Rishi Kapoor and his southern remakes

As a hero at 67, he was in the same age group as the leading men of the 1970s in southern cinema like Kamal Haasan and Rajinikanth, both of whom he acted. Of course, both his Chennai counterparts did not have a filmi legacy like the one he was born into. Yet, Rishi Kapoor, who co-existed with Amitabh Bachchan during the angry young man phase of his in the sizzling 1970s had featured in many southern remakes in the first two decades of his filmi career.

After his debut in 1973 in-home production ' Bobby' as a full-fledged hero, the next film he was seen on the silver screen was ' Zehreela Insaan' in 1974. This remake from a roaring Kannada hit surprisingly flopped in Hindi as the public were reluctant to accept the hero as an angry, tormented person. However 'O Hansini' is a Kishore Kumar song from the film which is a chartbuster even till date.

From a relatively lesser-known set of directors like K Shankar to Kalpataru to K Ravishankar, Chintu, as he was popularly known appeared in many remake ventures. He was seen in the blockbuster film ''Sargam', the remake of Siri Siri Muvva along with Jayaprada in 1979 ( her debut in Hindi) which was helmed by our own K Viswanath, who had a good run in Hindi cinema for a decade or so after this. Many big names in southern cinema-like Mani Ratnam, K Bapiah, T Rama Rao have either directed him or have had their films remade in Hindi in which he acted.