Overview
Damini is a 1993 Indian Hindi-language crime drama film directed and co-written by Rajkumar Santoshi. It stars Meenakshi Seshadri in the title role with Sunny Deol, Rishi Kapoor and Amrish Puri. Aamir Khan makes a special appearance. The story revolves around Damini who witnesses her housemaid being raped by her brother-in-law and his friends. Despite facing many obstacles, she strives to get justice for her with the help of her husband and Govind, a lawyer. The film is considered to be one of the best woman-centric films ever made in Bollywood.
Besides being critically acclaimed, the film also became the sixth highest grossing of the year and was declared a "hit" at Box Office India. Damini – Lightning marked Meenakshi Seshadri's career best performance that was highly acclaimed.
It is considered a cult feminist film and is still regarded as an all-time classic female oriented film and important for portraying women empowerment in cinema The pathbreaking film was praised for breaking social taboos and handling the subject of rape with sensitivity; a rarity in Bollywood at the time.
The movie is highly memorable for Sunny Deol's portrayal of an alcoholic lawyer and the role gained him a Filmfare as well as National Film Award for Best Supporting Actor for 1993. It strengthened his Bollywood he-man image. His dialogues in the film "Tarikh Pe Tarikh" ("date after date") and "Dhai Kilo ka Haath" ('Two-and-a-half kilogram hand') became iconic and a pop-culture reference. The film was a milestone in the careers of Sunny Deol, Meenakshi Sheshadri and Amrish Puri, who gave some great hits like Ghayal (1990) and Ghatak: Lethal (1996) together. Aamir Khan acted in a special appearance in the stage show dance song. He also promotes his upcoming film Andaz Apna Apna (1994) which was also directed by Rajkumar Santoshi.
From Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).