Yes indeed, it is a sequel with a difference. A difference which made it a success, a rarity in the history of sequels.
The initial plot which revolved around four charming youths of a housing colony was released 18 years ago as "In Harihar Nagar". It was a huge success owing to the comical elements in the movie. Even after 18 years people are still talking about the jokes in that movie. It was then script writed and directed by two persons Siddique and Lal. Lal has later become a successful hero also.
This time aroud Lal has scripted and directed the movie alone and named it " To Harihar Nagar". The name itself had a good meaning.
The first movie was about the happening inside the colony Harihar Nagar. Hence "In Harihar Nagar". The second movie was about the four youths returning back to Harihar nagar for the marriage of one among them. Hence the name - "To Harihar Nagar".
What made it different is that he had casted almost the entire characters from the movie one and that too as 18 years older characters, which really made it look real. The characters of this sequel, were not introduced all of a sudden. But slowly and steadily as the story progressed. This makes the audience think a while about who it was in the earlier movie. Shortly after a character is introduced, the director has shown some clippings of the initial movie, just to ensure that the audience get a grip of who it is. This method is something which keeps the audience interested. For those watching the movie without watching its part one will not be left in the dark because of the small clipping shown about the character’s past.
The plot of this movie had a surprise suspense element which no one watching the movie for the first time will unravel before the movie ends. The scriptwriter who plotted this has done a superb work in this regard. The movie just makes the viewer think in different angles as to whom to suspect for all the foul play. And amazingly who I thought as suspect was different from what my wife thought at the same point of time. This is something which we normally don’t feel in other suspence thrillers. Some of the characters are drawn in just to increase the surprise element. Only when the movie ends we find that those characters had no meaning at all.
Two of the songs surprisingly had the same lyrics as that of movie one. Still would you believe if I say that those songs are a huge success now. All credit goes to the music director. The visuals of the song are quite colourful too.
These songs were popular at the time of release of first part. It is a kind of remix, but somehow on watching the movie one will never feel it as a remix, just because the songs blend with the stoy well.
Another interesting aspect is the way which the director tells us about the story of the main characters during the 18years which had gone by without really affecting the current plot.
Overall the sriptwriter/director had to mix a lot of things together,
he had to tell the happenings of 18 years of 5 characters( the 4 friends and the villian),
create a suspense plot which evolves by the mid movie and completely in line with how the story was progressing,
mix some jokes,
create some new characters which had a major impact,
create some new characters just to mislead the viewer
Use the same popular lyrics from the part 1 of the movie with a different music(remix) and still make it part of the storyline
Only thing which went against the movie was, some of the jokes were created just for the sake a creating it and does not blend with other wise brilliant story line and these jokes happened at the very start of the movie. May be this was a blessing in disguise coz when we see the initial part we will lose hope, as this movie seem to be another mediocre one with poor jokes. But soon we will realise that we are made to think about a lot of things, thus making us involved in the plot and time will zoom past.
What ever said, the story line is superb. Wonder how the author can think of such plots with lot of constraints in the character portrayal owing it to be the sequel of an 18 year old movie.