Kuch Tum Kaho Kuch Hum Kahein

The festival of Sankranti as the new millennium dawned brought with it a box-office record for Telugu cinema. Released on January 14, 2000 the K R Udayashankar-directed ' Kalisundham Raa' starring 'Victory' Venkatesh and the slim sensation, Simran, who was among the top heroines of southern cinema then turned out to be a humongous hit.

The popularity of the film among the audience was so much that it ran for 100 days in 103 centres, 175 days in 35 centres and 200 days in 20 centres, making it the biggest hit in Telugu cinema in 70 years.

Obviously, the film, classified as a romance drama film, went on to be remade in Kannada and Hindi owing to its vested box-office potential. The film was titled 'Kuch Tum Kaho Kuch Hum Kahein' and got released in 2002, a good two-and-a-half years after the original hit the silver screens.

The lead pair of the Hindi version was Fardeen Khan, the son of iconic matinee idol and stylish star Feroz Khan and Richa Pallod, a successful heroine in southern cinema and making her debut in Hindi. The direction was by K Ravishankar, who had made a mark for himself with melodramatic ventures, mostly remade from Tamil and Telugu films.

The film must have been considered a sure shot winner by the Telugu production banner – Suresh Films – as the legendary producer, D Ramanaidu decided to bankroll the film in Hindi also.

However, this film slipped through the cracks and failed at the box-office, having opened to mixed reviews soon after it got released. It proved an exception to the time-tested belief in the movie industry that a remake is a safe bet most of the times as it has achieved success elsewhere in the country markets.

In Kannada too, with the noted hero Ravichandran backing it, the film could not repeat the success of Telugu and did average business. It must have been a heart-breaking thing for the director, Udhayashankar, who could never repeat the success of this film in his tenure in the cinema world, where he directed nine films between 1997-2014.

Having given the biggest hit of the Telugu film world, he could never achieve another hit in the same industry despite pairing with heroes like Ravi Teja and Gopichand later.

In retrospect, the star cast selection for the Hindi version too was under the spotlight as Fardeen Khan had by then failed to give a decent, solo hit in nearly ten films since his launch in 1998. Romantic dramas need a good boost from supporting artistes too, apart from a few captivating numbers.

Anu Malik was the composer for the film and the songs were nothing extraordinary to mention about. The strong regional flavor may also have impeded the nativity factor, feel observers, but this can be contested as Hindi industry has always had southern films and productions as part of their hit parades. In all, what turned out to be a game changer in the home territory failed big time across the borders in Bombay.