# Kuch Kuch Hota Hai

Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (‹See RfD› transl. Something happens) is a 1998 Indian Hindi-language romantic comedy drama film written and directed by Karan Johar and produced by his father Yash Johar under Dharma Productions. It stars Shah Rukh Khan, Kajol, Rani Mukherji, Salman Khan and Sana Saeed. The plot combines two love triangles set years apart. The first half covers friends on a college campus, while the second tells the story of a widower's young daughter who tries to reunite her dad with his old best friend.
Filmed in India, Mauritius, and Scotland, Kuch Kuch Hota Hai was Karan Johar's directorial debut. One of his goals for the film was to set a new level for style in Hindi cinema. The music was composed by Jatin–Lalit, which was the biggest seller of the year.
Kuch Kuch Hota Hai was released worldwide on 16 October 1998, coinciding with the Diwali weekend. The film received positive reviews from critics upon release, with high praise for its setting, direction, screenplay, soundtrack, cinematography, cast performances and overall presentation. It was successful in India and abroad, becoming the highest-grossing Indian film of the year and the third highest-grossing Indian film at that time. Outside India, the film was the highest-grossing Hindi film ever until its record was broken by Karan Johar's next directorial, Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham... (2001).
Kuch Kuch Hota Hai won various accolades, including the National Film Award for Best Popular Film Providing Wholesome Entertainment and Best Film at the Filmfare Awards, Screen Awards, Zee Cine Awards and Bollywood Movie Awards. The film garnered 8 Filmfare Awards and was the only film to win all four acting awards (Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, and Best Supporting Actress) until Gully Boy (2019).

## Plot

Rahul Khanna and Anjali Sharma are best friends in their college. Unknown to him, Anjali is secretly in love with him. When Tina Malhotra, the attractive daughter of the college principal, enrolls in the college, Rahul is immediately smitten. Anjali is heartbroken and returns to her hometown to be with her family, leaving Rahul for a long time. Rahul and Tina become a couple and eventually get married.
Tina is pregnant with Rahul's daughter but has complications that lead to her bleeding internally. Knowing she will not survive, she writes letters for her newborn daughter, for her to read as she grows up. Tina passes away, and Rahul names his daughter Anjali Khanna. Eight years later, when Anjali Khanna grows up, she reads in Tina's letter that Rahul knew another Anjali from college, who Tina believes is Rahul's soulmate and she had realized that Anjali loved Rahul. Anjali Khanna sets about reuniting the two to fulfil her mother's final wish, as stated in her letter.
Anjali Sharma, now a traditional feminine woman, is engaged to Aman Mehra, but leaves for a month before her wedding, to conduct a dance workshop in Shimla. Anjali Khanna enrolls in the same camp, being supported by her grandmother, and Rahul ends up meeting Anjali Sharma when he shows up to see his daughter. Having not spoken in years, the two are formal around each other, but soon bond together when Anjali Khanna tries to stage a drama between the two. Rahul realizes he is falling in love with Anjali this time but does not reveal it after he finds out she is engaged. Anjali returns home for her wedding with Aman Mehra, midway through the dance camp.
On the day of the wedding, Rahul and Anjali Khanna arrive at the Sharma house for the ceremonies. Anjali Khanna goes missing (she is going to Aman to talk him out of marrying Anjali Sharma), and Rahul goes in search of her. He ends up coming across Anjali Sharma and tells her he loves her. During the ceremony, Anjali cannot bring herself to continue with the rituals. Aman realizes what is happening and calls off the wedding. Having heard from Anjali Khanna that Rahul was his fiancé's first love, he advises Anjali to marry Rahul instead. Finally, Anjali and Rahul get married in the same ceremony, with Aman and Rahul's family in attendance, and Anjali Khanna is thrilled that she fulfilled her mother's final wish.

