PK (film)

Plot

A nude humanoid alien lands on Earth on a research mission in Rajasthan, India, and is stranded when the remote control to summon his spaceship is stolen.

That very day, in Belgium, an Indian woman, Jagat "Jaggu" Janani Sahni, meets a Pakistani man, Sarfaraz Yousuf, and falls in love with him. Her father objects to their relationship, citing their different religions, and consults their family astrologer, godman Tapasvi Maharaj, who predicts Sarfaraz will betray Jaggu. Determined to prove them wrong, Jaggu asks Sarfaraz to marry her, only to be heartbroken after receiving an unsigned letter calling off their wedding and not to contact him.

Jaggu returns to India and becomes a journalist. She is intrigued after finding the alien distributing pamphlets about a "missing" God. She earns his trust by rescuing him when he attempts to take money from a temple's donation box as a "refund" for God's broken promises, and he opens up to her. He stole clothes and money from a couple having sex in a car and befriended a bandmaster, Bhairon Singh. He learned Bhojpuri at a brothel by holding hands and exchanging memories with a prostitute and started looking for the thief who stole his remote in Delhi, where he earned the name "PK" (drunk) as people thought he was intoxicated when getting confused with different religions. When told only God can help him, he began practising many Indian religions, including Hinduism, Sikhism, Christianity and Islam, attempting to find "God" to no avail. He found out Tapasvi had his remote but refused to return it, claiming it was a gift from God. Believing his story after a brief hesitation, Jaggu promises to help PK.

After Jaggu pranks an unknown caller in front of him, PK naively conjectures Tapasvi and his other godmen must be unintentionally dialing a "wrong number" to communicate with God, advising the public against engaging in meaningless rituals for their prayers. Intrigued, Jaggu encourages the public to expose fraudulent godmen by sending their videos to her news channel. Gradually, this "wrong number" campaign turns into a popular mass movement, much to the dismay of Tapasvi. Meanwhile, Bhairon finds the thief in Rajasthan and informs PK that he sold the remote to Tapasvi. PK realises Tapasvi was a fraud all along, intentionally misleading people. Bhairon and the thief are later killed in a terrorist attack.

Tapasvi confronts PK on air, asking him what the "right number" is. PK claims people should believe in the "real" God that created them instead of other fraudulent godmen and their "duplicate" God. Tapasvi claims he has a direct connection to "God", citing his prediction of Sarfaraz's betrayal to prove Muslims to be liars. Having absorbed Jaggu's memories earlier, PK claims he can disprove his prediction and reveals Sarfaraz had not written the letter to Jaggu, citing the presence of another bride as a possible recipient that day. Shocked, Jaggu contacts the Pakistani Embassy in Belgium, where Sarfaraz worked part-time, and learns Sarfaraz has been awaiting her call for a long time, proving he still loves her. It is revealed that Sarfaraz had found the same letter that day and, believing it to be from Jaggu, stopped contacting her. Jaggu and Sarfaraz tearfully reconnect while Jaggu's father realises Tapasvi's true colours, and forces him to return the remote to PK.

PK is able to return to his planet with his remote. When leaving, he takes two suitcases full of audio tapes, having filled them with recordings of Jaggu's voice. PK tells Jaggu that the recordings are of sounds from earth. However, Jaggu finds out that the tapes are actually of their conversations. She also finds the love note PK wrote for her earlier, realising his love for her, but reluctance to confess due to her feelings for Sarfaraz. She chooses not to confront PK directly and tearfully watches him walk towards his spaceship. After his departure, Jaggu publishes a book about PK, grateful for her experience with him. A year later, PK returns to Earth on a new research mission on human nature with more members of his species.

