The Burning Train
Tags: flashback

Plot synopsis:
The plot is an intricately woven one. It starts from childhood with the story of Ashok (also called Shoki by his childhood friend Vinod) (Neil Mohan) who is a wealthy industrialist's only son. He is passionate about cars from childhood befriends Vinod (Vinod Khanna) who is passionate about trains; it's his dream to make India's fastest train. Rakesh (Vinod Mehra) shares the same passion as Vinod. Randhir (Danny Denzongpa) is in a tussle from childhood to make a better train than Vinod's. Childhood turns into adulthood and one day both attend a dance function organised by the Indian Railways. This is where Ashok and Vinod fall in love with two beautiful women: Seema (Hema Malini) and Sheetal (Parveen Babi). Ashok is now deeply in love with Seema and they are planning to get married after their engagement. Vinod is married to Sheetal and they have a son Raju. One day Vinod, who is now a top notch railway engineer, gets awarded the contract to build a super-fast express train between New Delhi and Mumbai. Rakesh (Vinod Mehra) is his assistant. Randhir, the losing engineer and ex-lover of Sheetal, swears revenge and leaves.
As the three friends celebrate Vinod's success, Seema leaves for a pilgrimage. Ashok hears that his father has died. He rushes to his funeral and finds out that his father was debt-ridden, and he is left with nothing. As he is still recovering, he gets a letter from Seema breaking off their relationship stating that she was interested in him as a rich man and since he is now poor, she is not interested anymore. Heartbroken, Ashok leaves town.
Six years pass by. Vinod has completely focused on building the train, ignoring his wife and son. On the day of the train's inauguration, she comes to fetch him for their anniversary party. He refuses to go since the next day is the train's inaugural journey. Heartbroken, she puts her son, Raju, on the train to go to her mother, and leaves Vinod. Iftekhar, their boss, asks Vinod to go to Mumbai by flight for the arrival of the train. Vinod refuses to say that he needs to be in the control room. So his assistant and friend Rakesh go instead.
The train starts from New Delhi where a lot of the characters board. Rajendra Nath is a devout Hindu priest. Om Shivpuri is a royal king, Raja Ram Mohan, travelling with his wife Padmini (Indrani Mukherjee). Ranjeet is a smuggler fleeing with stolen diamonds and his girlfriend Raziya. Sujeet Kumar is an undercover police officer dressed as a Christian priest and following Ranjeet the smuggler. Asrani is an ex-Army colonel P.K. Bhandari. Keshto Mukherjee and Paintal are travelling without tickets hiding in the train's lavatories. Simi Garewal is a school teacher, taking a group of students on a visit to Mumbai. Neetu Singh is fleeing her home to escape a forced marriage. Ravi (Jeetendra) is a small-time thief who tries to befriend Neetu Singh to steal her jewellery. Seema is travelling to Mumbai with her cousin (Navin Nischol) who is a doctor. Rakesh's pregnant wife is travelling to Mumbai with her mother. Ashok also quietly boards the train so that he can be a part of his friend Vinod's success and is shocked to see Seema. He sees her with her cousin and mistakes him for her husband. He snaps at her before she can say anything, but befriends Raju after recognising him.
Unknown to all of them, Randhir has planted a bomb in the engine at the Mathura Railway station and disengaged the vacuum brakes so that even guard wouldn't be able to stop the train. The bomb was timed to explode halfway through the journey. He hopes to sabotage the train and thereby destroy Vinod's reputation without a scant thought to the lives of the passengers. Meanwhile, Ashok leaves the train as he does not want to travel by Seema in the train. He meets Randhir in a bar where Randhir tells him that he has fulfilled his and Ashok's revenge. (He was misunderstood that Ashok must be seeking revenge from Seema for her betrayal). Knowing this Ashok immediately leaves to catch the train before explosion time so that he can save his friend's train and save passengers. He manages to catch the train at Ratlam Railway station but is too late.
Halfway, the bomb explodes killing the drivers Jeevan Lal and Dango and destroying the brakes and accelerator. Ashok goes outside the train and goes to the engine compartment and saves the guard (Osman Ali) and brings him back. Vinod, who is desperately trying to save their lives, talks to them through All India Radio and asks them to go to the engine compartment and apply the emergency brakes.
The radio broadcast completely panics all passengers and the train cooks come running to find out what has happened. In their haste, they leave the cooking gas on. The news also panics the relatives who are waiting at Mumbai and they besiege Vinod. Sheetal also comes to him and shouts at him asking him to save their son, Raju.
