Shot Our Film First: Ayushmann on Bala, Ujda Chaman Similarities

Both ‘Bala’ and ‘Ujda Chaman’ are stories about premature balding.

Ayushmann Khurrana says he is not worried with the plot similarities between his film Bala and Ujda Chaman, both stories of men dealing with premature balding. Directed by Amar Kaushik, Bala stars Ayushmann as a young bald man while Ujda Chaman, a remake of the 2017 Kannada movie Ondu Motteya Kathe, features Sonu Ke Titu Ki Sweety star Sunny Singh in a similar role.

“There’s just one line which is similar otherwise it’s a different film. I’ve seen the South film, after we completed the shoot. Once you see the film you’ll realize (the difference).”

Ayushmann Khurrana, Actor

Ujda Chaman director Abhishek Pathak called out Bala producers Maddock Film, alleging that he had spotted several similarities in scenes and dialogues when comparing both trailers. He said that the content of Bala looked similar to both Ujda Chaman and the Kannada film Ondu Motteya Kathe, to which only he had the official rights to remake. In an interview with Mumbai Mirror, he called this a copyright violation and said that he has been considering taking legal action. The production house issued a statement saying, “Maddock stands firmly by the originality of its film, and will back its project all the way including through legal recourse if need be.”

In June, writer Kamal Kant Chandra had filed a police complaint, accusing Ayushmann, director Amar Kaushik and producer Dinesh Vijan for starting the shoot of Bala despite his objections over the script of the film. Kamal has accused the makers of plagiarising his script, and said that he had “narrated the film to Ayushmann in 2017”.

Aysuhmann, however, said that out of all the scripts on the story, he went with the best team. He clarified,

“I got the same idea by six different people. I’ll just go with the person who is more credible. There was a film called ‘Hair is Falling’ in 2011 and there were a lot of films which were made on receding hairline but just that they weren’t successful. It’s my decision to go with the best director, best producer and choose the best script on the subject. As simple as that.”

Ayushmann Khurrana

After several tussles over dates, Ujda Chaman will release on 1 November and Bala on 7 November. When asked whether he is bothered that both the films are releasing almost back-to-back, Ayushmann said, “It happened with Bhagat Singh also. I'm really confident about our film, it's a beautiful film and one of the best scripts I've ever read. Anybody can come up with the same idea.”

He added, “Bala isn't about just receding hair or baldness. It's about loving and discovering yourself more than anything else. We shot our film first, announced our film first. The idea is to have the side more prominent which says that you shouldn't be bothered about it. That's also the message of our film," he added.

(With inputs from PTI)