Ghatak: Lethal

Ghatak is an Indian 1996 Hindi-language action thriller film directed by Rajkumar Santoshi, starring Sunny Deol, Meenakshi Seshadri, Amrish Puri, and Danny Denzongpa. It earned ₹32 crore at the domestic box-office to become the highest-grossing Hindi film in terms of domestic box-office collections and the second-highest grossing film of the year.

Ghatak
Directed by	Rajkumar Santoshi
Written by	Rajkumar Santoshi K.K. Raina Shyam Gupta
Produced by	Rajkumar Santoshi
Starring	Sunny Deol Meenakshi Seshadri Amrish Puri Danny Denzongpa
Cinematography	Ishwar R. Bidri
Edited by	V. N. Mayekar
Music by	Songs: R. D. Burman Anu Malik (1 song) Score: Vanraj Bhatia
Production company	Santoshi Productions
Distributed by	B4U Entertainment
Release date	15 November 1996 (1996-11-15)
Running time	158 min
Country	India
Language	Hindi
Budget	₹6.2 crore
Box office	est. ₹32.7 crore [1]

It won three awards including Best Supporting Actor for Puri at the 42nd Filmfare Awards, where it was also nominated for three other awards: Best Director for Santoshi, Best Actor for Deol, and Best Villain for Denzongpa. Ghatak is Seshadri's last film to date. The film was later remade in Telugu as Aapthudu (2004), starring Rajasekhar and Anjala Zaveri.

Plot

Kashi Nath is a kind-hearted wrestler and the dutiful adopted son of Shambhu Nath, living in Banaras. Shambhu Nath, who was a freedom fighter awarded with the Tambra Patra, is an honourable and respectable man in town. Kashi, along with Shambhu, comes to Mumbai for medical treatment for Shambhu and stays with his brother, Shiv Nath. Kashi meets Gauri in the colony and starts liking her. He learns that the colony is being terrorized by the tyrannical gangster, Katya, along with his six brothers. Before Kashi's arrival, a resident named Sachdev tried to initiate a revolt against Katya, but got ruthlessly killed by him, thereby making Malti, Sachdev's wife, go mad. Katya and his brothers become enemies with Kashi when he beats up their goons in the process of roughing up Malti.

Shambhu is later diagnosed with terminal throat cancer and only has a few days to live. When Kashi refuses to join Katya's gang, Katya becomes furious and humiliates Shambhu before the entire colony, by making him bark like a dog. After a series of dramatic events, Shiv is run over to death by Jeena, one of Katya's brothers. In retaliation, Kashi then kills Antya, another one of Katya's brothers, and gets arrested. Meanwhile, Shambhu passes away. When Kashi tries to disperse his father's ashes at the Ghat with the police, the police van gets attacked by Katya's brothers and goons. Kashi kills all of them, including Katya's three brothers, and reaches Katya's home. There he kills Jeena, thereby causing only two brothers to survive, including Katya; however, Kashi is captured in the process.

As Katya had Shambhu bark like a dog, he tries to make Kashi behave like an ox in front of the colony, to re-establish his supremacy. Gauri however stands up, arousing the audience to attack as well. Kashi frees himself from the shackles and beats Katya to death. Katya's entire gang is attacked by the residents. Katya's sixth and the last remaining brother, Bhiku, is killed by the mob. For retribution, Kashi makes Katya bark like a dog just like Shambhu. He then kills him in front of the residents, but loses control over himself as he keeps beating Katya's corpse. His nephew then brings him Shambhu's ashes from crematory rites which brings him back to senses. The ending is a bittersweet one, where Kashi loses every one he loved, but the colony has its freedom at last.

Cast

Actor	Character	Notes
Sunny Deol	Kashi Nath
Meenakshi Seshadri	Gauri
Danny Denzongpa	Katya
Amrish Puri	Shambu Nath
Om Puri	Sachdev	Shop owners
K. K. Raina	Shivnath
Mukesh Rishi	Jeena
Sheela Sharma	Sheela
Viju Khote	Pinto
Anjan Srivastav	Dhamu Kaka
Deep Dhillon	Antya
Suresh Bhagwat	Gopal
Tinu Verma	Bhiku
Harish Patel	Brother-in-law of Katya
Ponnambalam	Ring Fighter	Special appearance
Makrand Deshpande	Goon of Katya
Ila Arun	Malti
Navni Parihar
Shiva Rindani	Chandru
Tinnu Anand		Police Inspector
Rohini Hattangadi	Savitri
Ghanashyam Nayak	Receptionist
Amitabh Bachchan	Himself	Friendly appearance
Atul Tiwari	Batuk/Munna	Friendly appearance
Mamta Kulkarni	Dancers in the Song "Koi Aaye Toh le Jaye"	Special appearances
Ganesh Acharya

Production

Kamal Haasan was originally signed to play the lead role and an advertisement was commissioned to appear in Screen magazine noting "Welcome back to the Hindi screen", pointing at the actor's return to Hindi films after 1985's Dekha Pyaar Tumhara. However, due to no producer willing to back the actor in the film, Rajkumar Santoshi changed the star cast.^[2]

Soundtrack

Ghatak: Lethal
Soundtrack album by R. D. Burman and Anu Malik and Vanraj Bhatia
Released	20 October 1996
Genre	Feature film soundtrack
Label	Venus Records & Tapes

The music for the movie was mainly composed by R. D. Burman. The song "Koi Jaye To Le Aaye" was the only song composed by Anu Malik, and it became popular.

#	Song	Singer(s)	Length	Music Director	Lyricist
1	"Koi Jaye To Le Aaye"	Alka Yagnik, Shankar Mahadevan	05:18	Anu Malik	Rahat Indori
2	"Nigahon Ne Chheda"	Suresh Wadkar, Sadhana Sargam	06:24	R.D. Burman	Majrooh Sultanpuri
3	"Badan Mein Chandni"	Kavita Krishnamurthy	05:55	R.D. Burman	Majrooh Sultanpuri
4	"Aaki Naaki"	Asha Bhosle	08:57	R.D. Burman	Majrooh Sultanpuri
5	"Ek Dil Ki Diwani"	Suresh Wadkar, Sadhana Sargam	07:29	R.D. Burman	Majrooh Sultanpuri
6	"Theme of Ghatak" (Instrumental)	shadmehr aghili	02:28

Box office

The film was made at a budget of Rs. 62.5 million, did collections of Rs. 327 million India Nett.^[3]

Awards

42nd Filmfare Awards:

Won

• Best Supporting Actor – Amrish Puri
• Best Screenplay – Rajkumar Santoshi
• Best Editing – V. N. Mayekar

Nominated

• Best Director – Rajkumar Santoshi
• Best Actor – Sunny Deol
• Best Villain – Danny Denzongpa

Screen Awards:

Won

• Best Supporting Actor – Amrish Puri

Re-release

This film was re-released on 21 March 2025, after 28 years at the Red Lorry Film Festival.^[4][5]