Cast

• Aamir Khan as PK; a humanoid alien
• Anushka Sharma as Jagat Janini "Jaggu" Sahni; a journalist and Sarfaraz's girlfriend and later his wife
• Sushant Singh Rajput as Sarfaraz Yousuf; Jaggu's boyfriend and later her husband
• Boman Irani as Cherry Bajwa; Jaggu's employer
• Saurabh Shukla as Tapasvi Maharaj; a self-proclaimed godman
• Sanjay Dutt as Bhairon “Bhaia” Singh; a bandmaster in Rajasthan and PK's friend
• Parikshit Sahni as Jayprakash Sahni; Jaggu's father
• Amardeep Jha as Mrs. Sahni; Jaggu's mother
• Ram Sethi as the Old Man in Belgium who tricked Sarfaraz and Jaggu
• Rajinder Sharma Nanu as the thief who stole PK's remote
• Sai Gundewar as the Ticket Seller of the Bachchan show in Belgium
• Rohitashv Gour as Mr. Pandey; a police constable
• Reema Debnath as Phuljhadiya; a prostitute
• Sachin Parikh as Tapasvi's manager
• Arun Bali as the Old Sikh man in a restaurant
• Kamlesh Gill as the Old Woman in a restaurant
• Michael Pekala as Bystander in the train station
• Rukhsaar Rehman as the Receptionist at Pakistani Embassy in Belgium
• Plabita Borthakur as Jaggu's younger sister
• Anil Mange as a Man dressed as Lord Shiva
• Brijendra Kala as an Idol seller at a Delhi Temple
• Alok Pandey as a Reporter
• Rajeev Gupta as a Police Inspector
• Monali Thakur as a Kashmiri girl
• Maanvi Gagroo as Meetu Singh; Jaggu's colleague
• Shaji Choudhary as Tapasvi's bodyguard
• Hetal Puniwala as Maternity Hospital Doctor
• Ranbir Kapoor in a cameo appearance as a fellow alien from PK's home planet

Production

Development

After the success of 3 Idiots, director Rajkumar Hirani and writer Abhijat Joshi started work for their next project. They had written a story about a character who had the ability to get into another person's mind to make that person a better human being. They spent one year to write a story, but it turned out to be similar to Inception (2010). After watching Inception, Hirani and Joshi were shocked by the similarities. Eventually, they decided to scrap the film, then Hirani and Joshi reworked on the script, changing the entire tone and angle. It took five years to make the film and three years to write it.

In PK, Khan played nine avatars (costume changes) and, during the course of the film, the actor had to chew over 10,000 betelnut preparations called paan. Betelnut is a psychoactive stimulant used throughout Asia and characterised by its ability to stain users' mouths red. "In real life paan is not a habit, I have it once in a while but for this film I chew paan for every scene. I would at times eat about 100 paans in a day. We had a paanwala [a paan maker] on the sets," said Khan in the report. For every take, Khan had to eat a fresh paan to fill his mouth. Before beginning the shoot, he would eat at least 10–15 paans to get the right color inside his mouth and on his lips.

Viral Thakkar was the visual effects supervisor. The visual effects company was Riva Digital at a point employing 100 artists working on the film.

Casting

In 2011, Aamir Khan and Anushka Sharma signed on for the film. Khan's nephew Imran Khan and Ranbir Kapoor were considered for a role which eventually went to Sushant Singh Rajput before the release of his debut movie Kai Po Che (2013). Earlier reports said that Rajkumar Hirani had signed Arshad Warsi for the film when it was reported that Arshad will be playing an important role. In 2013, Warsi said in an interview "I couldn't have worked out on dates. I wouldn't refuse Raju for anything. In fact, when he offered me the film, I did not even ask for the script, I was like I am ready to come on whenever you want. So that is the connection I share with Raju." Before Rajput and Warsi were signed on, R. Madhavan and Sharman Joshi were said to be cast in the film. Junaid Khan, son of Aamir Khan worked as an assistant director in this film.

Characters

• PK: The titular character was written to be a Chaplinesque, bumbling alien and meant to provide an outside view to the quirks and hypocrisies of the Indian society. To further accentuate the alien look, Khan developed a distinct appearance and mannerisms including wearing green contact lenses and not blinking while talking. Khan learned Bhojpuri for the role with the help of the language expert Shanti Bhushan. Rajkumar Hirani said in an interview, "When we write a script we usually visualize the characters in the film. How they look, talk and walk. But PK is one such character which was very difficult to visualize. We didn't have a reference point. PK was one such character, who didn't have a reference point. A character like him wasn't there in any book, nor did we meet someone like him in real life. We only knew that we wanted the character to be innocent and child-like. Now the question was, who is that actor who could look like a child. Someone who is perfect for the role of PK. The answer was obvious – Aamir Khan."
• Jagat "Jaggu" Janani: PK's friend and confidante, Jaggu is a television news reporter and is instrumental in spreading PK's message. She was envisioned as a fun-loving yet mature and independent woman. The producers wanted a distinct look for Jaggu and ended up trying several options over a few days before settling on one. Sharma said in an interview "Raju Sir wanted me to look happy, chirpy and peppy in PK. Keeping his brief in mind, the team came up with this look." She revealed that she was not required to cut her hair by remarking, "I have long hair, so hair stylists just wrapped my hair and tucked inside the wig".
• Bhairon Singh: Makers wanted somebody tall and sturdy for the role of Bhairon Singh and that's why Sanjay came in the picture. Vidhu Vinod Chopra shared, "The character Bhairon Singh is shown to be PK's good friend. The idea was that since PK is a tiny person, we wanted someone who in contrast is very huge. Such that, when Bhairon hugs PK, it looks funny as the tiny man would go completely unnoticed in Bhairon's arms."