## Cast

* Shah Rukh Khan as Rahul Khanna
* Kajol as Anjali Sharma
* Rani Mukerji as Tina Malhotra Khanna
* Salman Khan as Aman Mehra (credited as special appearance)
* Sana Saeed as Anjali Khanna (Jr. Anjali)
* Farida Jalal as Mrs. Khanna, Rahul's mother
* Anupam Kher as Mr. Malhotra, College Principal and Tina's father
* Reema Lagoo as Mrs. Sharma, Anjali's mother
* Archana Puran Singh as Ms. Braganza
* Himani Shivpuri as Rifat Bi
* Johnny Lever as Colonel Joshua Almeida
* Parzan Dastur as Jasdeep Singh
* Neelam Kothari as Neelam (special appearance)
* Nikkhil Advani in Neelam's talk show segment (special appearance)
* Manish Malhotra as a college student sitting on the steps of college when Anjali Sharma wears feminine clothing (special appearance)
* Farah Khan in Neelam's talk show and sitting on the steps of college when Anjali wears feminine clothing (special appearance)
* Geeta Kapoor in the song "Tujhe Yaad Na Meri Aayee" (special appearance)

## Production
### Story

After the experience of assisting and acting in Aditya Chopra's directorial debut, the musical romantic drama Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (1995), Karan Johar was encouraged to try his own hand at directing. With Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, he chose to pair up the same lead actors, Shah Rukh Khan and Kajol, for his own romance film. During the filming of Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, Khan had also encouraged Johar to make his own film, and said that he would be willing to star in it. They were signed by producer and his father Yash Johar in early 1997. Yash Johar officially announced the film in October 1997 at Mehboob Studios in Bandra.
Johar first wrote a story, which was a love triangle between a tomboy, a very pretty girl, and a slightly insensitive boy, but he shelved the idea because he was not very satisfied with it. Then he wrote another plot about a widower and his child, which he shelved as well. Eventually, he decided to merge the two stories into one. He explained in an interview with Rediff.com: "It was about the trauma of a widower and his little child. How the child really wants a mother and how she brings her mother into her father's life. Then I thought: Why not bring a youth aspect to the story? Why not a flashback? That's how the story got made." The story also includes a "personal desires vs. parental loyalties" theme and has some "East meets West" themes, but instead of the characters going abroad, it creates a virtual West inside India.
As he states in his 2017 autobiographical book An Unsuitable Boy, Johar wanted Khan to have a role he never did before, thus decided to go for that of a father, getting inspiration from the 1995 British romantic comedy Jack and Sarah, about a man who loses his wife whe she delivers a baby that he initially doesn't want but then builds a bond with the child, before falling in love with another woman.

### Development

Karan Johar was certain from the beginning that he wanted to cast Shah Rukh Khan and Kajol in the lead roles, having observed them during the making of Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge. It took longer to fill the role of Tina. The role was written with Twinkle Khanna in mind, but she turned it down. Other actresses such as Urmila Matondkar, Tabu, Shilpa Shetty, Aishwarya Rai, Raveena Tandon and Karisma Kapoor were offered the role but also turned it down. Aditya Chopra and Shah Rukh Khan noticed Rani Mukherji's acting in Raja Ki Aayegi Baraat (1996), and suggested her to Karan Johar. He thus signed her, giving a boost to her career. Saif Ali Khan and Chandrachur Singh were initially offered the role of Aman, but they both turned it down, thus prompting Johar to rope in Salman Khan.
Johar, who is also a costume designer, wanted to set a new level for style in Hindi cinema with this film. He and his friend Manish Malhotra, the film's costume designer, made trips to London for costumes, much to the chagrin of his father and producer Yash Johar, who was concerned about the budget. Many of the costumes in the film prominently displayed logos from designers such as DKNY and Polo. In addition to the designer fashions, Johar also created a somewhat fantastical world where the students speak Hinglish and enjoy a pristine college campus, where there is no crime or hate, and traditional Hindu values are pervasive. Johar admitted that the look and feel of the college scenes in the film were patterned after Beverly Hills 90210, saying, "The art, the costumes, tilt toward the West, but the soul of the film is Indian." He hired Sharmishta Roy as art director, and told her to produce something similar to Riverdale High School of the Archie Comics, with some 90210 influence as well. Johar said of the outcome, "If you see KKHH, Shahrukh plays Archie, Rani Mukherji plays Veronica, and Kajol played Betty. It was exactly that. And the principal looked like Weatherbee, and Ms. Grundy was Archana Puran Singh." Johar also hired Farah Khan to do the choreography, Jatin–Lalit to provide the music, Santosh Thundiyil as cinematographer, and Nikhil Advani as his associate director. Shabina Khan assisted Manish Malhotra with costume design.

