Bade Miyan Chote Miyan

Bade Miyan Chote Miyan () is a 1998 Indian Hindi-language action comedy film directed by David Dhawan starring Amitabh Bachchan and Govinda in dual roles alongside Raveena Tandon, Ramya Krishnan, Anupam Kher, and Paresh Rawal, with Madhuri Dixit making a special appearance. "Bade Miyan Chote Miyan" was Bachchan's first box office hit since his comeback to Bollywood after a hiatus of few years, and its muharat shot was done by Bachchan's daughter Shweta Nanda on 22 December 1998. Produced on a budget of , "Bade Miyan Chote Miyan" was theatrically released on 16 October 1998 alongside Karan Johar's "Kuch Kuch Hota Hai" and Broke opening day, opening weekend and opening week record; though the latter emerged as the biggest success of the year, it became the second biggest hit in the list and went on to gross over worldwide.
Plot.
Arjun Singh (Amitabh Bachchan) and Pyare Mohan (Govinda) are police inspectors. They share a friendly bond. Arjun's sister, Seema (Raveena Tandon), is in love with Pyare. Arjun has no girlfriend and some petty comments are made about his age.
Zorawar (Paresh Rawal) runs a business smuggling arms and diamonds, under the cover of being a statue maker. Once, in a hotel, he discovers that he is being spied upon and along with the cop spying on him, he gets rid of Madhu (Divya Dutta), an eyewitness.
Madhu's friend, Neha (Ramya Krishnan), witnesses Madhu's murder. Scared, and with the gangsters after her, she calls the police station and asks for Pyare, but since he is not there, Arjun is asked to go to her, and masquerade as Pyare, who had been described as a very good person to Neha by her dead friend. In a considerable amount of confusion, he takes her to Pyare's house and even goes to the extent of asking Pyare to masquerade as Arjun.
Two petty thieves, Bade Miyan (Amitabh Bachchan) and Chote Miyan (Govinda), who are look-alikes of Arjun and Pyare respectively, arrive in town. Confusion ensues when every crime the crooks commit are blamed on Arjun and Pyare. Things goes further downhill when Shyamlal (Anupam Kher), the police commissioner, is also thrashed by the doubles. Arjun and Pyare are blamed for stealing a diamond from a bank and messing up the security operation of Madhuri Dixit (herself). Even Seema and Neha mistake Bade and Chote for Arjun and Pyare.
Arjun and Pyare further land in trouble when Zorawar kidnaps Seema and asks for the diamond and Neha in return. Arjun and Pyare, who have been arrested, are saved by the arrival of Bade and Chote, who confuse their acts of theft and conning, and promise to get Neha and Seema back. Bade and Chote arrive at Zorawar's hideout and stall them while Arjun and Pyare come with the police force and everyone at the hideout is arrested. The crooks leave after apologising to Neha and Seema for the confusion.
However, some of Zorawar's men hijack the police van which is taking Zorawar and his associates to jail. They are stopped on the way by Bade and Chote, asking for a lift. The latter realises who really are in the van and proceed to badly thrash Zorawar and his men and return him to jail. Arjun and Pyare are criticised for their mistake regarding the hijacking of the van and the two crooks are given a job in the police force by the commissioner himself. The film ends with Arjun and Pyare ending up being demoted to the post of traffic police officers and Bade and Chote taking their place as police inspectors.
Music.
The songs of the film, composed by Viju Shah with lyrics by Sameer, worked well. Similar to Shah's prior compositions for films like "Mohra" and "Gupt" that became quite popular, the album noticeably showed his offbeat mode of music yielding the tuneful numbers like the hit title track "Bade Miyan Chote Miyan", the hit zippy bhangra number "Makhna" and the groovy "Kisi Disco Mein Jaayein". Singers Udit Narayan, Sudesh Bhosle, Amit Kumar, Alka Yagnik, Jaspinder Narula, Anuradha Paudwal and Kavita Krishnamurthy allied and rendered their voices for the songs listed below:
Interesting facts.
1-In one of the scenes the lead characters need to release Satish Kaushik’s character (Sharafat Ali) from the police station. Hence both Amitabh Bachchan and Govinda impersonate as police officers and visit the police station. This entire scene is inspired by a scene from a Pakistani play titled Humsa Ho To Samne Aye, which is penned by renowned Pakistani writer, and actor-Umer Sharif.
2-Juhi Chawla was the original choice for the role of Neha but was replaced by south actor Ramya Krishnan.
3-Bade Miyan Chote Miyan is the first film where music director Viju Shah and Director David Dhawan worked together.
4-Bade Miyan Chote Miyan is the first film where Amitabh Bachchan and Madhuri Dixit were seen on the big screen together.
5- Bade Miyan Chote Miyan had a box office clash with Kuch Kuch Hota Hai.
6- The director of the film David Dhawan has a cameo scene in the film which only lasted for around 10 seconds.
7- Bade Miyan Chote Miyan saved Amitabh Bachchan from making a hat-trick of flop films, as two of his previous films Mrityudata and Major Saab did not perform as expected at the box office.
8- Many elements from this movie were copied from the American film "Bad Boys" starring Will Smith and Martin Lawrence. In this film, a major part of Bad Boys was copied including action sequences.
Box office.
The film's final worldwide collection was . It was declared a blockbuster and proved to be the second biggest success of the year behind "Kuch Kuch Hota Hai".