Harikrishnans was the first Indian movie to try multiple climaxes. Throughout the movie we see Hari (Mammooty) and Krishnan (Mohanlal) try to woo Meera (Juhi Chawla), and this led to quite a light moments in what would have otherwise been a serious murder mystery.
But when the movie ends and the villain is apprehended, we are left with one lingering questions – “Who will Meera choose as a partner?” When faced with the question, the makers of Harikrishanan took, what seems to me like, the best way out. The movie had multiple endings!
When the movie was released, it has two endings – one where Meera chose Hari, and another one where she chose Krishnan. In northern parts of Kerala, where there was a strong Mammootty fanbase, the movie ended with Hari getting chosen. And in the rest of Kerala, Meera ended up choosing Krishnan.
The director Fazil was criticised for playing fan politics and hence, the climax where Krishnan gets to be Meera’s husband was chosen.
But there’s another twist to the tale.
According to media reports prior to the release of the movie, Fazil had approached Shahrukh Khan to make a cameo in the movie. It was reported that Fazil narrated the script to King Khan and that Shahrukh agreed to his request. He even appeared in promo stills.
Shahrukh was supposed to turn up at the end of the movie as Meera’s love interest and whisk her away. This would have made it King Khan’s first appearance in Mollywood and also ensured that the movie didn’t offend Mohanlal and Mammootty fans. But the makers decided against it for undisclosed reasons.
We feel it was a good decision as Meera never talks of the character earlier in the movie, and him just appearing out of nowhere to do a DDLJ at the end wouldn’t have made for a great ending. And we’re thankful that the makers decided to come up with an out-of-the-box solution to solve the ‘problem’ and so Harikrishnans ended up being the first Indian movie to have multiple endings.
Do you think that having multiple endings was a good idea? Or would you rather have seen SRK make his Mollywood debut? We would love to know. Let us know in the comments section.
