Ahaan Panday and Aneet Padda starrer Saiyaara has become a ₹500 crore worldwide grosser after it released on July 18. The limited publicity the movie’s business has been built on has surprised trade pundits and industry insiders. However, ever since the Mohit Suri directorial has hit the big screens plagiarism accusations have surrounded it. Many viewers were quick to point out that its a remake of the Korean drama A Moment to Remember (2004), with side-by-side videos of the two films going viral suggesting that not just the movie, but also the frames from the original movie have been copied by Mohit and his team.
Now, the writer of Saiyaara has broken his silence on plagiarism accusations behind the blockbuster Hindi title, which is also the second-highest grossing Bollywood movie of the year. The similarly of the Hindi and Korean movie plots centers around the female protagonist suffering from early-onset of Alzheimer’s.
Sankalp Sadanah, the writer of Saiyaara, said, “Honestly, so much has already been said about this. All I can say is—the Korean film is out there, and so is Saiyaara. Watch both and judge for yourself. You’ll be able to tell whether it’s inspired, a copy, or an original.”
About the genesis of the Saiyaara plot, Sankalp said that it came after his discussion with director Mohit Suri. “The seed of the film came from a single emotional thought, a line that appears in the film: ‘A hit song isn’t the one that stays in your head; it’s the one that stays in your heart.’ That was the emotion we built everything else around,” the writer shared.
Mohit has previously been accused of copying Korean movie plots. Many cite that Ek Villain is inspired by I Saw The Devil and Murder 2 resembles The Chaser.