Actor Satyajeet Puri recently shared how one major controversy back in the day led to the boycott of Amitabh Bachchan and affected his 1987 film ‘Kaun Jeeta Kaun Haara’. He recalled that public sentiment against the actor turned so hostile back then that people boycotted his movies, even defacing posters of the film with black paint.
Amitabh Bachchan joined after liking the film
Sharing a video on his social media, Satyajeet Puri recounted how Amitabh Bachchan came on board the film after seeing it and being impressed. “Amit Ji saw the film and liked it. He said, what role can I play in this film? Your film is already complete. He said, you become the narrator in this film. You narrate the entire story of this film,” Puri recalled.He explained that a special scenario was written into the film to incorporate Bachchan’s presence. “So, a situation was made, where Amit Ji is an actor and his car breaks down, and he narrates the entire film. Amit Ji came, Amit Ji did the entire shooting, his entire portion was shot, and the film was released,” he said.Puri shared that he was optimistic Bachchan’s involvement would draw crowds to the theatres. “Here, I was very happy, that now Amit Ji is in our film, the opening of the film will be good, people will come and watch, the film is good,” he said.
Bofors controversy changed public sentiment towards Amitabh Bachchan
However, Puri revealed that fate had other plans, and things took a sharp turn following the Bofors controversy, changing everything. “But what I had told you earlier, fate, at that time, something happened, that the story of Bofors came out, and people became anti Amit Ji. They became so anti that they stopped watching Amit Ji’s film,” he recalled.
People blacked out posters of ‘Kaun Jeeta Kaun Haara’
Puri claimed this hostility extended to ‘Kaun Jeeta Kaun Haara’ upon its theatrical release. “And when this film was released, people completely banned it from their side. They didn’t watch it. There was no interest to watch it. Even the posters of our film, people blacked them out. And that film, such a good film, such a good story, it didn’t work at all, it flopped,” he said.Reflecting on the whole episode, Puri put the film’s failure down to sheer luck. “Like I told you, film industry, 99% is luck, and 1% again luck. So that wasn’t in my fate, that film wasn’t in my fate,” he said. He also spoke about how, despite not sharing screen space with Bachchan in the traditional sense, they were still both part of the same film. “But yes, in that film, I didn’t work with Amit Ji, but together, we were in that film,” he said.
About ‘Kaun Jeeta Kaun Haara’
For those unfamiliar, ‘Kaun Jeeta Kaun Haara’ was helmed and produced by Rakesh Kumar, and brought together an ensemble cast that included Kishore Kumar, Aruna Irani, Amrish Puri, Jagdeep, Tinnu Anand and Satyajeet Puri, with Amitabh Bachchan making an appearance as himself.