Pratikaar

Pratikaar
Directed by	Prabhat Roy
Written by	Prabhat Roy
Screenplay by	Prabhat Roy
Produced by	Pranab Basu
Starring	Victor Banerjee Chiranjeet Chakraborty Debashree Roy Madhabi Chakraborty Utpal Dutta Satabdi Roy Shakuntala Barua Biplab Chatterjee Sukhen Das Chhaya Devi Nimu Bhowmik
Cinematography	Krishna Chakraborty
Edited by	Pranab Ghosh Rabin Sen
Music by	Bappi Lahiri
Production company	Chandima Films
Distributed by	Chandima Films
Release date	17 April 1987
Country	India
Language	Bengali

Pratikaar (English: Prevention) is a 1987 Indian Bengali-language vigilante action film written and directed by Prabhat Roy. Produced by Pranab Basu under the banner of Chandima Films, the film stars Victor Banerjee, Chiranjeet Chakraborty and Debashree Roy in lead roles, while Utpal Dutta, Madhabi Mukherjee, Satabdi Roy, Shakuntala Barua, Sukhen Das, Biplab Chatterjee, Chhaya Devi and Nimu Bhowmik play supporting roles. The screenplay and dialogues were also written by Prabhat Roy himself. The soundtrack album and background score was composed by Bappi Lahiri, with the lyrics penned by Gauriprasanna Mazumder. It plots the story of an intelligent student Shankar, who becomes vigilante after the violent murder of his mother and brutal rape of his sister, by the local goons who kidnaps women and sell them outsides. When he starts avenging, DSP Rajib Chowdhury who is childhood friend of Shankar, comes on the board to investigate the murder mysteries done by Shankar.

Pratikaar marks the 2nd collaboration between Prabhat Roy and Victor Banerjee and the 1st collaboration between Roy and Chiranjeet Chakraborty. It was an all time blockbuster at the box office and ran more than 42 weeks in theatres. It received a number of positive reviews from critics, with appreciation for it's screenplay and direction, performances by the whole casting, stylized action sequences and the massy portrayal of the protagonist in the film. This film created a new image of Victor Banerjee, that of an action hero which became favourable among the masses. In the pre-interval scene, the murder and rape scene was portrayed violently in a Bengali film, for the first time, so the film got A certificate from the Censor Board

In the year 1988, Pratikaar was remade in Telugu and Tamil as Raktha Tilakam starring Venkatesh and Thaimel Aanai starring Arjun Sarja respectively and later it was remade in 1991 under the same title featuring Anil Kapoor as the protagonist.

Cast

• Victor Banerjee as Shankar Banerjee / Awbotaar Bhai
• Chiranjeet Chakraborty as DSP Rajib Chowdhury
• Debashree Roy as Shikha
• Madhabi Chakraborty as Madhuri Banerjee, Shankar's mother
• Satabdi Roy as Sandhya Banerjee, Shankar's sister
• Shakuntala Barua as Rajib's wife
• Utpal Dutt as Abinash Sen
• Biplab Chatterjee as Ratan Ghosh, Abinash's henchman
• Sukhen Das as Rahim Bhai, owner of a garage
• Chhaya Devi as Burima
• Nimu Bhowmik as Bhuban, Abinash's manager
• Tarun Mitra as Inspector Dinanath Das
• Masud Patel as goon

Production

In 1977 during the shooting of Ananda Ashram, Prabhat Roy narrated the script of Protidan and Pratikaar to Uttam Kumar. Kumar, who helped Roy to learn how screenplay and dialogues are written during Amanush's pre-production in 1974, highly appreciated him for the brilliant story idea. Then Kumar suggested him to cast Mithun Chakaraborty to play the protagonist, as the character needed a proper body physique for the action sequences. After making his debut in 1983 through Protidan, Roy narrated the script of Pratikaar to Chakraborty, but he had to turn down the film as he was busy in Mumbai and it was difficult for him to shoot a film seperately in Kolkata. Then Roy took a risk by casting Victor Banerjee in the role, with whom he had worked in his previous film Protidan. Banerjee, who was playing villainous roles in mainstream Bengali films and art house dramas at that point of time, took a proper training for the characteristics and action sequences. After the release of the film, both mass and class audiences praised Banerjee's performance in this field and audience as well as fans started calling him as 'Vigilante Star' and considered him to be the next action hero, after Uttam Kumar, Ranjit Mallick and Mithun Chakraborty.

Soundtrack

All lyrics are written by Gauriprasanna Mazumder; all music is composed by Bappi Lahiri

Track listing

No.	Title	Lyrics	Music	Singer	Length
1.	"Ek Je Chhilo Duorani"	Gauriprasanna Mazumder	Bappi Lahiri	Asha Bhosle	3:59
2.	"Dol Dol Dol Baaja Shobai Khol"	Gauriprasanna Mazumder	Bappi Lahiri	Chandrani Mukherjee Abhijit Bhattacharya Muhammad Aziz	6:13
3.	"Ghumer Chhaya Ghoniye Ashe"	Gauriparasanna Mazumder	Bappi Lahiri	Asha Bhosle	1:12
4.	"Jibon Ta Taar Raajpath Noy"	Gauriprasanna Mazumder	Bappi Lahiri	Bappi Lahiri	4:40
5.	"Bhenge Dilo Niyoti"	Gouriprasanna Mazumder	Bappi Lahiri	Bappi Lahiri	1:29
6.	"Shonamoni Chhara"	Gouriparasanna Mazumder	Bappi Lahiri	Asha Bhosle	2:05
7.	"Ek Je Chhilo Duorani (Male Version)"	Gouriprasanna Mazumder	Bappi Lahiri	Bappi Lahiri	4:06
Total length:					23:45

Remakes

Pratikaar was remade several times in other languages. It was first remade in 1988 into Telugu as Raktha Tilakam starring Venkatesh, and the same year into Tamil as Thaimel Aanai starring Arjun Sarja. Later into Hindi, it was remade under the same title in 1991 featuring Anil Kapoor and finally it was remade into Kannada as Simhada Mari in 1997, which had Shiva Rajkumar in the lead.