Title

In 2011, in its initial scripting stage, Hirani named the film Talli, then changed it to Ek Tha Talli which he loved, but later on came to know that Ek Tha Tiger was already in production (released in 2012). He dropped the idea and, after many titles, he came up with a title that only had initials, PK. After starting the film, Hirani felt PK was not a good enough title. He decided to change the title to Talli. But after a few weeks of shooting, Hirani decided to go back to the original title.

Themes

Firstpost compared PK to Hirani and Khan's previous collaboration 3 Idiots, as they both involve "A socially awkward and 'different' young man—who walks and talks in a strange, enthusiastic childlike manner—observes the system, questions it, asks you to look at the many ludicrous things that inform it, and eventually brings about a minor revolution." In an interview, Rajkumar Hirani revealed that initially, the plot involved the alien protagonist falling in love with a girl early on, which led him to question religious divisions when he encountered her father’s prejudice. He used his powers to change the father's mindset. However, after watching Inception, Hirani realized the concept was too similar and scrapped the original second half. The filmmakers also decided against a storyline involving a case against God, as it closely resembled the play Kanji Viruddh Kanji, which was being adapted into a film (OMG Oh My God). Ultimately, PK focused on promoting communal harmony, with both films exploring similar themes but through different approaches.

Filming

According to Hirani, PK is a "satire on Hindu gods and their godmen". The co-director Khan began looking for shooting locations in July 2012. Second unit filming was set to begin in late 2012, which was stalled after the rumoured departure of three department heads for the film and bad weather stalling initial shoots. Hirani denied rumours that the film would be delayed, stating that principal filming had always been intended to begin in mid-January 2013 in Delhi and Rajasthan to "capture the winter of Delhi".

Shooting officially began on 1 February 2013, with the filming scheduled to occur over a 45-day period. A one-week schedule of shooting of PK was in June 2013 in Bruges, Belgium. A 26-day schedule of shooting of PK started in Delhi from 27 September 2013.

Marketing

The film was marketed by a Mumbai Based company named Spice PR owned by Prabhat Choudhary.

The makers released a teaser trailer on 23 October 2014. It achieved 3.4 million views on YouTube within five days, subsequently receiving 12 million views. It was regarded as the most viewed movie trailers on YouTube. The teaser was attached with the film Happy New Year (2014).

In August, the makers found a new promotional strategy to interact with the audiences by introducing talking standees. This was the first time a Bollywood film used a talking standee at varied locations as a part of its promotions. The standee had Khan talking to people in a prominent places in popular theatres and multiplexes.

On 7 December 2014, Khan began the city tour for promotions with Patna. The character he plays speaks in Bhojpuri which is the main language used for communication in Bihar. Aamir said at the event "I have decided to launch the promotional campaign of my film PK from Bihar to connect with the language. My character speaks Bhojpuri in the film." Hence, the actor decided to start his promotional schedule from Bihar. Although he wanted to visit Bhojpur, which is 60 kilometres from Bihar, he could not because of security issues. In Bihar he visited a litti chokha stall. The visit resulted in a surge of customers to the shop, and the shop owner put up pictures of Khan eating the local delicacy. Then the crew proceeded to Varanasi where they had a screening of their film 3 Idiots and interacted with the people. Khan made an impromptu visit to Krishana Paan shop to savour a Banarasi pan. The actor specially removed time from his schedule to visit this place. He enjoyed a "mitha banarasi paan" there. After the crew visited Delhi, Ahemdabad, Raipur, Jaipur, Hyderabad, Indore, Bangalore and other locations in India. Aamir and makers also promoted the film in Dubai.

