini are, of course, evil, and soon Gendamal arranges for Sunderdas to take a convenient fall, leaving him mute and paralyzed. Thanks to a complicated will, though, Gendamal needs to keep Sunderdas and baby Kishen alive until Kishen’s 24th birthday, then force the young man to sign over the property. And in order to make this possible, Gendamal and Kamini raise the boy through terror and abuse. By the time he grows into an adult (and is played by Anil Kapoor), Kishen is basically a servant, completely cowed by his uncle, stepmother, and her illegitimate son Mahesh (Dalip Tahil).
Kanhaiya (Anil Kapooor), on the other hand, was raised by the midwife (Subha Khote), and has grown up fearless, lazy, and a bit shady, but basically good hearted. Kanhaiya is obsessed with movies, and spends his days at the movie theater, dressed in fancy clothes borrowed from his best friend Lobo (Johnny Lever). After inadvertently picking a fight with a much larger man, his filmi fisticuffs catch the eye of fellow cinemaniac Anju (Madhuri Dixit), daughter of wealthy and cranky businessman Vidya Charan (Saeed Jaffrey), who happens to be a close friend of Gendamal.
And at this point, with the characters clearly established, that you’d expect the twins to switch places. But no, not yet. Both brothers have fully developed romantic subplots under their own identities, rather than meeting their love interests while switched. Kishen falls for milkmaid Radha (Shilpa Shirodkar), and surprisingly, Gendamal is all for the match, figuring that a wife would help keep Kishen docile, and an educated woman would be harder to control.
Kanhaiya, meanwhile, grows closer to Anju, who assumes that he’s also the child of a rich family. While pursuing this relationship. Kanhaiya casually and repeatedly humiliates Anju’s “uncle” Sridhar (Ranjeet), a business associate of her father’s. Sridhar has an unhealthy interest in Anju, and is nasty enough to expose Kanhaiya’s poverty, have the young man brutally beaten, kill his adopted mother, and then shoot him in the head.
Kishen, meanwhile, suddenly grows a spine and refuses to mark the papers transferring control of the family fortune, because Radha doesn’t want him to. Gendamal does not take this refusal well, and orders Mahesh to kill Kishen and dump his body in the sea. And then, with Kishen presumed dead and Kanhaiya’s life in ruines, Kanhaiya’s adoptive father explains the switch, and Kanhaiya deliberately assumes Kishen’s identity in order to root out the villains and perhaps discover what happened to his twin.
Kishen is not really dead, of course. Anju discovers him wandering the city street and thinks he’s Kanhaiya; he cannot contradict her, because he has amnesia. Anju tries to help him recover his memories by dressing up as Raj Kapoor, but surprisingly it doesn’t work.
Kishen Kanhaiya hits many of the same story beats as, say, Seeta Aur Geeta, but it steers clear of some of the twin movie cliches. (Kanhaiya lets all the nice people know who he is as soon as possible, for instance, so there’s no tearful rejection by the family he’s trying to save.) It’s an old story, but different enough to be interesting, and the cast is full of people I like, so I thoroughly enjoyed this movie.
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