Armaan Kohli, son of veteran filmmaker Rajkumar Kohli, made his acting debut in the early 1990s, but could never prove his worth as a leading star. He faced a string of flops throughout the decade, including three films helmed by his father — Virodhi (1992), Aulad Ke Dushman (1993), and Qahar (1997). In order to break out of this spell of box office failures, Rajkumar decided to relaunch Armaan in a film with which he went back to what got him success in the first place — multi-starrers and the supernatural.
Rajkumar Kohli got his directorial breakthrough two-and-a-half decades before that with his 1976 horror film Naagin. Emerging as the highest grossing Hindi film of that year, it boasted of an ensemble A-list cast, including Reena Roy, Sunil Dutt, Feroz Khan, Jeetendra, Sanjay Khan, Rekha, Mumtaz, Kabir Bedi, Vinod Mehra, Anil Dhawan, Yogeeta Bali, and Aruna Irani, among others.
He followed that up with another multi-starrer blockbuster supernatural film, Jaani Dushman, in 1979. That film also boasted of a galaxy of film stars — Sunil Dutt, Sanjeev Kumar, Jeetendra, Shatrughan Sinha, Vinod Mehra, Rekha, Reena Roy, Neetu Singh, Yogeeta Bali, Bindiya Goswami, Sarika, and Aruna Roy, among others.
Even his 1984 blockbuster Raaj Tilak, though not a supernatural movie, also had a star-studded cast, including Sunil Dutt, Raaj Kumar, Dharmendra, Hema Malini, Reena Roy, Kamal Haasan, Raj Kiran, Yogeeta Bali, Ranjeeta Kaur, and Sarika, among others. So, it was only organic that he rounded up another star-studded ensemble for Armaan Kohli’s next film as a lead actor, also titled Jaani Dushman, but suffixed with Ek Anokhi Kahaani.
Akshay Kumar in Jaani Dushman.
The star cast also included Sunny Deol, Akshay Kumar, Manisha Koirala, Suniel Shetty, Aditya Pancholi, Arshad Warsi, Sonu Nigam, Aftab Shivdasani, Rambha, Rajat Bedi, and Raj Babbar, among others. “Not even two or three such big stars work together. I’ve convinced and assembled 10 big stars,” Rajkumar Kohli told Lehren Retro before the film went on floors in the early 2000s.
On the cast being compared to the ensemble of Rajkumar Santoshi’s 1998 action film China Gate — which starred Amrish Puri, Paresh Rawal, Om Puri, Naseeruddin Shah, Danny Denzongpa, Ila Arun, Anupam Kher, Girish Karnad, Samir Soni, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, Tinu Anand, Mamta Kulkarni, Viju Khote, and Jagdeep, Rajkumar said, “I’ve assembled heroes. There’ll be these actors too. They’ll be over and above the 10 heroes. On an Indian screen, who else has taken 10 heroes together?”
He also gave all the actors the credit for agreeing to be a part of the film. “I don’t want to take the credit for that. I should give the credit to the artistes because they favoured me. They’re so thrilled about the subject of my film that they want to support and show that such big films also get made in India,” said Rajkumar Kohli. “It’s the script’s demand, not mine. That’s why I took so many stars,” he added.
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“How did that happen in Naagin and Jaani Dushman? All these heroes are working in this film because they must be satisfied with the film, right? It’s not like a bigger hero would get more scenes. All of that depends on the film’s story,” argued Rajkumar, hailing the film’s pioneering special effects as the hero of Jaani Dushman: Ek Anokhi Kahaani.
Jaani Dushman stars Arshad Warsi, Sonu Nigam, Armaan Kohli, Suniel Shetty and Akshay Kumar. (Photo: Express Archive)
Special effects of Jaani Dushman
“In this film, special effects is the most important factor. So much special effects haven’t been seen on Indian screens before,” claimed Rajkumar Kohli. “I don’t know how many crores I’ll spend on the VFX, but it’ll definitely be above Rs 4 crore to Rs 5 crore,” he added. The filmmaker recalled facing encountering an even more uphill climb while devising the special effects of his 1979 hit Jaani Dushman.
“I faced a lot of difficulties with the special effects because we didn’t even have the equipment back then. I went to London and then Japan for a special effect for Jaani Dushman, but didn’t get it anywhere. Then our technician gave us a wonderful effect. Today, there’s so much out there that you can create any effect you can imagine,” argued the filmmaker.
While he claimed that the 2002 Jaani Dushman was inspired by his previous hits, he believed it had the potential to surpass them because of its modern appeal. “It’s inspired from my own successful films like Naagin and Jaani Dushman. I’ve finally found a subject that I feel is very superior to those films. Today’s generation wants a different presentation. My film’s presentation is totally new. It’s a modern film, where all these young stars are playing college students. That’s the atmosphere in this film,” said Rajkumar.
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“Today, our competition is from foreign films. Some of our Indian films appear on the top 10 of worldwide hits. I feel this film would even rank higher than that,” claimed the filmmaker. He added that the scale of Jaani Dushman: Ek Anokhi Kahaani isn’t determined by only the special effects, but also the production design. “I have 58 sets in this film. There’s work of just one day on 27 of these sets. It’s a very complicated film,” he said.
Sonu Nigam acted in the movie Jaani Dushman alongside Sunny Deol and Akshay Kumar.
Relaunching Armaan Kohli
Rajkumar Kohli said that he had faith in his son Armaan Kohli to hold his own in front of A-list action stars like Sunny Deol, Akshay Kumar, and Suniel Shetty. “If he has the ability to get suppressed, he’d get suppressed. But if he has the capacity to outshine them… that’s what I want to show to the public. They’ll decide how much capacity he has. He has tough competition,” said the filmmaker.
“He has a key role in the film. I have faith that he’d do good work otherwise I wouldn’t have cast him. Because to hold his own in front of such personalities, I need to have confidence in him. Luck hasn’t favoured him yet, but maybe it would happen now,” he added. Even the name of Armaan Kohli was changed to Munish Kohli in the film’s credits. “You can consider it superstition or fate. Since he couldn’t work earlier, maybe it’s God’s way of telling me to change his name as per his horoscope,” reasoned the father.
“All the distributors have always earned through my films. So, they’re confident about this film too. I have more confidence in this film than I’ve had in any so far because I feel it’d surpass all my films,” he added. However, as fate would have it, Jaani Dushman not only tanked at the box office, but also is considered a poorly aged film today. It received unanimous negative reviews even back then, and qualifies as a “so bad it’s good” movie.
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Rajkumar Kohli consequently retired as a filmmaker, with Jaani Dushman: Ek Anokhi Kahaani serving as his final directorial. Armaan Kohli’s acting career also lost momentum, as he went on to appear only in supporting roles in JP Dutta’s 2003 war drama LOC: Kargil and Sooraj Barjatya’s 2015 family drama Prem Ratan Dhan Payo. He also participated in Salman Khan-hosted reality show Bigg Boss 7 and finished in the sixth place.