''PK: The Game''

Indiagames, a part of Disney India's Interactive business, announced the launch of the official mobile game 'PK' based on the film. On 14 December 2014, Aamir Khan, Anushka Sharma, Rajkumar Hirani, Vidhu Vinod Chopra, Siddharth Roy Kapur, managing director of Disney India and Sameer Ganapathy, VP and head, Interactive of Disney India launched the game at the Reliance Digital Store in Juhu amidst much fanfare. The game was developed for both feature phones and smartphones. It was launched on Google Play, iOS App Store and Windows platform. In the game, the player gets to don many avatars of Aamir Khan as seen in the movie, along with a special avatar of Anushka Sharma, as he embarks upon an exciting endless running adventure. Set against an Indian background, the gamer runs amidst the by-lanes of Delhi, railway tracks in a desert (as seen in the movie), and collect a maximum number of paans (as PK is seen enjoying eating paan in the movie). The gamer has to avoid a number of obstacles on the way, which include cows, buses, Delhi trains, rickshaws, traffic jams, and more. The backdrops in the game give the player the feel of the movie.

Release

PK was earlier scheduled to release on 6 June 2014. The director (who is also editor of the film), Rajkumar Hirani, wanted to spend more time editing. Besides, some portions with Sanjay Dutt were yet to be shot. Also, the second season of Satyamev Jayate was to kick off from March. So Aamir Khan was not sure if he would be able to promote PK in June. Hence the makers settled for a December release.

PK was released on 19 December 2014, as the 200th Bollywood release in 2014. The release was later expanded to 6000 screens worldwide, which included 5200 screens in India and 844 screens overseas.

PK was initially released in 4844 screens worldwide. PK has been made tax-free in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. PK is the widest Indian movie released in the UK (198 screens), Pakistan (over 70 screens), Australia (35 screens) and outside of India (844 screens in over 40 overseas markets). PK was released theatrically in China on 22 May 2015 across 4,600 screens. It had a dubbed Mandarin Chinese version, with Wang Baoqiang voicing Khan's role. The film was released in South Korea and Hong Kong on 3 September 2015, and in Japan on 29 October 2016.

Distribution

The music rights were sold for . DNA reported, "Being the first film to use Rentrak, Khan has taken the first initiative to bring in a paradigm shift from the usual norms followed in Bollywood. He had clearly enforced the idea of Rentrak to be brought in to bring more accuracy when it comes to box office figures."

Soundtrack

Main article: PK (soundtrack)

The soundtrack is composed by Shantanu Moitra, Ajay–Atul and Ankit Tiwari with lyrics written by Swanand Kirkire, Amitabh Varma and Manoj Muntashir. The song "Tharki Chokro" is the first single, released on 24 October 2014. The video focuses on Aamir Khan and Sanjay Dutt, with the song sung by Swaroop Khan and composed by Ajay–Atul with lyrics penned by Swanand Kirkire. The second single, "Love Is a Waste of Time", which pictured Aamir Khan and Anushka Sharma, was released on 31 October 2014 on YouTube. The song is sung by Sonu Nigam and Shreya Ghoshal, composed by Shantanu Moitra with the lyrics of Amitabh Varma. "Chaar Kadam" was released on 2 November 2014 on the T-Series YouTube. The song is sung by Shaan and Shreya Ghoshal, composed by Shantanu Moitra with lyrics by Swanand Kirkire. The full soundtrack was released on 5 November 2014.

Reception

Srijana Mitra Das of The Times of India gave the movie 4 stars out of 5. Rajeev Masand of CNN-IBN gave 3.5 stars quoting "It's a courageous film that sticks to Hirani's well-oiled formula". NDTV gave 5 stars calling it "PK is a winner all the way, a film that Raj Kapoor, Bimal Roy and Guru Dutt would have been proud of had they been alive. Hirani is without a doubt their most worthy standard-bearer." Bollywood Hungama described it as "a solid entertainer that will surely entertain the masses and classes alike" and gave 4.5 out of 5 stars. Raja Sen of Rediff.com gave PK 4 out of 5 stars and called it "a triumph" and argued that Khan "soars high". However, Sukanya Verma of the same publication called the film "a mixed bag of spunk and sentimentality", while still giving it 3.5 out of 5 stars. Rohit Vats of Hindustan Times gave 4 out of 5 stars and said "Khan steals the show with his performance". Rohit Khilnani of India Today gave 4.5 stars, and said "Go watch the film & watch it ASAP!" Edmund Lee of South China Morning Post gave PK 3.5 stars. In Japan, Yuri Wakabayashi of Eiga gave the film a positive review in 2016.

In 2019, Film Companion ranked Khan's performance among the 100 best in Indian film for the past decade.

Box office

PK had its box office figures tracked by Rentrak, a United States–based company that specialises in audience measurements. PK became the first Bollywood film to earn net from online bookings. PK grossed 183.09crore (US$28.955 million) worldwide in its first week. It became the highest-grossing Indian film, in both domestic as well as international markets. The film's final worldwide gross was 753.36 crore (US$million). It was the 71st highest-grossing film of 2014. PK was the first Indian film to gross more than 7 billion and US$100 million worldwide.

