| PK | |
| Director: | Rajkumar Hirani |
| Producer: |
|
| Starring: | |
| Narrator: | Anushka Sharma |
| Music: | Songs: Guest Composers: Background Score:
|
| Cinematography: | C. K. Muraleedharan |
| Editing: | Rajkumar Hirani |
| Studio: | |
| Distributor: | UTV Motion Pictures |
| Runtime: | 152 minutes[2] |
| Country: | India |
| Language: | Hindi |
| Budget: | ₹122 crore[3] |
| Gross: | ₹769.89 crore[4] |
PK (translation: Drunk[5]) is a 2014 Indian Hindi-language science fiction comedy-drama film edited and directed by Rajkumar Hirani and written by Hirani and Abhijat Joshi and jointly produced by Hirani and Vidhu Vinod Chopra under the production banners of Rajkumar Hirani Films and Vinod Chopra Films, respectively. A religious satire, the film stars an ensemble cast of Aamir Khan, Anushka Sharma, Sushant Singh Rajput, Boman Irani, Saurabh Shukla and Sanjay Dutt.
After the success of 3 Idiots (2009), Hirani and Joshi began scripting their next project; finding similarities with the plot of Inception (2010), they scrapped the film. It was later rewritten with a different angle and tone. During production, the film was initially titled Talli and later Ek Tha Talli before being changed to PK as the latter title was found to be too similar to Ek Tha Tiger (2012). The film's soundtrack was composed by Shantanu Moitra, Ajay–Atul and Ankit Tiwari with lyrics written by Swanand Kirkire, Amitabh Varma and Manoj Muntashir. UTV Motion Pictures acquired the distribution rights of the film. PK was the first Bollywood film to be shot in Belgium.[6]
PK was released on 19 December 2014. Upon release, it received positive reviews, with praise directed towards Khan's performance and the film's humour. The film received 8 nominations at the 60th Filmfare Awards, including Best Actor for Khan, Best Film, and Best Director for Hirani, winning two. Additionally, it won five Producers Guild Film Awards, and two Screen Awards. PK garnered the Telstra People's Choice Award at the Indian Film Festival of Melbourne. Produced on a budget of 1.22 billion, PK was the first Indian film to gross more than 7 billion and US$100 million worldwide. At the time of its release, it emerged as the highest-grossing Indian film of all time. The film's final worldwide gross was 769.89 crore (US$118.92 million).[4] It currently stands as the tenth highest grossing Indian film worldwide and seventh highest-grossing Hindi film of all-time.
A nude humanoid alien lands on Earth on a research mission in Rajasthan, India, and is stranded when the remote control to summon his spaceship is stolen. In Belgium, an Indian woman, Jagat "Jaggu" Janani Sahni, meets a Pakistani man, Sarfaraz Yousuf, and falls in love with him. Her father objects to their relationship, citing their different religions, and consults their family Astrologer, Tapasvi Maharaj, who predicts Sarfaraz will betray Jaggu. Determined to prove them wrong, Jaggu asks Sarfaraz to marry her, only to be heartbroken after receiving an unsigned letter calling off their wedding.
Jaggu returns to India and becomes a journalist. She is intrigued after finding the alien distributing pamphlets about a "missing" God. She earns his trust by rescuing him when he attempts to take money from a temple's donation box as a "refund" for God's broken promises, and he opens up to her. He stole clothes and money from a couple having sex in a car and befriended a bandmaster, Bhairon Singh. He learned Bhojpuri at a brothel by holding hands and exchanging memories with a prostitute and started looking for the thief who stole his remote in Delhi, where he earned the name "PK" (drunk) as people thought he was intoxicated. When told only God can help him, he began practising many Indian religions, including Hinduism, Sikhism, Christianity and Islam, attempting to find "God" to no avail. He found out Tapasvi had his remote but refused to return it, claiming it was a gift from God. Believing his story after a brief hesitation, Jaggu promises to help PK.
