Dulhe Raja

Dulhe Raja (transl. Groom king) is a 1998 Indian Hindi-language romantic comedy film starring Govinda, Raveena Tandon, Kader Khan, Johnny Lever, Prem Chopra and Asrani.

K. K. Singhania, a business tycoon, buys an expensive five-star hotel "Maharaja International" from P. K. Diwani. Later on, Singhania finds that a dhaba inside the hotel complex run by a petty guy Raja acts as a hitch to the earnings of the hotel. Singhania uses multiple ploys to dislodge Raja's dhaba but is outwitted every time.

Singhania's daughter Kiran is in love with a man named Rahul. Rahul is financially aided by a confederate, Bishambar Nath. However, Singhania knows that Rahul is a rogue whose pursuit is to lure young women and later abandon them after exploiting their wealth. He warns Kiran not to marry Rahul. He says that Kiran is allowed to marry any man, be he a destitute or Singhania's enemy, without his refusal, except Rahul.

At the same time, Raja develops a fascination for Kiran. Raja, who is already a thorn in Singhania's side, proclaims his love for Kiran before Singhania. He persistently begs Singhania for Kiran's hand in marriage only to be refused by Singhania. Kiran finds out that Singhania considers Raja his biggest enemy. She starts a mendacious love affair with Raja, gaining the latter's affection.

Kiran's plan succeeds when Singhania objects to Raja. Raja thwarts Singhania at every juncture. Singhania decides to marry his daughter to the son of his friend and plans to announce their engagement at her birthday party. However, Raja gatecrashes the party and foils Singhania's plan.

At the party, Kiran declares to Raja that this was all a pretense for her to marry Rahul. Raja warns her of Rahul's true intentions and sides with Singhania. Singhania overhears this conversation and announces that he would marry his daughter to him. Kiran departs for Rahul's home, and Rahul finds it a great opportunity to acquire Singhania's entire wealth as his daughter is now in his custody. He assaults Kiran, confines her in his home and demands Singhania by phone, of his entire wealth and property as a pay-off for his daughter's life.

Raja learns about Rahul's vicious plan and decides to rescue Kiran. He conspires with Singhania to dupe Bishambar of his wealth. He arrives at Rahul's house and hoodwinks him and his accomplices into becoming hostile with one another. Delighted at attaining Singhania's entire assets, Bishambar signs the papers without reading them but later finds that they are not the property papers as he expected, but his confession of kidnapping Kiran and threatening her life. His men snatch away his possessions when police arrive and arrest Rahul, Bishambar and their associates.

Songs of the film were scored by Anand–Milind who presented some remarkably striking numbers for the album. The frisky "Suno Sasurjee Ab Zidd Chhodo" became significantly popular, followed by "Ankhiyon Se Goli Maare", picturised on Govinda and Raveena Tandon, which is pretty identical to the perky romantic songs sought-after at that period, like "Ole Ole" (Yeh Dillagi) and "Husn Hai Suhaana" (Coolie No. 1). In the few years that followed 1998, the film was relayed on some Indian TV channels on which a snippet of the song "Ankhiyon Se Goli Maare" was shown as a trailer of the film. Other songs of the film are pleasant to the ears, but the aforesaid two went on to become the most popular songs of the album. Mention may be made that an instrumental version of the song "Ankhiyon Se Goli Maare" synchronizes the credit display at the beginning of the film.^[2] The lyrics were created by Sameer.

A song from the movie - "Ankhiyon Se Goli Maare", would later become the inspiration for a film of the same name by director Harmesh Maholtra.

One song from the movie, "Kahan Raja Bhoj, Kahan Gangu Teli", provoked protests from a Nagpur-based organisation, the Vidarbha Teli Samaj Mahasangh, on the grounds that it offended the members of their community; they wrote a letter of protest to then-Chief Minister Manohar Joshi, condemning the approval given by the state government to the song and calling for it to be banned.^[3]

It was the seventh highest grossing film of the year. The movie was remade in Kannada as Shukradeshe in 2001.

• Dulhe Raja at IMDb