Ashok, Ravi and the guard climb on top of the train and try to reach the engine. Meanwhile, Rakesh's wife enters labour and Seema's doctor cousin attends to her, asking for some hot water. A cook lights a match to heat up some water in the kitchen. The open gas explodes killing the guard Osman Ali, the cook and several passengers and half the train starts burning. Ashok and Ravi barely make it back and with the help of some passengers erect some gaps between the burning compartments and the passengers.
Vinod tries another effort by sending a helicopter and trying to get someone to land on the engine compartment. Randhir sabotages this mission by volunteering to go on the helicopter. He drops onto the engine compartment but does nothing, leading Ashok and his superiors to believe he is dead, as the helicopter explodes.
Meanwhile, Ashok finds out why Seema left him. She had lost her leg on the way back from the pilgrimage. She didn't want to be a burden on him in his poverty and decided to go away. They patch up. Ravi and Neetu also fall in love. Sheetal also comes back to Vinod and apologises for her behaviour. She gives him courage for his last attempt to save the train.
Rakesh, who is in Mumbai, tries to build a steep incline quickly which will reduce the speed of the train once it reaches Mumbai and may yet stop the train but he is running out of time as the train is speeding towards Mumbai and is just hours from reaching it.
Vinod tries one last effort by getting an engine to drive the Superfast train. He asks Ashok and Ravi to come up top and throws a rope saying that he will come over to the train and stop the train himself. Ranjeet tries to escape by using the same rope to the other train knowing that he will be arrested in Mumbai. Asrani tries to stop but Ranjeet throws him off the train. Ashok fights Ranjeet who falls off the train. Vinod comes over to the train, but not before being almost impaled by an electric tower.
He says that he has brought fireproof suits and some dynamite (just in case). They will wear the suits, go to the engine, and apply the emergency brakes. Vinod, Ashok and Ravi go through the fire to the engine where they find Randhir. Randhir tries to kill Vinod but falls off the train in the scuffle.
They reach the engine to find that the drivers are dead and all systems have failed. Ashok comes up with an idea of blasting the couplings of the compartments from the engine. Vinod disagrees saying that passenger compartments will derail if blasted off at this speed, but then remembers the incline being built by Rakesh. They send Ravi back to warn the passengers and to ask everyone to tie themselves to their seat.
Vinod asks Rakesh over wireless to clear the inclined area even though it isn't completely ready. Ashok and he set up the dynamite charges on the couplings. As the train starts climbing, they blast the dynamite and jump off the slowing engine. The engine blasts through Mumbai station and stops on the road. But the passenger compartment slows down and comes to a complete halt. All passengers get off safely. Vinod and Ashok happily come walking they're hurt but alive.
Everyone connects with their relatives and the film ends as a tribute to the soul of India.

Review: Now, this is what I call good Bollywood action!.
A very slick, very action-oriented movie with a non-standard theme that promised to change Bollywood movie-making standards of the early 80s (Ramesh Sippy's "Shaan" was another one in the same genre).
Quite surprising that Bollywood took so long to pay a fitting tribute to the Railways because (at least during those days) a humongous percentage of working Indian populace were directly or indirectly dependent on the railways for their livelihood.
Why, the Indian Railways were one of the largest employers in those days!
The Railways depiction is more or less realistic (note to critics: the song-and-dance parts before the Super Express is launched is just plain old Bollywood masala  nothing to do with the Railways).The train has been the ubiquitous, yet highly sidelined prop in dozens of Bollywood movies.
Who can forget the passenger train that brings the jailer to Ramgarh in "Sholay" or the endless shots of Victoria Terminus in any movie based in Bombay.
Even now, trains have been very much around in the Bollywood landscape.
"Bunty aur Babli" recently effectively used Indian Railways throughout the movie to enhance the small-town feel.
The trains in India have been much more than just a mode of transport  they are a part of our very fabric.Anyway, back to the movie  it about the launch of a new super fast express train that runs between Delhi and Bombay in a record time of 14 hours (clearly a tribute to the swanky Rajdhani Express trains that was the hottest thing on the tracks those days).
The movie starts in Varanasi rail factory (Diesel Locomotive Works), where a group of capable engineers (Khanna, Dharam "paaji", Mehra, etc) toil away to design the new engine.
During all this, the lead characters go through heartbreaks (Dharam-Hema), family crisis (Khanna-Babi) and professional showdowns (Danny-Khanna).