After Jaggu pranks an unknown caller in front of him, PK naively conjectures Tapasvi and his other godmen must be unintentionally dialling a "wrong number" to communicate with God, advising the public against engaging in meaningless rituals for their prayers. Intrigued, Jaggu encourages the public to expose fraudulent godmen by sending their videos to her news channel. Gradually, this "wrong number" campaign turns into a popular mass movement, much to the dismay of Tapasvi.Meanwhile, Bhairon finds the thief in Rajasthan and informs PK that he sold the remote to Tapasvi. PK realises Tapasvi was a fraud all along, intentionally misleading people. Bhairon and the thief are killed in a terrorist attack.
Tapasvi confronts PK on air, asking him what the "right number" is. PK claims people should believe in the "real" God that created them instead of other fraudulent godmen and their "duplicate" God. Tapasvi claims he has a direct connection to "God", citing his prediction of Sarfaraz's betrayal to prove Muslims to be liars. Having absorbed Jaggu's memories earlier, PK claims he can disprove his prediction and reveals Sarfaraz had not written the letter to Jaggu, citing the presence of another bride as a possible recipient that day. Shocked, Jaggu contacts the Pakistani Embassy in Belgium, where Sarfaraz worked part-time, and learns Sarfaraz has been awaiting her call for a long time, proving he still loves her. It is revealed that Sarfaraz had found the same letter that day and, believing it to be from Jaggu, stopped contacting her. Jaggu and Sarfaraz tearfully reconnect while Jaggu’s father realises Tapasvi’s true colours, forcing him to return the remote to PK.
PK is able to return to his planet with his remote. When leaving, he takes two suitcases full of audio tapes, having filled them with recordings of Jaggu's voice. Jaggu listens to the tapes in his absence and finds the love note he wrote for her earlier, realising he had fallen in love with her but chose not to confess due to her feelings for Sarfaraz. She chooses not to confront PK directly and tearfully watches him walk towards his spaceship. After his departure, Jaggu publishes a book about PK, grateful for her experience with him. A year later, PK returns to Earth on a new research mission on human nature with more members of his species.
After the success of 3 Idiots, director Rajkumar Hirani and writer Abhijat Joshi started work for their next project.[7] They had written a story about a character who had the ability to get into another person's mind to make that person a better human being. They spent one year to write a story, but it turned out to be similar to Inception (2010). After watching Inception, Hirani and Joshi were shocked by the similarities. Eventually, they decided to scrap the film, then Hirani and Joshi reworked on the script, changing the entire tone and angle. It took five years to make the film and three years to write it.[8]
In PK, Khan played nine avatars (costume changes)[9] and, during the course of the film, the actor had to chew over 10,000 betelnut preparations called paan. Betelnut is a psychoactive stimulant used throughout Asia and characterised by its ability to stain users' mouths red.[10] "In real life paan is not a habit, I have it once in a while but for this film I chew paan for every scene. I would at times eat about 100 paans in a day. We had a paanwala [a ''paan'' maker] on the sets," said Khan in the report. For every take, Khan had to eat a fresh paan to fill his mouth. Before beginning the shoot, he would eat at least 10–15 paans to get the right color inside his mouth and on his lips.[11]
Viral Thakkar was the visual effects supervisor. The visual effects company was Riva Digital at a point employing 100 artists working on the film.[12]
In 2011, Aamir Khan and Anushka Sharma signed on for the film.[13] Khan's nephew Imran Khan and Ranbir Kapoor were considered for a role which eventually went to Sushant Singh Rajput before the release of his debut movie Kai Po Che (2013).[14] Earlier reports said that Rajkumar Hirani had signed Arshad Warsi for the film when it was reported[15] that Arshad will be playing an important role. In 2013, Warsi said in an interview "I couldn't have worked out on dates. I wouldn't refuse Raju for anything. In fact, when he offered me the film, I did not even ask for the script, I was like I am ready to come on whenever you want. So that is the connection I share with Raju."[16] Before Rajput and Warsi were signed on, R. Madhavan and Sharman Joshi were said to be cast in the film.[17] [18] Junaid Khan, son of Aamir Khan worked as an assistant director in this film.[19]
