10 Villains of Hindi Cinema

In perfect tandem with the ‘black and white’ cinematography our cinematic characters too were either ‘white’ or ‘black’. Rarely did we have a character that was a mix of both. It took a long time for the antihero to find his place in our cinema. Till Sunil Dutt did Mujhe Jeene Do and later Amitabh take it whole hog, the antihero had a miniscule presence, far less than the villain. The villain therefore had a huge role and let’s takes a look at the ten top villains of our cinema.

1. Kanhaiyalal: Made his debut as an actor in 1938 and may well be the senior most of the villains. He epitomised the face of the cruel feudal money lender like none other and etched for himself a place of permanence with his portrayal of the lecherous money lender in Mother India.

2. Pran (1920): When Jaya Bahaduri advices Dharmendra not to accept a gift from Pran as he is a ‘bad guy’ in Guddi it symbolised how the image worked to perfection. His recent Dadasaheb Phalke Award tells it all. It is rumoured that so strong did he play the villain that no person was willing to name his son Pran. No one who has even a nodding acquaintance with the Hindi cinema could ignore the contributions of this villain.

3. Ajit (1922-1998): Born in Warangal, this guy was known to playing the suave villain and had great hits like Zanjeer and Yaadon Ki Barat to his career. Not that he could not play the typical villager (Naya Daur). Directors went to him whenever the script required the “cigar wielding Boss” and Ajit delivered. Years after he left, his Mona jokes still make the rounds.

4. Amrish Puri (1932-2005): Mugambo Kush Hua with this list. An extremely talented actor who did character roles punched with emotions and even light hearted one but was best known for his villainous acts on screen. With a towering personality and a voice to match he was seen in films in seven Indian languages not to mention the antagonist to Steven Spielberg’s Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

5. Prem Chopra (1935): Though he made his debut inn 1960 was noticed in films a couple of years later like Who Kaun Thi, Mera Saaya etc. The young villain was known for always angling for the heroine and planning moves to have the hero away. He even danced and sang in films as a villain and grew so much in stature that his brother in law Raj Kapoor acknowledged this with a role in Bobby where he would declare that evil was Prem, Prem Chopra.

6. Amjad Khan (1940-1992): Son of veteran actor Jayant he came late and left early. Death snatched this actor at the young age of 52 by which time he left behind a huge filography marked by some very sensitive and fine acting. Gabbar Singh has become cult. Shared screen space with many great heroes but very specially with Big B films including Ram Balram, Khoon Pasina, Muqadar Ka Sikander and Yaarana.

7. Danny Denzoppa (1948): A product of the FTII this actor took the seventies by a storm. With many of contemporaries from the Institute making it big, this actor from the very beginning stole the show by choosing to play baddie. Gulzar got a fresh role for him in Mere Apne. He was the deadly villain in Agneepath, Khuda Gawah, Hum, Ghatak etc. He was the cool cucumber variety who rarely went overboard and was the original choice for Gabbar Singh. Watch him in Dhund.

8. Sadashiv Amrapurkar (1950): He came to Hindi cinema after building a good repute on Marathi stage as actor with great talent. Won the Filmfare Award for the best negative role (Sadal) the year the award was instituted and since, went on to scare the good and the nice. He made his entry with a bang in Nihlani’s Arth Satya a role talked about till date.

9. Paresh Rawal (1950): An actor who defies being put in a pigeon whole. Give him any role and you can trust him to deliver. As a villain he was top class. Sir and Raja saw him win the best villain award but his numerous films with characters in the negative shade makes him a compulsory entrant to this list. Among his noteworthy early films are Naam, Dacait, Kabza, Damini etc.

10. Shakti Kapoor (1958): Perhaps better remembered for his comic presence alongside Govinda, but spare a thought for this talented baddie who did the ‘over the top’ villainy required in scripts of south Indian remakes. He jelled well and delivered. He is also a good comedy actor but it was as a villain that he made his mark. The bad guy is grossers like Qurbani, Naseeb karma is now more often seen in roles other than the bad, bad badie.

Actors like Vinod Khanna and Anupam Kher are not taken into the list for purposes of logistics as they like others have played villain only in the passing and not their main stay in cinema.

L. Ravichander