Meanwhile the train is full of standard stock characters  a kind-hearted petty thief (Jeetendra), a runaway bride (Singh), a school teacher (Simi Gerewal) with an army of school kids, a diamond smuggler (Ranjeet) who has an undercover cop (Sujit Kumar) chasing him, the heartbroken hero (Dharmendra) and his ex-flame (Hema) with her new doctor beau (Nischol) a pompous army man, the Hindu pandit sitting next to the staunch Muslim, the paan-chewing seductress in red sari (Asha Sachdev), the Sardarji, the Parsi, the Marwari  you name it!
So the brakes have failed, the engine drivers are dead and the runaway train is speeding away on the tracks while the unsuspecting passengers have a ball singing qawwalis in the train.
Blissful days) Luckily, we have Dharamendra who jumps back into the train to save lives.
Our heroes on the train take the onus to do something to save their own lives while the heroes outside are trying their best to get things out of the train's way!
Trust me: stagecoach-sagas cannot get better than this.As I mentioned, it was one of the slickest action movies of its time  use of miniatures, complex action sequences, chase scenes, explosions, aerial shots  it has a bit of everything.
The all-star cast is excellent, especially Khanna who delivers a powerful performance as the engineer trying to set things right.
This was a very, very good effort by Ravi Chopra (who later moved on to make movies like "Baghban" and now "Babul") and, once the express leaves Delhi station, is a non-stop action thriller.
"The Burning Train" is a very nicely put together, entertaining action thriller.
The sacrifice made by the heroes of the film in trying to save the 'burning train' is nicely mirrored by the sacrifices they make in their personal lives, often with less than happy results.The movie is also a very satisfying story about relationships (particularly the friendship between Vinod (played by Vinod Khanna) and Ashok (played by Dharmendra), envy, betrayal, redemption - and love.
Dharmendra(whom I love love love - that was 3 loves) and Vinod Khanna (whom I love love - that was 2 loves) are excellent in this movie (as always),putting in brilliant performances.
They are very effective and complimentary leads, and they're also quite funny (the scenes where they try to snag their girlfriends by tricking them are great).
Hema Malini is excellent as well (I always love the energy between her and Dharmendra - see the classic 'Sholay', although Malini's character in this movie is very different from Sholay's 'Basanti').
I think they make a great pair.Danny, who plays the villain ('Ranvir') does quite a good villainous face, I must say!
Nice portrayal of how a villain can still manage to be really pathetic.All the other performances (Jeetendra, Neetu Singh and the others - the scene when they all sing on the train is another highlight of the film) are fantastic as well.
I also love the opening scene, which introduces the main characters perfectly.
The big-budget (for that time) special effects in this movie also deserve a mention.
Despite a couple of forgivable poor shots of a model train, the 'burning train' of the movie's title is very realistically portrayed.
I also have to mention the lovely song sung by Vinod Khanna, Dharmendra, Hema Malini and Parveen Babi near the beginning of the movie (ok, I know it wasn't sung by the actors but by Asha Bhonsle, Mohammed Rafi, Kishore Kumar etc, but you know what I mean).
I love the song and the choreography.By the way, if you don't like a healthy dose of sentimentality (in which case you probably don't like Bollywood movies in the first place), then this movie is not for you.
Anyhow, I think I've said enough...all that's left to say is this is a great, entertaining movie for the family.
One of the classics, this movie remains much ahead of it's times by it's visualization and special effects.
A multi-starrer in which the central theme in neither love-story nor revenge story but rather about a burning train.
A very well done disaster movie.Ashok(Dharmendra) and Vinod(Vinod Khanna) are two friends.
Ashok is engaged with Seema(Hema Malini) and Vinod is married with Sheetal(Parveen Bobby).Vinod has dreams of building a a super fast train which will cover the distance between Delhi and Bombay(Mumbai) withing 12 hours(That too in 1980).Rajdhani currently takes 16.5 hours at best.
And he wins the tender from Indian Railways to build the fastest train.
Vinod's marriage with Sheetal is almost falling apart because of Vinod's full devotion to the train.The maiden journey of the train starts at Delhi.
The 3rd hero, a small time crook Ravi(Jitendra) meets his love Neetu Singh on the train.Ashok is also on the train .
Meanwhile Ranjeet has removed the brakes and placed bombs in the train and has got down in Agra.Ashok and Ranjeet meet in a bar in Agra and Ashok learns about the bomb.
The train's brake has failed and only desperate measures can now save it.Ashok learns now that Seema's leg is amputated and that's why she broke the engagement.