Domestic

PK earned net on its opening day. It showed growth on its second day, earning around net. On its third day, the film brought in net, bringing its weekend take to net.

PK had the highest collections for a Hindi film on its first Monday, earning around net. Over the next two days it grossed and net respectively, taking its total to . On Christmas Day the film earned net, taking its first week total to net.

On its second Friday, PK brought in around net. The film kept growing in its second weekend, earning on Saturday and on Sunday, taking the weekend total to net. It earned on its second Monday, on Tuesday and on Wednesday. With this, the film took its total to around net and became the highest-grossing film in India in just 13 days. The film set a record second week figure of , taking its total to net. PK made an all-time record in the Mumbai circuit by grossing there more than net.

The film netted around in its third weekend, reaching net in seventeen days. PK went on to net in India and grossed overseas for a worldwide gross of in three weeks. The film earned a final domestic gross of , including a domestic net of .

International

The film opened in 22 international markets during its opening weekend (19–21 December) and grossed $28.7 million, placing it at No. 3 at the worldwide box office behind The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies and Gone with the Bullets. In North America, it set an opening weekend record for an Indian film collecting $3.75 million and placing at No. 10 at the box office. PK is the first Indian film to gross US$10 million in North America (US and Canada). The international gross was US$47.99 million (304.52 crore)—at the time, the highest-grossing Bollywood film of all time in international markets. In Pakistan, PK grossed as of 10 January 2015.

East Asia

PK had a second phase of overseas release in East Asia, most prominently in China. It became an instant hit, grossing US$5.14–5.3 million in first three days of release due to good word-of-mouth—a record for an Indian film (previously held by Dhoom 3), debuting at second place at the Chinese box office behind Avengers: Age of Ultron. PK became the highest-grossing Indian film in China in just 72 hours and grossed US$19.5 million (Rs 1.22 billion) in China. It became the first Indian film to pass the 100 million yuan ($16.11 million) threshold, which is considered rare for a non-Hollywood foreign film.

The film grossed ¥119million (US$20million) in China. In addition, it grossed US$0.3million in South Korea, US$870,000 in Hong Kong, and US$289,000 in Taiwan. PK was also a hit in Japan when it was released there in 2016, particularly in Tokyo; in Shinjuku, for example, it was the year's second highest-earning film at Cinema Qualite.

Records

Awards and nominations

Sequel

Director Hirani has confirmed that a sequel will be made starring Khan and Ranbir Kapoor. He said, "We will make the sequel. We had shown Ranbir [Kapoor's character landing on the planet] towards the end of the film, so there is a story to tell. But Abhijat Joshi (the writer of the film) has not written it yet. The day he writes it, we will make it."

Controversies

When the shoot was going on in Chandni Chowk area of Delhi, an FIR was lodged against the makers of the film for allegedly hurting religious sentiments in October 2013. The objection was regarding a scene where a man dressed as the Hindu deity Shiva, pulls the rickshaw with two burqa clad women as passengers.

In July 2014, the film's poster sparked a controversy as it featured Aamir Khan posing almost nude with only a radio cassette recorder covering his genitals. Although the Central Board of Film Certification had cleared the film, a PIL was filed in the court by the All India Human Rights and Social Justice Front to ban its release saying it promoted nudity and vulgarity. The Supreme Court of India dismissed the plea and gave the film a green signal. A case was lodged against Aamir Khan and Rajkumar Hirani under section 295A in Rajasthan.

Activists of pro-Hindu organisations Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal protested against certain scenes in the film, which they considered to be hurtful to the religious sentiments of the Hindu community as it showed Aamir Khan running behind Shiva. Subsequently, some theatres were vandalised by those activists, who demanded a ban on the movie and a Public Interest Litigation was filed against PK for the same. Amish Tripathi of Hindustan Times and Madhu Kishwar of Firstpost took issue with the film for mocking idolatry.

Swaroopanand Saraswati in January 2015 raised questions with the Censor Board about the film, demanding that the CBI investigate how the film received its certification from the Censor Board despite several members of the Board requesting that the film be reviewed again, but with no action taken.

The Sunni clerics of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board demanded the removal of some scenes of the movie which they believed were hurting religious sentiments.

Government officials, such as the Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav and the then–chief minister of Bihar Jitan Ram Manjhi, exempted the film from entertainment tax to encourage wider viewership.

References

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