### Filming

Filming began on 21 August 1997. The crew was young and inexperienced to the point where Shah Rukh Khan had to explain basic technicalities of filming. Khan later said, "Karan makes no bones of the fact that his technical knowledge of filmmaking was not at its peak when he made the biggest hit of the decade." The entire film was shot in nine and half months with a substantial part of it shot in Mauritius. The title song was filmed over a ten-day period. in several picturesque locations in Scotland, including Eilean Donan, Glen Coe, Loch Lomond and Tantallon Castle with the nearby Bass Rock as a backdrop in one scene. The scenes from the summer camp in Shimla were filmed at Wenlock Downs in Ooty, Tamil Nadu.
During the bicycle sequence in the song "Yeh Ladka Hai Deewana", Kajol lost control of her bike, fell flat on her face, and was knocked unconscious while also injuring her knee. During the promotional Making of Kuch Kuch Hota Hai TV special, Kajol stated that the accident was her most memorable part of shooting the film because she doesn't remember it. During preparation for the reunion scene where the two leads met after more than 8 years apart, the director told them to improvise and rehearse the reactions that they might use, but he secretly taped them and was so happy with the result that it was put into the film.

## Soundtrack

The soundtrack for Kuch Kuch Hota Hai was composed by Jatin–Lalit and the lyrics were penned by Sameer. This is the first collaboration of the duo with Karan Johar. It was released by the Sony Music label on 19 August 1998. While the film was still untitled, Javed Akhtar was signed to write the lyrics, and even wrote and recorded one song (Koi Mil Gaya). However, when the movie was titled Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, he found the title mediocre, obscene, and vulgar and decided to quit the project. Akhtar later regretted leaving the film, as he found it decent and could see that the title has become quite a buzzword, realizing that he was the only one who disliked the title.
The album became the best-selling Bollywood soundtrack of the year, with 8 million units sold in India. The title song remained on the Indian music charts for over a year, and the album peaked at number #2 on the Malaysian albums chart (RIM) in 1999. Sony Music Indonesia also sold 300,000 copies in Indonesia, for a combined 8.3 million copies sold in India and Indonesia.
In 2012, it was voted as the most popular film song of the previous decade by NDTV. The full soundtrack came in second place in a similar poll conducted by the BBC, the first place being taken by Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, an album which was also composed by Jatin–Lalit.
On 2002, Sony Music India also released Kuch Kuch Hota Hai in Sinhala version.

## Reception
### Critical reception

While comparing the film to Dil To Pagal Hai (1997), Nikhat Kazmi of The Times of India gave Kuch Kuch Hota Hai 3.5 out of 5 stars. She especially liked the performance of Kajol, and thought that the film would appeal to young and romantic viewers primarily for its "MTV ambience" and "Valentine's Day flavours". On the negative side, she said "The second half, however, gets drowned in a sea of emotions. Too many people begin to cry a bit too much." In contrast to these views, the reaction of Sujata C J, writing for Rediff.com, was that the film was very disappointing, with many cliches and a bad storyline, though Santosh Thundiyil and Sharmishta Roy were praised for their camerawork and art direction, respectively. Nandita Chowdhury in a review for India Today, said that Karan Johar was almost able to rekindle the Khan-Kajol magic of Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, and that overall the film was "a good distraction".
In January 2023, IndieWire ranked Kuch Kuch Hota Hai as the world's best romantic comedy (rom-com) on Netflix, above Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010) at number two and Notting Hill (1999) at number three. IndieWire writers Kate Erbland and Alison Foreman called Kuch Kuch Hota Hai "a love triangle for the ages" and said it is "a bittersweet and bubbly story of young love, missed opportunity, and female friendship" with "what’s quite possibly the most romantic gazebo scene of all time."

