Munna Bhai M.B.B.S.
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Munna Bhai M.B.B.S. (translation: Munna Bro M.B.B.S.) is a 2003 Indian Hindi-language comedy-drama film written and directed by Rajkumar Hirani (in his directorial debut) and produced by Vidhu Vinod Chopra. The film was the first installment of the Munna Bhai film series before its sequel Lage Raho Munna Bhai (2006). Released in India on 19 December 2003, the film features Sunil Dutt in his final film role as the father to his real-life son, Sanjay Dutt, who stars as the titular character of Munna Bhai. The cast also includes Gracy Singh, Jimmy Sheirgill, Arshad Warsi, Rohini Hattangadi, and Boman Irani.
Based in Mumbai, the film follows Munna Bhai (Sanjay Dutt), a goon who tries to please his father (Sunil Dutt) by pretending to be a physician. When a doctor, Asthana (Irani), exposes Munna's lies and tarnishes his father's honor, Munna enrolls in a medical college. Hijinks ensue when Munna, upon finding that Asthana is the college's dean, vows revenge, while also sparking a romance with a house doctor, Suman (Singh), unaware that she is Asthana's daughter.
Munna Bhai M.B.B.S. was a major critical and commercial success and was later followed by a second film Lage Raho Munna Bhai (2006), thus becoming the first installment of the Munna Bhai film series. The film went on to win the 2004 National Film Award for Best Popular Film, and several Filmfare awards, including Best Film (Critics) and Best Screenplay. At the box office, it achieved a silver jubilee status (25-week run) being one of only eight Hindi films to have achieved this status since the year 2000. In its 26th week of release, the film could still be found playing on 300 screens throughout India. The film's release was also accompanied by a mobile video game based on the film by Indiagames.
Hirani revealed in an interview in September 2019 that production on the third Munna Bhai film starring Dutt in the title role will begin in towards the end of 2020.
Production
In an interview, Hirani discussed how the idea for the film emerged from his interaction with some friends who were medical students. Later, he also had the opportunity to interact with a lot of medical professionals when some members of his family became sick. These experiences gave birth to the idea for the film.
During the scripting stage, Hirani wanted Anil Kapoor to play the lead role. However, Shah Rukh Khan was later cast as Munna along with Sanjay Dutt as Zaheer but due to his back problems, Khan was forced to turn down the film. Nevertheless, the end credits of the film thank Khan for his input into the script. Hirani also narrated the script to Aishwarya Rai during the time he was in talks with Shahrukh Khan. Khan and Rai were working together on Devdas at the time. Vivek Oberoi was considered for the role, but in the end, Sanjay Dutt took the role as Munna, which ultimately gave him an image makeover and helped change the public perception of the controversial superstar; his real-life father Sunil Dutt returned to the silver screen after 10 years to play Munna's father. This is the first and only film in which real-life father and son Sunil and Sanjay appear together, although they both appeared in Reshma Aur Shera (1971), Rocky (1981), and Kshatriya (1993) but not in any scenes together.
The original choice for Circuit's role was Makarand Deshpande. Arshad Warsi took over the role which proved to be a turning point for his career. The scenes of the Medical College were shot at the Agriculture College of Pune and Grant Medical College Mumbai.
The film has a similar premise to the 1998 American film Patch Adams, starring Robin Williams. The producer Vidhu Vinod Chopra, however, denies there being a resemblance, and says that he had not watched the film before the release of Munna Bhai.
Hirani did not have a big budget to shoot the film. As a result, he had to change the way certain scenes were shot. For example, the film ends with stills of Munna Bhai's wedding. Hirani was told that setting up a wedding stage and making a wedding outfit for Gracie Singh would cost him several thousand rupees. To save on some of that money, Hirani arranged to have the stills shot on an actual wedding stage set up for a real wedding near the sets. The production team reached an agreement with the wedding hall management and used their stage after the wedding ended.
Remakes
The film was remade in Tamil as Vasool Raja MBBS (2004), in Telugu as Shankar Dada M.B.B.S. (2004), in Kannada as Uppi Dada M.B.B.S. (2007), and in Sinhala as Dr. Nawariyan (2017).
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