Shikari Haseena (2002)
Cast: Shaan, Haseena, Babar Ali, Jan Rembo, Shafqat Cheema, Ghulam Mohiuddin, Jalal Haider, and Champu the Chimpanzee
Director: Iqbal Kashmiri
Synopsis: An infant heiress is left in the jungle to be brought up by animals and jungle folk, but the scent of money soon has evil humans causing problems.
Reviewed by: Omar Khan

It is odd that after Syed Noor’s Saima movie Jungle Queen in 2000, less than two years later, we have a second jungle adventure film introducing Haseena as a Jungle Beauty, gracing our screens, hoping to score better box office results. It boasts Shaan in a lead role supported by Babar Ali, Jan Rembo, Shafqat Cheema and Ghulam Mohiuddin in a bit role. Also, Jalal Haider is starring, known for his martial arts skills and Champu the Chimpanzee.

The film starts with Shafqat Cheema arriving at his mother’s house, where he has been banished for being the evil one of her two sons. He demands part of the family inheritance but is sent packing, yet he has a burning vengeance in his eyes. Ghulam Mohiuddin, the good son, is focused on his infant daughter as he has recently lost his wife and heads off to the jungle for a trip with his daughter despite the apparent dangers.

Misfortune strikes as some fearsome lions attack their camp, killing Mohiuddin. At the same time, in the mass confusion, his daughter is carried away into the thick of the forest, where she is rescued from a potential snake bite by a kind and vigilant eagle.

Young Haseena soon learns the ways of the jungle and builds strong bonds with the animals around her and a special bond with Champu, her companion. Later, she is guided by the friendly chimpanzee who leads her to a tribal gang led by a benevolent warrior queen, who takes the child under her wing as her own and grooms her to be the future queen.

Meanwhile, back in the city, The Shikari Haseena‘s grandmother, now lonely after losing her son Ghulam Mohiuddin, yearns to find her poti (granddaughter) one fine day. As she watches a TV program on wildlife, she recognizes a woman who is the spitting image of her daughter-in-law. She realizes that it is indeed her lost granddaughter, the heiress of the family fortunes.

Hastily, she summons the TV show producers and hires them to return to the jungle and safely bring her daughter back home. Before setting off for the dangers of the jungle, they put together a team of Karate experts headed by Jalal Haider and three curvaceous black belts, along with three dwarfs who serve as assistants named Samson, Hercules and King Kong! Babar Ali and Jan Rembo produce the TV show.

The TV crew and Jalal’s Angels are busy making headway, searching for Haseena with numerous comic interludes and spliced footage of various wildlife taken from random sources. We find a sizeable bridge-building project under threat of closure as a man-eating lion has terrified all the workers who are set to quit work and flee the scene. Shaan, as Sherdil, tries to inspire them and lectures the petri- fied workers about the valiant “Mujahids” in Siachen and the fearless suicide bombers. They throw themselves in front of enemy tanks and bullets for their cause. These dialogues come as no surprise from a man who had planned to film a eulogy to Osama Bin Laden not so

Shikari Haseena long ago. He promises to eliminate the man-eater, which is borrowed and spliced in from The Ghost and the Darkness!

The brave warrior that Sherdil is kills the beast from another film, saves the day and the bridge project, and heads home for some good loving from his gorgeous wife.

Shafqat Cheema, happy that his brother is dead, discovers that his path to the family inheritance is blocked by the emergence of a granddaughter who happens to be living in the jungle. He, too, gathers his resources, heading off for the jungle to eliminate the Shikari Haseena so he can claim all the wealth for himself.

Meanwhile, in the jungle, Babar Ali is badly injured and rescued by Haseena, who nurses him back to total health, and love gradually blossoms between them. Haseena doesn’t have communication issues as Saima, the Jungle Queen, did as she is well-versed in Urdu, the tribal folk have taught her the language, and she is reasonably socially adept.

In his hunt for Haseena, Shafqat Cheema happens to come across Shaan’s jungle home and brutally rapes and murders his wife as the plot begins to thicken around the halfway mark.

Now, a devastated Shaan pursues his wife’s killer while the TV crew and Cheema are chasing after Shikari Haseena. Unknown to the TV Crew he arrived with, Babar Ali has already found Haseena but is keen on hanging out in the jungle with the tribal lot and is not in any hurry to return her to the city and her grandmother. And so, the film winds its way to its climax with some thrilling fight scenes, thanks primarily to Jalal Haider’s expertise in the martial arts department. There are several songs along the way, none of them particularly memorable. Still, Champu impresses with his acting skills, indeed, it is rare that a real animal is employed rather than a man in an ape suit, which is the norm.

Shaan is a bit heavy-handed with his sermonising and better in the mute action sequences. Shafqat Cheema looks especially fetching in his blonde jungle wig, and Jaan Rembo is rapid-fire with his cheap innuendos and quips. The scene where he gropes the private parts of a jungle giant and passes out from penis envy is a bit of a shock.

Haseena cuts a striking image and is a lethal shot with her bow and arrow, but sadly, her film career didn’t take off as the film tanked at the box office.

The bevvy of featured karate beauties performs their roles admirably, along with the trio of dwarfs. The Jungle Tribe Queen is adequate in her role, as is Babar Ali as Haseena’s romantic interest, but the grandmother is uninteresting, leaving Champu to steal the acting honours.

Nawab Saghar provides some decent makeup effects, and his blood fountain from the final fight sequence is noteworthy. The wildlife scenes are mostly footage taken from various nature shows, borrowed from other wildlife-oriented films, and spliced crudely in the typical Lollywood method for jungle movies. The total lack of effort

Shikari Haseena to blend them in with the scenery gives the film a crudeness that is ideally in keeping with the production’s tone in general; crude and shoddy.

Shikari Haseena would never be up for any awards for acting or filmmaking by a long stretch. Yet it manages to amuse for a couple of hours, and in comparison, to Jungle Queen from a couple of years before, it rates marginally higher for entertainment value.

The film’s highlight might be Champu’s performance and the story’s moral, which clearly states that animals are more trustworthy than humans.