Days of Hollywood rip-offs are gone

Frame-by-frame copies of Hollywood movies are no longer possible, as American studios are on high alert for Bollywood filmmakers who appropriate Hollywood plots and turn them into desi adaptations.

Which is why three sequels to very successful Hindi films -- Sanjay Gupta's 2002 Kaante, Anurag Basu's 2002 erotic drama, Murder and David Dhawan's 2007 comedy, Partner -- all copies of Hollywood movies, have decided to go for a complete makeover to avoid the charge of plagiarism.

Kaante was a scene-by-scene copy of Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs. In fact, Gupta has made a thriving career out of translocating foreign films into Hindi. Zinda, his last film, was a faithful adaptation of a Korean film, Oldboy.

However, Gupta's Kaante sequel, Khottey Sikkey, is an original. "Not one frame will be reminiscent of any foreign film. My days of borrowing plots are over, " says Gupta.

Mohit Suri too has gone original for the sequel to Murder, which was a rip off of Adrian Lyne's Unfaithful. "Back then it was easy to get away with murder. Today the American studios keep a tab on us. Murder worked because it reminded audiences of B R Chopra's film on adultery -- Gumrah. Straightforward ripoffs of foreign films don't work, " says Suri.