| Ek Hasina Thi | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Sriram Raghavan |
| Produced by | Ram Gopal Varma |
| Written by | Sriram Raghavan Pooja Ladha Surti |
| Starring | Urmila Matondkar Saif Ali Khan Seema Biswas |
| Music by | Amar Mohile |
| Cinematography | C.K. Muraleedharan |
| Editing by | Sanjib Datta |
| Distributed by | Bollywood |
| Release date(s) | 24 February 2004 |
| Running time | Approx 137 minutes |
| Country | India |
| Language | Hindi English |
Ek Hasina Thi (Devnagari: एक हसीना थी, English: There Was A Beautiful Woman) is a 2004 Indian psychological thriller film noir by Sriram Raghavan, produced by Ram Gopal Varma, and starring Urmila Matondkar and Saif Ali Khan in the lead roles. The screenplay was by Sriram Raghavan and Pooja Ladha Surti. The film got rave reviews and did exceptionally well at the box office. It's plot is loosely based on the Sidney Sheldon novel If Tomorrow Comes.
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Sarika Vartak(Urmila Matondkar), a simple travel agent meets a handsome businessman Karan Rathod(Saif Ali Khan). She starts falling for him. One day, Karan hands her a bag for safe keeping. Later police raid her apartment & the bag is found to have illegal firearms. Karan's advocate Kamlesh Mathur(Aditya Srivastav) tricks her into confessing that she was an accompolice. Sarika falls for the trap, but before she realizes it, the damage has been done. Under the tutelage of Pramila(Pratima Kazmi), an inmate, Sarika sets out to take revenge on Karan in a dangerous game.
Karan is a rich, suave businessman. But he can also be very possessive of Sarika. His temper can flare at slightest pretext. After Karan involves Sarika in looking after a suitcase full of illegal firearms belonging to his friend, a hitman, she is arrested for having links with the underworld and is remanded to judicial custody. Karan claims innocence to her, and sends her a defense attorney to fight her case. The attorney advises her to confess the crime, arguing that there is no proof exonerating her.
After being convinced that the judge will give her a light sentence & might even set her free for co-operation, Sarika complies. But, the judge sentences her to 7 years hard labour without parole. Sarika then realizes that Karan is actually an associate to the underworld and that he had her framed to keep police eyes away from himself. This realization, soon followed by the death of her father, and the ongoing ordeal of prison life and hatred towards Karan. She beats up an abusive inmate Gomati. An elder inmate Pramila(Pratima Kazmi), who has contacts outside the prison, decides to help her. She receives a complete change, she hacks off her long hair.
Sarika changes, both from inside & outside. ACP Malti Vaidya(Seema Biswas) sets out to find Sarika after the latter succeeds in escaping the prison. She first confronts Mathur, killing him after learning Karan's whereabouts. She is angered to see Karan enjoying his life with a new girl. With the news of Mathur's mysterious death, Karan becomes a suspect. Karan soon learns that Sarika has escaped, but is not able to put two and two together. Sarika learns that Karan is working for a businessman(Abhay Bhargava), who has many illegal operations going under his garb.
After she kills the businessman's brother, Karan gets trapped as he was the last man to see the person alive. Karan is shocked at the development, but chalks it to the work of rival gang. He believes that somebody is the mole for the gang. Meanwhile, Sarika pretends to run into him. She pretends to have sympathy for him. Seeing that she still has not seen through his game, Karan decides to play with her for some time. Karan soon confronts a man whom he suspects to be a traitor, but he believes that somebody else could have sneaked after Karan went out. Before the man can say anything else, Karan kills him too.
Sarika watches amusingly as Karan gets entangled in a cat & a mouse game. She steals money from Karan's boss, for which Karan is again made a patsy. However, Karan soon realizes the plot. After he confronts & assaults her, she shocks him by telling him that she has burnt the money. Karan takes her to his boss & makes her confess at gunpoint. But she feigns ignorance & claims that Karan made her say so. As Karan is attacked by his bosses goons, he breaks into a fight. Just then, the ACP enters the scene with the police.
In a shootout, the ACP succeeds in killing Karan's boss. The gang is either killed or apprehended. While the ACP herself gets shot, Karan succeeds in escaping. His success is short-lived: Sarika holds him at gunpoint and makes him drive to a secluded spot. After knocking him out, she chains him in a cavern infested with rats. As Karan regains consciousness, Sarika tells him how she used to be scared of rats. Karan is baffled at her talk, but she leaves him in the cavern, with light from a flashlight pointing towards him.
Karan screams, but nobody listens as he is in a secluded place. Soon the flashlight goes out & Karan loses strength. The rats attack him & kill him brutally(though this is shown only by dimming of lights & screams). Later Sarika is shown giving the bag of money, which she had not burnt after all to an injured ACP Vaidya. She states that she has exacted her revenge, hinting that the ACP knew of Sarika's plans. The film ends with Sarika's name being called, upon which Sarika comes out of the prison gates.
Along with other technical nominations, the film won the Best Screenplay and Best Editing at the Star Screen and Zee Cine award ceremonies, respectively. Matondkar received nominations for Best Actress, including Filmfare Awards, Star Screen Awards and Zee Cine. Khan received nominations for Best Villain at the Star Screen and Zee Cine Awards.
EK Hasina Thi opened well in multiplexes and become the no.1 movie of the week it was released in. But in the second week it slipped, facing tough competition from Khakee and other movies. By the time, the film could not sustain at the box office and started fading. Film Makers felt that the title of the movie 'Ek Hasina Thi' gave a wrong impression to viewers as they were expecting an out and out romantic venture. Nevetheless, Ek Hasina Thi did exceptionally well by bringing profits for the production company of Ramgopal Verma called 'Factory'.