Amitabh Bachchan & Mukul S. Anand Movies Together List — 4 Films

The shape of the work

The 1990s account for 75% of everything they made together. The 1980s belonged to Kanoon Kya Karega; the 1990s to Agneepath. Amitabh Bachchan acted in every film; Mukul S. Anand directed all of them. Strictly Hindi cinema — they never crossed industries together.

Partnership facts

• Mukul S. Anand was a relatively unknown director when he cast Amitabh Bachchan in Agneepath (1990). Bachchan was at a low point in his career after a near-fatal accident on the sets of Coolie (1983). Anand bet everything on this film, and Bachchan bet on him. The result was a dark, violent epic that revived Bachchan's stardom.
• Anand pushed Bachchan to play against his own image. In Agneepath, Bachchan's Vijay Deenanath Chauhan was not the usual angry young man — he was a cold, vengeful gangster with no comic relief. Anand deliberately stripped away Bachchan's trademark charm, forcing him to act with just his eyes and silence. Bachchan later said Anand made him 'unlearn' everything.
• Their second film together, Hum (1991), directly inspired the 1994 Tamil blockbuster 'Muthu' starring Rajinikanth. The plot of a loyal servant who is actually the rightful heir was lifted almost beat-for-beat. Tamil audiences still quote the 'Hum' song 'Jumma Chumma De De' as the original template for Rajinikanth's massy dance numbers.
• On the sets of Khuda Gawah (1992), Anand and Bachchan developed a ritual: every morning before the first shot, they would sit together for 10 minutes in complete silence. Bachchan later revealed it was Anand's way of 'clearing the noise' before filming the intense, emotionally draining scenes set in Afghanistan.
• Bachchan once said about Anand: 'He was the only director who could make me cry on set without a single line of dialogue. He would just look at me, and I would break.' This was in a 1993 interview with Filmfare, shortly after Anand's sudden death from a heart attack at age 41.