Munna Bhai M.B.B.S.

Murli Prasad Sharma, nicknamed Munna Bhai is a goon. His father had wished him to be a medical doctor, so he creates the faux Sri Hari Prasad Sharma Charitable Hospital, named after his father, and pretends to live in accordance with this wish whenever his father and mother visit him in Mumbai. One year later, however, Munna's plan goes awry when his father meets an old acquaintance, Dr. Jagdish Chandra Asthana and the two older men decide to betroth Munna to Asthana's daughter, "Chinki". At this point, Munna's cover is blown, and Asthana insults Munna's parents and calls them "fools" for being ignorant of Munna's real life. Hari and his wife Parvati, aghast and later heartbroken, leave for their village.

Munna, in grief and despair, decides that the only way to redeem himself and gain revenge for the humiliation suffered by his father at the hands of the spiteful Asthana is to become a doctor. He decides to go to a medical college to obtain an MBBS degree. With the help of his right-hand man Circuit and others, Munna "gains admission" to a medical college by using Dr. Rustam Pavri, a faculty member of Imperial Institute of Medical Studies as a prop to write the pre medical examinations. He again encounters Dr. Asthana in the same college, who is the dean. His success there becomes dependent upon the (coerced) help of Rustam, which includes situations such as cheating in the sessionals.

Although he has no medical skills, Munna transforms those around him with the "Jadoo Ki Jhappi" ("magical hug")  – a method of comfort taught to Munna by his mother – and the compassion he shows towards those in need. Despite the school's emphasis on mechanical, Cartesian, impersonal and often bureaucratic relationships between doctors and patients, Munna constantly seeks to impose a more empathetic and almost holistic regimen around himself. Attempting to treat a brain-dead patient, Anand Banerjee, in his own empathetic and compassionate style, he defies all convention by interacting on familiar but autocratic terms with patients, humiliating school bullies, effusively thanking a hitherto underappreciated janitor, and encouraging the patients themselves to make changes in their lives, so that they do not need drugs or surgery.

Asthana, who perceives all this as symptoms of chaos, is unable to prevent it from expanding and gaining ground at his college. He becomes increasingly irrational, almost to the point of insanity. Repeatedly, this near-dementia is shown when he receives unwelcome tidings and he begins laughing in a way that implies that he has gone mad. This behaviour is explained early on as an attempt to practice "laughter therapy", an attempt that seems to have backfired – Asthana's laughing serves more to convey his anger than diffuse it. Meanwhile, the carefree Munna finds himself unreservedly infatuated with Dr. Suman, who, it turns out, is Asthana's daughter. Some comedy appears here, because Munna is unaware that Dr. Suman and his childhood friend "Chinki" are one and the same; an ignorance that Suman hilariously exploits to a point where he is bluffed into believing "Chinki" is not his type anymore, causing him to instead confess his feelings for Suman and abandon his personal vendetta against "Chinki" and Asthana.

Meanwhile, as he tries to fulfill the last wishes of a cancer patient, Zaheer, who is relieved by a gesture from Munna's side that Asthana deems controversial for the college's discipline, Munna cures Rustam's dying father by his own methods, which earns him Rustam's respect and leads Zaheer to consider Munna an almost "divine" man. Asthana tries several times to expel Munna but is often thwarted by Munna's wit or the affection with which the others at the college, including, to some extent, Suman herself, regard Munna, having gained superior self-esteem by his methods. Asthana keeps a challenge that Munna can stay in college only if he passes the exam under his supervision. Everyone accepts the challenge. During the preparation, Zaheer collapses to a worsening health and calls for Munna, asking him to save his life, but unfortunately much, he dies in Munna's arms.

Eventually, Munna is shamed into leaving the college: his guilt over not being able to help Zaheer gets the better of him; in the moments immediately following Munna's departure, Anand miraculously awakens from his vegetative state. Suman, at this point, realizes Munna as the miracle behind Anand's recovery and gives a heartfelt speech criticizing her father for having banished Munna, saying that to do so is to banish hope, compassion, love, and happiness from the college. Asthana eventually realises his folly.