In 2011, in its initial scripting stage, Hirani named the film Talli, then changed it to Ek Tha Talli which he loved, but later on came to know that Ek Tha Tiger was already in production (released in 2012). He dropped the idea and, after many titles, he came up with a title that only had initials, PK. After starting the film, Hirani felt PK was not a good enough title. He decided to change the title to Talli. But after a few weeks of shooting, Hirani decided to go back to the original title.[24]
Firstpost compared PK to Hirani and Khan's previous collaboration 3 Idiots, as they both involve "A socially awkward and 'different' young man—who walks and talks in a strange, enthusiastic childlike manner—observes the system, questions it, asks you to look at the many ludicrous things that inform it, and eventually brings about a minor revolution."[25]
According to Hirani, PK is a "satire on Hindu gods and their godmen". The co-director Khan began looking for shooting locations in July 2012.[26] Second unit filming was set to begin in late 2012,[27] which was stalled after the rumoured departure of three department heads for the film and bad weather stalling initial shoots.[28] [29] Hirani denied rumours that the film would be delayed, stating that principal filming had always been intended to begin in mid-January 2013 in Delhi and Rajasthan to "capture the winter of Delhi".[30] [31]
Shooting officially began on 1 February 2013,[32] with the filming scheduled to occur over a 45-day period.[33] A one-week schedule of shooting of PK was in June 2013 in Bruges, Belgium.[34] A 26-day schedule of shooting of PK started in Delhi from 27 September 2013.[35] [36] [37]
The film was marketed by a Mumbai Based company named Spice PR owned by Prabhat Choudhary.[38]
The makers released a teaser trailer on 23 October 2014.[39] It achieved 3.4 million views on YouTube within five days,[40] subsequently receiving 12 million views. It was regarded as the most viewed movie trailers on YouTube.[41] The teaser was attached with the film Happy New Year (2014).[42]
In August, the makers found a new promotional strategy to interact with the audiences by introducing talking standees. This was the first time a Bollywood film used a talking standee at varied locations as a part of its promotions. The standee had Khan talking to people in a prominent places in popular theatres and multiplexes.[43]
On 7 December 2014, Khan began the city tour for promotions with Patna. The character he plays speaks in Bhojpuri which is the main language used for communication in Bihar. Aamir said at the event "I have decided to launch the promotional campaign of my film PK from Bihar to connect with the language. My character speaks Bhojpuri in the film." Hence, the actor decided to start his promotional schedule from Bihar. Although he wanted to visit Bhojpur, which is 60 kilometres from Bihar, he could not because of security issues. In Bihar he visited a litti chokha stall. The visit resulted in a surge of customers to the shop, and the shop owner put up pictures of Khan eating the local delicacy.[44] Then the crew proceeded to Varanasi where they had a screening of their film 3 Idiots and interacted with the people. Khan made an impromptu visit to Krishana Paan shop to savour a Banarasi pan. The actor specially removed time from his schedule to visit this place. He enjoyed a "mitha banarasi paan" there. After the crew visited Delhi, Ahemdabad, Raipur, Jaipur, Hyderabad, Indore, Bangalore and other locations in India.[45] Aamir and makers also promoted the film in Dubai.[46]
