Agneepath- This 1990 Mukul Anand directed film has a similarity to Brian De Palma’s 1983 classic mafia film, SCARFACE. One can see the reflection of the lead character, gangster Tony Montana, played by Al Pacino, in the role of Vijay Dinanath Chauhan, played by Amitabh Bachchan in AGNEEPATH (’90).
- When AGNEEPATH (’90) was released, a big section of the audience did not seem to like the Amitabh Bachchan’s hoarse voice, and many felt his ‘different’ voice was the reason the film didn’t do as well as expected. After the initial reactions, the film was dubbed again, with Amitabh using more of his regular voice. With the new prints the film picked up business at the box office
- The title of the film was inspired from the poem, ‘Agneepath’, authored by Amitabh Bachchan’s father, the late Harivansh Rai Bachchan. ‘Agneepath’ means ‘Path of fire’. The poem which is recited by Amitabh Bachchan throughout the film, describes the entire gamut of sufferings that the human race had gone through and is going through.
- Amitabh Bachchan bagged the National Award for Best Actor, and was also nominated in the Best Actor category at the Filmfare Awards that year. Jaya Bachchan said that if he had not been awarded the National Award she would have felt very bad; since she thought it was Amitabh Bachchan’s best performance amongst all the films he’d done till then.
- This film won Mithun Chakraborty and Rohini Hattangadi the FilmFare Award for Best Supporting Actor and Actress, respectively. Mithun Chakraborty had won the National Award for Best Actor with his very first film, MRIGAYA (’76), and he won this again for the Bengali film, TAHADER KATHA (’93).
