‘Kaho Naa… Pyaar Hai’: The Indian movie that set a world record for winning the most awards
Every filmmaker dreams of their latest work being touted as a potential awards season contender, but the percentage of movies that win prizes compared to the number that are made annually is minuscule at best.
There are ceremonies held all over the globe in multiple countries that dole out trophies in a limitless number of categories, but only one of them hoovered up so many gongs it was lauded by Guinness World Records for being the single most heavily decorated feature in the history of cinema.
It’s an impressive accolade, and one that famous awards-botherers like James Cameron’s Titanic, Victor Fleming’s Gone with the Wind, Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, or William Wyler’s Ben-Hur can only dream of. Critics may have been tossing accolades in its direction from all corners, but it wasn’t even the biggest hit of the year.
Writer, director, and producer Rakesh Roshan’s Kaho Naa… Pyaar Hai was still a success, but it was only the second highest-grossing Hindi film of 2000 behind Aditya Chopra’s Mohabbatein. Apparently, taking it as a personal slight, the star-making vehicle for Hrithik Roshan decided the best way to overcome its commercial disappointment was to give awards season a right good spanking.
To say the romantic musical action thriller cleaned up would be putting it lightly, with no less than 92 trophies being handed its way. That includes eight Bollywood Movie Awards, nine Filmfare Awards, ten wins at the International Indian Film Academy Awards, and nine victories at the Screen Awards, and those are just the big-name galas celebrating the great and good of the country’s cinematic output.
The blend of love, loss, mystery, and eye-popping spectacle proved to be an irresistible combination for the folks who decide which titles take home top honours, with Ameesha Patel’s Sonia Saxena left devastated when her burgeoning relationship with Roshan’s Rohit Kumar – which began on a deserted island – takes a tragic turn when a drug cartel surreptitiously orders his assassination.
Sent to stay with her cousin’s family in New Zealand, the plot thickens when she encounters Raj Chopra, the doppelganger of her deceased paramour. When he also becomes the target of hired killers, it turns out Rohit’s death was anything but accidental, and the duo make it their mission to unravel the truth at any cost.
With charismatic stars, an enticing concept, and plenty of bang for its buck, it’s easy to see why Kaho Naa… Pyaar Hai proved as popular as it did. On the other hand, it would have been impossible to predict ahead of its release that it would go down in the history books as a record-shattering triumph that necessitated more than one trophy cabinet to contain its haul.
