Lafangey Plagiarism and Vulgar Dialogues Allegations Raise Creativity Concerns

Now, before we examine this case of plagiarism, let us know few things about this latest movie yet to be released, Lafangey which is written and helmed by Abdull Khaaliq Khan. Produced by Tariq Habib Rind, the film casts Sami Khan, Mani, Saleem Mairaj, Mubeen Gabol, and Nazish Jahangir. The film is scheduled to release on Eid-ul-Azha 2022. Many times Lollywood has blatantly coped Bollywood and the other way around as well. Has this happened with Lafangey also?  The film touches base with the genre of horror-comedy that bears striking similarities with the 2017 Indian Telugu film ‘Anando Brahma‘.

The plot of Lafangey primarily revolves around four men who enter into a haunted house just for some personal gains. Right from the word go, the setup, the production design, lifted characters, camera angles, and edit points, every frame is copied from ‘Anando Brahma,’ be it the sequence where Mani plays the flute in front of an empty chair or Nazish Jehangir’s mirror scene to the finale act where Saleem Mairaj is flying on a chair.

Hopefully many of you must remember the 2017 Chupan Chupai that starred Ahsan Khan and Neelam Muneer which turned out to be a decent hit at the box office but alsoshocked us by being an exact copy of the 2013 Tamil movie ‘Soodhu Kavvum‘. Why not create some unique content instead of an indecent duplicate?  Pakistan has enormous talent, and the talent of our writers should be challenged to create good scripts. Filmmakers should focus on elevating their public image and be distinctive to enlighten and entertain the audience.

Moreover, Entertainer Salman Saqib Sheikh, popularly known as Mani’s Eidul Azha release Lafangey has been “banned” by the censor boards for its “objectionable content, vulgar and double meaning language.” However, Mani has informed that the film’s fate has to be decided yet, as censor boards are yet to officially announce whether it should be released or not. Lafangey makers are currently waiting on approvals from Central Board of Film Censors (CBFC) and Punjab Censor Board while the Sindh Censor Board’s approval depends on the removal of certain dialogues.

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Upon the allegedly vulgar dialogues, he claimed that humour can be different for all and such dialogues have previously been used in numerous other Pakistani movies. He said that he doesn’t understand the criteria which censor board has set as many previous movies had same dialogues and bold scenes as well. Mani said, “We haven’t received a notice as of yet. I don’t understand why Punjab and Sindh boards exist when the final decision has to be made by CBFC only. They’ve seen both the film and the version where we cut certain dialogues upon their demand. We haven’t received any written notice after that. They’re delaying it as much as they can so our film can’t come on Eid and we’re not stupid to release it after that. There’s no business for films in Pakistan except for on Eid.”