Satya is a 1998 Bollywood crime film, producer & directer is Ram Gopal Varma; writter Saurabh Shukla and Anurag Kashyap. It stars J. D. Chakravarthy, Manoj Bajpayee, Urmila Matondkar, Shukla and Shefali Shah in lead roles. It is the first of Varma’s Gangster trilogy about organised crime in India. The film follows Satya Chakravarthy, an immigrant who comes to Mumbai looking for a job, befriends Bhiku Mhatre Bajpayee and is drawn into the Mumbai underworld.
- Directer : Ram Gopal Varma
- Producer : Ram Gopal Varma
- Writter : Saurabh Shukla,Anurag Kashyap
- Starring : J. D. Chakravarthy,Urmila Matondkar,Manoj Bajpayee,Saurabh Shukla,Shefali Shah
- Music : Vishal Bhardwaj,Sandeep Chowta,
- Cinematography:Gerard Hooper,Mazhar Kamran
- Edited : Apurva Asrani,Bhanodaya
- Art Direction:Krishna
- Costume Designer:Shaahid Amir
- Makeup Department:Prasad,Srinu,Suresh
- Special Effects :S.A. Azim,Agnelo D’Souza,M.A. Hafeez,D. Sathyanarayana
- Stunts :Allan Amin
- Genres : Action,Crime,Drama,Thriller
- Release date : 3 July 1998
- Running time : 167 minutes
- Country : India
- Language : Hindi
Star Cast:
- Manoj Bajpayee as Bhiku Mhatre
- J. D. Chakravarthy as Satya
- Urmila Matondkar as Vidya
- Paresh Rawal as Police Commissioner Amod Shukla
- Aditya Srivastava as Inspector Khandilkar (the narrator)
- Saurabh Shukla as Kallu Mama
- Govind Namdev as Thakurdas Jhawle aka ‘Bhau’
- Makrand Deshpande as Advocate Chandrakant Mule
- Shefali Shah as Pyari Mhatre
- Raju Mavani as Guru Narayan
- Jeeva as Jagga Hyderabadi
- Snehal Dabi as Chander Krishnakant Khote
- Rajesh Joshi as Bapu
- Sushant Singh as Pakya
- Mithilesh Chaturvedi as Malhotra
- Manoj Pahwa as tabela owner
- Sanjay Mishra as Vitthal Manjrekar
- Neeraj Vora as Ronusagar (the music director)
- Rajeev Mehta as Lawyer
- Utkarsh Mazumdar as Vidya’s father
- Jyoti Dogra … Mrs. Amod Shukla
- G.P. Singh … Producer
- Manoj Pahwa … Tabela Owner (as Manoj Pawa)
- Anupam Shyam …Mane
- Akshay Mankad …Bar owner
- Mithilesh Chaturvedi … Builder Malhotra
- Ajit Mehra … Minister
- Arun Bali … Home Sec’y
- Vijay Maurya … Kallumama’s gang
- Manoj Verma … Kallumama’s gang (as Manoj Varma)
- Umesh Ghadge … Kallumama’s gang (as Umesh Gadge)
- Sumeet Sinha … Kallumama’s gang
- Srivas Naidu … Kallumama’s gang
- Ajai Rohilla… Guru’s gang (as Ajay Rohilla)
- Pravin Patel… Guru’s gang
- Rocky Rocky…Guru’s gang
Production:
Development:
Director Ram Gopal Varma, fascinated with Mumbai, wanted to return to making action films after a long break. While he was planning the film, Varma encountered some people from the underworld and became interested in their human side. Music producer and singer Gulshan Kumar was shot dead outside the Jeeteshwar Mahadev temple in Mumbai on 12 August 1997. Varma learned about the murder from Jhamu Sughand, who had produced Rangeela. Sughand told Varma that Gulshan had awakened at about 7 am and told the producer he would meet a singer at 8 am and a friend at 8:30; he would then go to the temple and meet him afterwards. Varma then thought, “If Gulshan had woken up at 7 am, then at what time would the killer have woken up?” He then decided to make a film about gangsters and, as an Ayn Rand fan, wanted to “put Howard Roark in the underworld”.
Varma had intended to leave songs out of the film, but ” … at that time it was very difficult to make a film without a song since the music companies were almost ‘ruling the industry’ and it was impossible to promote a song-less film”. With a basic story in his mind, the director wanted Vijay Tendulkar to write the film’s dialogue; he admired Tendulkar’s work, particularly Ardh Satya (1983). However, Tendulkar was unable to work on Satya. The film was edited by newcomer Apurva Asrani, who edited the trailer for Daud and Bhanodaya. Impressed by his work, Varma offered Apurva the editing position on Satya when he was nineteen years old. Varma incorporated several scenes from real life in the film including the scene were Mhatre abuses one of his dead friend on how he could die. One of his friend told him that his neighbor was a criminal whom he used to greet everyday but could not guess that he was involved in crime. Varma liked this angle and used in the film as well. Varma said that the characters in the film “are at a very low level of the gangster hierarchy”. On the film’s title, Varma said that he named it Satya for two reasons: one being a homage to Ardh Satya and the other one was a namesake girl whom he used to love in college who did not love him back.