Hari and Parvati reconcile with Munna that night, asking him to meet "Chinki"; when he goes to meet "Chinki" atop the terrace, he finds out that "Chinki" is in fact Suman herself. The medical college – under Rustam Pavri's management since Asthana's retirement – begins to imitate Munna's radical methods of treatment. Munna and Suman open a hospital in Munna's home village, where they implement Munna's ideas daily, while Asthana is revealed to have picked up Munna's lingo there as the head doctor, while also implementing the fun-oriented methods used by Munna earlier. This, in addition to the birth of their offsprings, earns Munna the nickname "Munnabhai – M.B.B.S. – Miya Biwi Bachhon Samet" (literally "Husband Wife with Children") even though he does not become a doctor. His sidekick Circuit marries and has a son, who is nicknamed "Short Circuit". As the film concludes, Anand, restored to normal mental health, narrates the story to children as he is about to leave for Kolkata.

In an interview, Hirani discussed how the idea for the film emerged from his interaction with some friends who were medical students.[5] Later, he also had the opportunity to interact with a lot of medical professionals when some members of his family became sick. These experiences gave birth to the idea for the film.

During the scripting stage, Hirani wanted Anil Kapoor to play the lead role.[5] However, Shah Rukh Khan was later cast as Munna along with Sanjay Dutt as Zaheer but due to his back problems Khan was forced to turn down the film.[6][7][8][9][10][11] Nevertheless, the end credits of the film thank Khan for his inputs into the script.[5] Hirani also narrated the script to Aishwarya Rai during the time he was in talks with Shahrukh Khan.[5] Khan and Rai were working together on Devdas at the time. Vivek Oberoi was considered for the role but in the end Sanjay Dutt took the role as Munna, which ultimately gave him an image make over and helped change the public perception of the controversial superstar; his real-life father Sunil Dutt returned to film after 10 years to play Munna's father. This is the first and only film in which real-life father and son Sunil and Sanjay appear together, although they both appeared in Reshma Aur Shera (1971), Rocky (1981) and Kshatriya (1993) but not in any scenes together.

The original choice for Circuit's role was Makarand Deshpande. Arshad Warsi took over the role which proved to be a turning point for his career. The scenes of the Medical College were shot at the Agriculture College of Pune and Grant Medical College Mumbai.[12]

The film has a similar premise to the 1998 American film Patch Adams, starring Robin Williams. The producer Vidhu Vinod Chopra, however, denies there being a resemblance, and says that he had not watched the film before the release of Munna Bhai.[13]

Hirani did not have a big budget to shoot the film. As a result, he had to change the way certain scenes were shot. For example, the film ends with stills of Munna Bhai's wedding. Hirani was told that setting up a wedding stage and making a wedding outfit for Gracie Singh would cost him several thousand rupees. To save on some of that money, Hirani arranged to have the stills shot on an actual wedding stage set up for a real wedding near the sets. The production team reached an agreement with the wedding hall management and used their stage after a wedding ended.[5]

The music is composed by Anu Malik. Lyrics for the songs are penned by Abbas Tyrewala and Rahat Indori. According to the Indian trade website Box Office India, with around 1,000,000 units sold, this film's soundtrack album was the year's fifteenth highest-selling.[14]

Munna Bhai M.B.B.S. was the recipient of a number of awards. At the 2004 Filmfare awards, it received the Filmfare Critics Award for Best Film, the Filmfare Best Screenplay Award, the Filmfare Best Dialogue Award, and the Filmfare Best Comedian Award in addition to four other nominations. It won a number of awards at the 2004 Zee Cine Awards including Best Debuting Director, Zee Cine Award for Best Actor in a Comic Role, Best Cinematography, and Best Dialogue.

Other ceremonies include the 2004 National Film Awards where it won the National Film Award for Best Popular Film and the 2004 International Indian Film Academy Awards where it won the IIFA Best Comedian Award.

• Official Website
• Munna Bhai M.B.B.S. at IMDb
• Munna Bhai M.B.B.S. at Box Office Mojo
• Munna Bhai M.B.B.S. at Rotten Tomatoes
• Munna Bhai M.B.B.S. at Rediff.com