Meanwhile in the chaos, fire spreads, the train burns and hence the name "The Burning train".The rest of the movie is a struggle by everyone, particularly by Ashok, Vinod and Ravi to prevent the disaster from happening.See the movie..it's worth a watch..
Indian filmmakers have been taking inspiration from Hollywood flicks but very few such filmmakers openly admit it.
Director Ravi Chopra (son of the legendary film director - late B.R. Chopra) saw a Hollywood movie - The Towering Inferno (1974) and got inspiration for making an Indian movie.
The Towering Inferno was based on the plot of the fire in a building whereas Ravi Chopra decided to make a movie on an incident of burning of a running train.
And he made a brilliant movie whose climax (the train on fire) is simply mesmerizing and by inserting all the regular Bollywood formulae according to the taste of the (Indian) public, he finally served a Masaala flick to the Hindi movie audience.The Burning Train is the story of three childhood buddies - Ashok (Dharmendra), Vinod (Vinod Khanna) and Randhir (Danny Denjongpa).
Vinod and Randhir were at loggerheads even in their childhood and the rivalry continues even after their growing-up and becoming employees of the Indian Railways.
Ashok has been in love with Seema (Hema Malini) but gets heartbroken when she leaves him due to his losing his wealth and becoming poor and vanishes from his life.
Vinod marries the love of his life - Sheetal (Parveen Babi) and gets a kid but his family life is not pleasant because he is not able to give sufficient time to his family due to extreme busyness.
Randhir's jealousy towards Vindo has not only carried over since their childhood but it has deepened in adulthood due to Randhir's losing out to Vinod for Sheetal's love also.Why Vinod is not able to devote time towards his family ?
Because he has been relentlessly working upon his dream project of making a magnificent train for the Indian Railways.
The train is all set for its inaugural run from Delhi to Mumbai when Sheetal finally leaves Vinod's house and highly sad Vinod moves to the control room of the train to take care of the technicalities, sending his friend and colleague Rakesh (Vinod Mehra) to Mumbai by flight to welcome the train there upon arrival.
Ashok and Randhir are also on the train due to different reasons.
There are different kinds of passengers on the train including a small time thief - Ravi (Jeetendra) and a young girl - Madhu (Neetu Singh) who is escaping from a marriage being forced on her by her family.The drama gets a boost when Ashok comes across Seema in the train and to avoid her, gets down from the train in the middle of the journey only to find Randhir in a bar who tells him that he has kept a time bomb in the engine of the train to sabotage the train and taint the repute of Vinod.
Now starts the tussle between the baddie and the heroes to save the train which is set on fire after the explosion and with its brakes also failing, is going to meet its disaster and the death of all its passengers.
The prolonged and thrilling climax leads to the happy ending of the movie.The movie has all kinds of regular Bollywood formulae, entertaining the typical Indian movie buffs but its essence is the climax which justifies its title.
It's technically superb and contains several twists and turns, making the final part of the story of the movie a see-saw.
Several character artists have got ample opportunity to leave their mark in the final sequence of events.Though Ravi Chopra had got the inspiration for making this movie from The Towering Inferno, by default perhaps, it gives glimpses of the Titanic mishap also (the Hollywood movie - Titanic was made much later than this movie) in which the inaugural journey of the ship fails and that journey contains all kinds of RASAs of literature - romance, sentiments, humour, action, thrill just everything.
This way, similarities can easily be seen between The Burning Train and Titanic.The music of R.D. Burman is not great but not bad either.
The songs appear good to ears when listened to during the movie.
However the Qawwaali - Pal Do Pal Ka Saath Hamaara Pal Do Pal Ke Yaarane Hain is a memorable one both in terms of the lyrics and the melody and also the picturization.The Burning Train boasts of a great star cast, viz.
Dharmendra, Hema Malini, Vinod Khanna, Parveen Babi, Jeetendra, Neetu Singh, Vinod Mehra, Danny Dengjongpa, Simi Garewal, Asha Sachdev, Romesh Sharma, Padmini Kapila etc.
I give full marks to director Ravi Chopra that he did justice to all the characters and allowed every one of them to leave his / her mark in the story.
All of of them have done pretty well though footage awarded to them varies from character to character.All in all, it's a highly entertaining movie with technical excellence which I unconditionally recommend to movie buffs of all categories.
Indian audience did not like such movies those days.
