Karz (film) - Reception

Reception

This story is about the reincarnation and the revenge became the ninth highest grosser of the year, and declared a "Semi Hit" nationwide and 80%/Big City Hit at the Indian Box Office. In a 2008 interview, film director, Subhash Ghai admitted that film was ahead of its time, and was thus panned by critics of the times, and "flopped" at the box office, it was only years later that it started being considered a classic and even remade several times over.

The film is also one of the finest films of Subhash Ghai, notable for picturization of songs like Ek Hasina Thi on stage as well as Dard-e-Dil, and set the standard for his future films, as most of them became known for his dramatic flair, and above all their music score. However, the director Subhash Ghai admitted that Karz was partly inspired by the 1975 American film The Reincarnation of Peter Proud, mixed in with Indian beliefs on reincarnation. In turn, both Karz and The Reincarnation of Peter Proud may have been inspired by the 1958 Hindi film Madhumati. Karz was itself remade several times: as the Kannada film Yuga Purusha (1989), the Tamil film Enakkul Oruvan (1984), and more recently the Hindi film Karzzzz (2008). Karz may have also inspired the American film Chances Are (1989).

Meanwhile, despite the Filmfare Best Music Director Award notwithstanding, films music turned out to be heavily "inspired" in the later years, like the dramatic Ek Hasina Thi was taken from George Benson's As We Love, while Om Shanti Om itself came from Trinidad Calypso artist Lord Shorty's version