Just because a movie borrows concepts from another movie, that doesn't make it a rip-off. Ghajini simply borrows concepts from Memento to tell its own story, and there's nothing wrong with that. Besides, the similarities between Ghajini and Memento are rather superficial. The underlying narrative is different in both movies. If anything, Ghajini was more inspired by the 1994 Indian film "Criminal" rather than Memento. If you take out the short-term memory loss, you'll see that Ghajini has far more in common with "Criminal", which had a similar tale of a man wanting revenge for his wife's murder at the hands of organ traffickers, with the help of another woman.
As for Memento's director Christopher Nolan, he is himself guilty of doing the exact same thing: his recent Hollywood blockbuster "Inception" was heavily inspired by a Japanese anime film "Paprika". Hollywood has been imitating Far-Eastern cinema for decades, so it's no better than Bollywood in that regard. In addition, Christopher Nolan didn't write the stories for the other three films (Memento, Batman Begins, Dark Knight) either, but they are all adaptations or remakes.
"WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK I AM???!!!!!"
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Prince_Adam
13 years ago
Well said Jag.
To Op: Watch some masala movies first before making such accusations. Start with Ghayal, Jeet, Bandhan, Jaan and Phool Aur Kaante. They will change the way you look at Hindi cinema.
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CowboySpikeS
12 years ago
@Jag85
Well, 'Criminal' itself was 'inspired' from another hollywood movie, 'Fugitive'.
Most Ghajini supporters (and even, Aamir and the film-maker) argues that only common thing with Memento is Short Term Memory Loss (STML, i m sure there's technical name for that, but I preffer STML). Well, it's just not that they copied; it's pretty much the entire main plot line. A person loses his wife and memory at hands of a criminal and suffers from STML as a result it, yet he is determined to take revenge so he walks around with a Polaroid camera and tattoos all details on his body to track-down the murderer. So, It;s not "the similarities" but the differences that are superficial (of course, Memento goes beyond the revenge, it could very well be Ghajini-part 2 - the reality).
And personally, I dont mind taking inspiration from other movies (hollywood does that all the times), but please dont deny it. give them the credits they deserve. that's it.
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