However now the taste of the Indian audience has changed a lot and I believe, if B.R. Films decides to re-release it, it will get the love and appreciation of the Indian audience..
Good movie but very lengthy..
The Burning Train is a good watch but is very lengthy.The movie has many characters which makes it boring plus even there are some songs which could have been avoided which could have made the movie short.But otherwise the movie is an stylish action packed mass entertainer.Story:- Vinod Verma is an employee of the Indian Railways, who always had a dream of making the perfect and fastest train in India.
After years of dedication the Railway Board approves his prototype of the Super Express.
But these years had had their toll on his personal life, as his wife, Sheetal and son, are more like strangers to him.
He hopes to make it up to them after the train makes it inaugural run from Delhi to Bombay in a record 14 hours.
But an embittered fellow-employee named Randhir, the son of the Chair of the Railway Board, has other plans for Vinod and the Super Express - plans that may derail Vinod's delicate personal balance, and make the Super Express' inaugural journey also the final one.The story is fine The direction is good.The music is okay.The action scenes are excellent.Performances:- Dharmendra steals the show with his stellar performance.Vinod Khanna is good.Jeetendra is perfect.Hema Malini,Parveen Babi and Neetu Singh are okay in their respective roles.Danny Dengzonpa is superb.All in all,The Burning Train is a good weekend watch!.
I have attempting to get hold of this film for a very long time and when i finally got it wow.
Although the film was great, the reason it did not make sense was because i'd seen the edited version, where they had taken out all the important bits.The songs are absolutely great, the relationship between Vinod Khanna and Praveen Babi, and Dhamendra with Hema Malini was great, especially where they got together.Still attempting to get hold of a proper copy so if anyone knows where then please let me know..
I think this movie was ahead of its time, and would be a great film to remake with current technology and sensibility.
I will mention them first before I discuss the flaws:Great character drama.
The train is full of all sorts of different kinds of characters, funny, quirky, sexy, angry, criminal, religious, young, old, family, couples, single, and the interactions between them make for very entertaining drama.
Think of a road trip movie, except on a train with a myriad of characters.Great screenplay.
Except for the speedbreakers at the start, once the journey on the train begins the screenplay packs a lot of interesting situations and turns of events that keep the journey interesting; the initial character introductions and banter, the realization the breaks have failed, the train catching fire, the attempts by the passengers to save themselves, the frantic efforts by the railway officials to come up with ideas to save the train racing against time.
Great action.
I would not have thought an 80's Bollywood movie would have had such technical finesse.
The fast moving burning train actually looks real, the interiors look real, you actually feel like it was shot in an actual train(I am sure some portions were) The parts where some of the characters climb out of the moving train and then try to get to the next cabin by going across the windows or running on the top of the train looks like they really did it.
It is evident that this was a big budget movie for its time and it is executed with the same professionalism as similar disaster movies like Towering Inferno.Great acting.
Vinod Khanna as the train's engineer particularly is notable and very handsome, you do wonder why the gene was not passed on to Akshay Khanna.Now I will begin with the cons:Takes time to start.
The initial half hour is about introducing the leads and their love interests, and there are a couple of unnecessary songs.
In fact the only song that really works in the movie is the lone song on the train between all the characters to entertain themselves on the journey.
This actually can happen on Indian trains.Female characters are weak.
This is 80's patriarchal Bollywood when feminism had not really taken off yet, and it is evident here as the female characters have little personality and just react to their male counterparts.
Another 80's Bollywood staple is the "Disshom" fighting scenes which are cheesy and you have the OTT comic characters, the Johnny livers of their time, like Asrani with their slapstick routines.
If it was remade today for a contemporary audiences many of these 80's staples should and would be done away, leaving a great disaster movie.
There are not many notable Bollywood disaster movies, so this would provide great material for a contemporary one..
How does one logically stop a burning train with failed brake controls from meeting its fatal destiny?Please note: This movie does not provide the answer to the above question.
Deliver a baby on board such a train right at the climax.
6. Write a plot of a movie titled "The Burning Train" that includes 1 h 20 minutes that have nothing to do ( remotely) with a train or burning.
7. Assemble the largest number of Indian cultural stereo-types and give them obnoxiously type-cast roles to play.If you are interested in the above topics, do watch the 3:04:39 worth of reel time that this movie runs for.
( Also the music is boring).I watched this flick 15-17 years ago , when I was a kid.
What prompted me to write this review after all these years was the train wreck scene from Skyfall (2012) which in itself is a tribute to this marvelous piece of Absurdist cinema.