### Box office

According to Box Office India, the film grossed ₹80.12 crore (US$19.41 million) in India and $6.3 million (₹26.61 crore) in other countries, for a worldwide total of ₹1.06 billion (US$25.69 million), against its ₹10 crore (US$2.42 million) budget. It became the third film to gross over ₹1 billion (US$24.23 million) worldwide in the 1990s, after Hum Aapke Hain Koun..! (1994) and Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (1995). It had a worldwide opening weekend of ₹8.06 crore (US$1.95 million), and grossed ₹15.13 crore (US$3.67 million) in its first week. It is the highest-grossing Bollywood film of 1998 worldwide. It also became the third highest-grossing Indian film then, behind Hum Aapke Hain Koun..! and Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge.

#### India

It opened on Friday, 16 October 1998, across 240 screens, along with Bade Miyan Chote Miyan, and earned ₹87 lakh (US$210,818.63) nett on its opening day. It grossed ₹2.74 crore (US$663,957.53) nett in its opening weekend, and went on to record the second-highest first week of the year with collections around ₹5.64 crore (US$1.37 million) nett, after Bade Miyan Chote Miyan which grossed ₹6.33 crore (US$1.53 million) nett. The film earned a total of ₹46.86 crore (US$11.36 million) nett, plus a distributor share of ₹29.88 crore (US$7.24 million), and was declared an "All-Time Blockbuster" by Box Office India. It is the highest-grossing film of 1998 in India.

#### Overseas

It had an opening weekend of $800,000 (₹3.38 crore) and went on to gross $1.3 million (₹5.49 crore) in its first week. It became the first film to cross $5 million mark outside India, and became the highest grosser at that time. According to Box Office India, the film earned a total of $6.3 million (₹26.61 crore) overseas. According to the book Global Bollywood, the film grossed $8 million in overseas markets outside India. It became the second Bollywood film to break into the UK box office top 10 after Dil Se.. which was released the same year, and went on to gross $2 million. It was a bigger box office success than Titanic when it was screened in Indonesia. Overseas, It is the highest-grossing Bollywood film of 1998.