Indiagames, a part of Disney India's Interactive business, announced the launch of the official mobile game 'PK' based on the film. On 14 December 2014, Aamir Khan, Anushka Sharma, Rajkumar Hirani, Vidhu Vinod Chopra, Siddharth Roy Kapur, managing director of Disney India and Sameer Ganapathy, VP and head, Interactive of Disney India launched the game at the Reliance Digital Store in Juhu amidst much fanfare.[47] The game was developed for both feature phones and smartphones. It was launched on Google Play, iOS App Store and Windows platform. In the game, the player gets to don many avatars of Aamir Khan as seen in the movie, along with a special avatar of Anushka Sharma, as he embarks upon an exciting endless running adventure. Set against an Indian background, the gamer runs amidst the by-lanes of Delhi, railway tracks in a desert (as seen in the movie), and collect a maximum number of paans (as PK is seen enjoying eating paan in the movie). The gamer has to avoid a number of obstacles on the way, which include cows, buses, Delhi trains, rickshaws, traffic jams, and more. The backdrops in the game give the player the feel of the movie.[48]
PK was earlier scheduled to release on 6 June 2014.[49] The director (who is also editor of the film), Rajkumar Hirani, wanted to spend more time editing. Besides, some portions with Sanjay Dutt were yet to be shot. Also, the second season of Satyamev Jayate was to kick off from March. So Aamir Khan was not sure if he would be able to promote PK in June. Hence the makers settled for a December release.[50] [51]
PK was released on 19 December 2014, as the 200th Bollywood release in 2014.[52] [53] The release was later expanded to 6000 screens worldwide, which included 5200 screens in India[54] and 844 screens overseas.[55]
PK was initially released in 4844 screens worldwide.[56] [57] [58] [59] PK has been made tax-free in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.[60] [61] [62] PK is the widest Indian movie released in the UK (198 screens), Pakistan (over 70 screens), Australia (35 screens) and outside of India (844 screens in over 40 overseas markets).[63] PK was released theatrically in China on 22 May 2015 across 4,600 screens.[64] It had a dubbed Mandarin Chinese version, with Wang Baoqiang voicing Khan's role.[65] The film was released in South Korea and Hong Kong on 3 September 2015,[66] [67] and in Japan on 29 October 2016.[68]
Koimoi reported rumours of a deal in which the satellite rights were sold for to Sony Entertainment Television if the domestic business reached 3 billion net.[69] [70] The music rights were sold for .[71] DNA reported, "Being the first film to use Rentrak, Khan has taken the first initiative to bring in a paradigm shift from the usual norms followed in Bollywood. He had clearly enforced the idea of Rentrak to be brought in to bring more accuracy when it comes to box office figures."[72]
See main article: PK (soundtrack). The soundtrack is composed by Shantanu Moitra, Ajay–Atul and Ankit Tiwari with lyrics written by Swanand Kirkire, Amitabh Varma and Manoj Muntashir. The song "Tharki Chokro" is the first single, released on 24 October 2014.[73] The video focuses on Aamir Khan and Sanjay Dutt,[74] with the song sung by Swaroop Khan and composed by Ajay–Atul with lyrics penned by Swanand Kirkire.[75] The second single, "Love Is a Waste of Time", which pictured Aamir Khan and Anushka Sharma, was released on 31 October 2014 on YouTube.[76] [77] The song is sung by Sonu Nigam and Shreya Ghoshal, composed by Shantanu Moitra with the lyrics of Amitabh Varma.[78] "Chaar Kadam" was released on 2 November 2014 on the T-Series YouTube.[79] The song is sung by Shaan and Shreya Ghoshal, composed by Shantanu Moitra with lyrics by Swanand Kirkire. The full soundtrack was released on 5 November 2014.[80]
Srijana Mitra Das of The Times of India gave the movie 4 stars out of 5.[81] Rajeev Masand of CNN-IBN gave 3.5 stars quoting "It's a courageous film that sticks to Hirani's well-oiled formula".[82] NDTV gave 5 stars calling it "PK is a winner all the way, a film that Raj Kapoor, Bimal Roy and Guru Dutt would have been proud of had they been alive. Hirani is without a doubt their most worthy standard-bearer."[83] Bollywood Hungama described it as "a solid entertainer that will surely entertain the masses and classes alike" and gave 4.5 out of 5 stars.[84] Raja Sen of Rediff.com gave PK 4 out of 5 stars and called it "a triumph" and argued that Khan "soars high".[85] However, Sukanya Verma of the same publication called the film "a mixed bag of spunk and sentimentality", while still giving it 3.5 out of 5 stars.[86]