Shah Rukh Khan’s Jawan is off to a great start at the box office.
But as the film trends on social media, netizens have noted a marked similarity with another film’s storyline. They pointed out that the plot of the Atlee directorial is quite similar to that of the 1989 Tamil release Thaai Naadu (Motherland).
Someone claimed on X that Atlee copied the plotline of Thaai Naadu, which starred Sathyaraj in a double role – just like Shah Rukh’s father and son characters in Jawan.
Another netizen uploaded the poster of the 1989 film directed by R. Aravindraj and wrote: “Jawaan original, Tamil version – 1989.”
Others claimed on X that Jawan is a copy of the Tamil film Arrambam, which starred Ajith Kumar.
While there were netizens accusing Atlee of repeatedly copying Tamil films, there were others who expressed their disappointment with Jawan, saying it was a mix of many Southern films and lacked originality.
In 2019, Atlee’s film Bigil was mired in controversy when Telugu short-filmmaker Nandi Chinni Reddy accused Atlee of plagiarising the essence of his film Slum Soccer.
Atlee’s 2017 film Mersal starring Thalapathy Vijay and Samantha Ruth Prabhu was also accused of copying the story of Rajinikanth’s Moondru Mugam.
Atlee was again accused of copying Vijaykanth’s film Chatriyan during the release of his 2016 film Theri.
Today, netizens are flooding social media platforms with films that Jawan could have sourced its story from, complete with side-by-side images for comparison.
A netizen even drew a metaphor from the plagiarism claims: “It’s old wine in a new bottle and the ageing of wine matters. I guess the audience likes anything that is a cocktail as long as the bartender is good at mixing it.”
Shah Rukh and Atlee have not commented on the issue.
The Bollywood superstar wrote on X: “Thank you for all the love and appreciation for #Jawan!! Stay safe and happy… Please keep sending in the pics and videos of all of you enjoying at the movies…. And I will be back soon to see all of them! Until then… Party with Jawan in the theatres! Lots of love and gratitude!”
Indo-Asian News Service