## Accolades

Kuch Kuch Hota Hai received a leading 18 nominations at the 44th Filmfare Awards and won a leading 8 awards, including a sweep in all the major categories. It was the third film to win the four major awards (Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor and Best Actress) at Filmfare. Others include Guide (1965), Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (1995) (also starring Shah Rukh Khan & Kajol), Devdas (2002) (also starring Shah Rukh Khan), Black (2005) and Gully Boy (2019).
| Award | Category | Recipient(s) | Result |
| 46th National Film Awards | Best Film For Providing Wholesome Entertainment | Yash Johar, Karan Johar | Won |
| 46th National Film Awards | Best Female Playback Singer | Alka Yagnik for "Kuch Kuch Hota Hai" | Won |
| 44th Filmfare Awards | Best Film | Yash Johar | Won |
| 44th Filmfare Awards | Best Director | Karan Johar | Won |
| 44th Filmfare Awards | Best Actor | Shah Rukh Khan | Won |
| 44th Filmfare Awards | Best Actress | Kajol | Won |
| 44th Filmfare Awards | Best Supporting Actor | Salman Khan | Won |
| 44th Filmfare Awards | Best Supporting Actress | Rani Mukherji | Won |
| 44th Filmfare Awards | Best Screenplay | Karan Johar | Won |
| 44th Filmfare Awards | Best Art Direction | Sharmishta Roy | Won |
| Screen Awards | Best Film | Yash Johar | Won |
| Screen Awards | Best Director | Karan Johar | Won |
| Screen Awards | Best Music Director | Jatin–Lalit | Won |
| Screen Awards | Best Comedian | Archana Puran Singh | Won |
| Zee Cine Awards | Best Film | Yash Johar | Won |
| Zee Cine Awards | Best Director | Karan Johar | Won |
| Zee Cine Awards | Best Actor – Male | Shah Rukh Khan | Won |
| Zee Cine Awards | Best Actor – Female | Kajol | Won |
| Zee Cine Awards | Best Actor in a Supporting Role – Female | Rani Mukherji | Won |
| Zee Cine Awards | Best Music Director | Jatin–Lalit | Won |
| Zee Cine Awards | Best Lyricist | Sameer for "Kuch Kuch Hota Hai" | Won |
| Zee Cine Awards | Best Playback Singer – Female | Alka Yagnik for "Kuch Kuch Hota Hai" | Won |
| Zee Cine Awards | Lux Face of the Year | Rani Mukherji (for Kuch Kuch Hota Hai & Ghulam) | Won |
| Zee Cine Awards | Best Story | Karan Johar | Won |
| Bollywood Movie Awards | Best Film | Yash Johar | Won |
| Bollywood Movie Awards | Best Director | Karan Johar | Won |
| Bollywood Movie Awards | Best Actor | Shah Rukh Khan | Won |
| Bollywood Movie Awards | Best Actress | Kajol | Won |
| Bollywood Movie Awards | Best Music Director | Jatin–Lalit | Won |
| Bollywood Movie Awards | Best Male Playback Singer | Udit Narayan for "Kuch Kuch Hota Hai" | Won |
| Bollywood Movie Awards | Best Female Playback Singer | Alka Yagnik for "Kuch Kuch Hota Hai" | Won |
| Bollywood Movie Awards | Best Screenplay | Karan Johar | Won |
| Bollywood Movie Awards | Best Choreography | Farah Khan | Won |
| Bollywood Movie Awards | Best Costume Design | Manish Malhotra | Won |

## Home media

A few years after its release, Sony purchased satellite rights for the film for ₹4 crore. The film was also released on VHS, DVD, and eventually Blu-ray. Now Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, along with Johar's second film Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham... (2001), often play on television to consistently high ratings. Johar said, "It's gratifying to know that they've aged well and passed the test of time."

## Legacy

Kuch Kuch Hota Hai was the subject of reviews and critical analysis following its initial release. Subhash K Jha called the film "a simple stylish, sensuous and ambrosial love story," further adding that the chemistry between the lead pair was unbeatable. A reviewer for Timeout Film Guide, while commenting that the second love triangle went on too long, liked most of the film, saying that "its performances, camerawork, storytelling and extensive musical numbers [are] all energetically colourful." In 2004, Meor Shariman of The Malay Mail called the film a "must-watch" for Bollywood fans, and also for those seeking an introduction to Bollywood. The film has also been criticized for creating unreal worlds and characters, to which Johar has said that this was part of his vision of escapism.
One of the best examples of the iconic status of Kuch Kuch Hota Hai was the 2012 Hindi romantic comedy Shirin Farhad Ki Toh Nikal Padi. Farah Khan and Boman Irani re-created scenes and characters from KKHH for posters to promote their film, and also paid homage in one of the songs, "Ramba Mein Samba". In 2010, Kuch Kuch Hota Hai was selected by Time as one of their "Five Essential Bollywood movies to Netflix". It was also mentioned in critic and author Shubhra Gupta's book, 50 Films That Changed Bollywood, 1995–2015. In 2018, Johar celebrated the 20-year anniversary of the film by hosting an event with the lead cast.
Karan Johar wanted to make an animated version of Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, but as of October 2012, had placed the project on permanent hold. He said, "Animation films are not working nowadays, so as of now I have kept it on stand-by."