Casting:
Struggling actor Manoj Bajpayee auditioned for the role of Paresh Rawal’s henchman in Daud, and Varma asked him if he had done any other film work; Bajpayee mentioned his supporting role in Bandit Queen. Varma, impressed by his performance in Bandit Queen, said that he wanted to give him a bigger role and advised him not to do Daud. However, Bajpayee wanted to appear in the film and Varma agreed. After film Shooting was completed, Varma told Bajpayee that he regretted giving him a minor role and promised him a prominent role in his next film. Bajpayee suggested newcomer Anurag Kashyap’s name to Varma for the screenplay. Varma liked Kashyap’s Auto Narayan, and signed him to write the script. Although Kashyap was already writing the film, Varma felt that he needed a more experienced writer and asked Saurabh Shukla. Shukla was initially hesitant, since he wrote films he could direct. He went to Varma’s office to decline, but the director told him that he wanted to cast him in the film and outlined the plot. Shukla then agreed to do the film, since he was “stuck” with the narration. They went to Varma’s farmhouse in Hyderabad and wrote the first draft in a week without doing research, since Kashyap felt that a gangster’s psychology is “very similar to anybody else”. Bajpayee had never met any gangster in his life and was not good in speaking Marathi language, although he was playing a Marathi character. He then decided to first work on his external look and grew a beard, a heavy face and curly hair. He took suggestions from his maid on how to get the nuances of the Marathi accent and worked on the character for three to four months before film Shooting Started.
Varma wanted to cast new actors in the film. He cast J.D. Chakravarthy, who had worked with Varma on Shiva (1990), in the title role. Chakravarthy said that he tried to imitate Varma to prepare for the role. The title role was initially planned for Bajpayee, but after the characters clarified for Varma he felt that he needed someone more fluent in Hindi for Bhiku Mhatre; Chakravarthy, a native Telugu speaker, was not sufficiently fluent in Hindi. Bajpayee was unhappy with the decision since he wanted to play the title role, but agreed to remain on the film because no other role was available. He also gathered his own costume from 25,000 given to him by the production. When Shukla and Kashyap were discussing authentic-sounding character names, an office boy named Bhiku came in and they decided to use his name for a character. Although the female lead was initially offered to Mahima Chaudhary, she declined due to the film’s subject matter. Varma then cast Urmila Matondkar, with whom he had worked in Rangeela and Daud. Newcomer Sushant Singh was cast as Mhatre’s henchman. Matondkar’s costume was designed by Manish Malhotra.
Film Shooting:
Satya was filmed in Mumbai during the monsoon season. The scene where Sushant Singh’s face is slashed by Chakravarthy was supposed to end there, but Varma forgot to say “cut” and the rest of the scene was improvised by the actors. The film’s opening montage, when Chakravarthy arrives in the city, was given to Kashyap to shoot. He planned the scene and filmed it with the cinematographer. The scene was very different from what Kashyap had imagined because of his inexperience in filming. Varma instructed him to re-shoot it and taught him how to communicate with the cameraman. Several scenes in the film were improvised, including the entire death scene of Bhiku Mhatre.
Bajpayee, who has acrophobia, was apprehensive while filming a scene for two hours where he is standing at the edge of a cliff. Satya’s climactic scene was filmed during Ganesh Chaturthi, when the team recreated the Juhu beach with about 500 junior artists. The song “Kallu Mama” was filmed by Varma himself because the cinematographer was absent on the day of the shoot. The film’s final scene to be shot, the song was largely improvised because the actors had been drinking. Satya was filmed in 50 days. The scene in the beginning of the film where Manjrekar and Bappu murder a film producer on a busy street was shot on a set; the street was created inside the studio, with parked cars belonging to the film crew.
Release:
A test screening of Satya’s rough cut was shown to 60 people at the Dimple theatre in Bandra. The response was negative; the audience thought the film advocated amorality, and portions of its second half were re-shot. Satya was released in India on 3 July 1998 on a commission basis, so distributors would not lose money. The film targeted an urban audience, and dubbed Telugu and Tamil-language versions were released in their regional markets. It was dubbed in English for screenings at international film festivals, with Vivek Oberoi dubbing one of the characters. Satya was part of the Indian Panorama section at the 1998 International Film Festival of India.
Satya Movie Songs/Music:
- “Badalon Se”
- “Tu Mere Paas Bhi Hai”
- “The Mood of Satya” (instrumental)
- “Goli Maar”
- “Geela Geela Pani”
- “Sapne Mein”
“Badalon Se” Full Video Song
- Singer : Lata Mangeshkar
- Lurics : Gulzar
- Music : Vishal Bhardwaj
“Sapne Mein” Full Video Song
- Singers : Asha Bhosle & Suresh Wadkar
- Music : Vishal
- Lyrics : Gulzar
Satya Movie Review:
This film review are Mostly Positive from Critics, IMDB Public Reviewing site give 8.2 Star Out Of 10 Star with Reviewers 12636.
Critics Thinkal Menon, TNN from Times Of India give 3.5 star out of 5 Star.
Review By The Mc Guddu Show:
Satya Movie Box Office Collection:
| Schedule | Amount |
| First Week: | 1,55,50,000 |
| Second Week: | 1,27,50,000 |
| Third Week: | 1,29,25,000 |
| Fourth Week: | 1,19,00,000 |
| Fifth Week: | 1,08,00,000 |
| Sixth Week: | 1,05,75,000 |
| Seventh Week: | 1,13,00,000 |
| Eighth Week: | 91,00,000 |
| Ninth Week: | 86,25,000 |
| Tenth Week: | 72,00,000 |
| Eleventh Week: | 3,27,50,000 |
| All India Nett Total : | 14,34,75,000 |
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