Shathe Shathyang

Shathe Shathyang (Bengali pronunciation: [ʃɔʈe ʃaʈʰjɔŋ]) is a 1982 Indian Bengali-language action comedy film directed and cinematographed by Dinen Gupta. Produced by Mamata Das under the banner of Jyotirmoy Pictures, the film is based on Anjan Choudhury's serialised story of the same name,^[1] published for his edited weekly magazine Chumki.^[2][3] It stars Ranjit Mallick in dual roles as identical twin brothers, alongside an ensemble cast of Mahua Roy Chowdhury, Sumitra Mukherjee, Shekhar Chatterjee, Anup Kumar, Dilip Roy and Biplab Chatterjee in another pivotal roles.^[4]

Gupta bought the original script of Shathe Shathyang from Choudhury, later collaborating with his frequent screenwriting collaborator Shekhar Chatterjee to modify it. The film marks the fifth collaboration between Gupta and Mallick, and also pairs Mallick and Roy Chowdhury for the third time. Music of the film is composed by Dilip Ganguly, with lyrics penned by Pulak Bandyopadhyay, Shibdas Bandyopadhyay and Choudhury.

Shathe Shathyang was theatrically released on 12 March 1982, coinciding with Pohela Baishakh. Opening to positive reviews, the film became a box-office success and emerged as the highest-grossing Bengali film of 1982. The film's soundtrack album, also became a commercial success, with the song "Amar Moto Emon Chhele" topping the charts. It attained a cult status generally for marking Mallick's return to the action genre, after a long time.^[5][6]

Regarded for its groundbreaking theme, Shathe Shathyang has served as an inspiration for the Jackie Chan starrer 1992 film Twin Dragons, which in turn was remade in several languages, such as into Telugu as Hello Brother (1994), twice into Hindi as Judwaa (1997) and Judwaa 2 (2017), into Kannada as Cheluva (1997), and into Bangla as Bhaijaan Elo Re (2018).

• Ranjit Mallick as
  • Joy, a taxi driver
  • Bijoy, a lispy man^[7][8]
• Mahua Roy Chowdhury as Ritu Chatterjee, Joy's love interest
• Sumitra Mukherjee
• Shekhar Chatterjee as Arun, Joy and Bijoy's maternal uncle
• Anup Kumar as Bhajahari / Bhoju Da
• Dilip Roy as Joy's adoptive maternal uncle
• N. Viswanathan as Mr. Ganguly, Joy and Bijoy's father
• Smita Sinha as Mrs. Ganguly, Joy and Bijoy's mother
• Gita Dey
• Kajal Gupta as Basanti, Joy's adoptive mother
• Biplab Chatterjee

The soundtrack of the film is composed by Dilip Ganguly, with lyrics penned by Pulak Bandyopadhyay, Shibdas Bandyopadhyay and Choudhury himself.

The dual role theme of Shathe Shathyang inspired a 1992 Hong Kong remake titled Twin Dragons and starring Jackie Chan,^[9] which also spawned several Indian film remakes,^[10][11] starting with the Nagarjuna starrer Telugu film Hello Brother (1994). In turn, Hello Brother was remade into the popular Hindi film Judwaa (1997) starring Salman Khan, which in turn spawned a reboot Judwaa 2 (2017). Hello Brother was also remade as the Kannada film Cheluva (1997). In 2018, Shathe Shathyang was remade into Bangla as Bhaijaan Elo Re starring Shakib Khan, with some plot changes.^[12]