Starring: Humayun Naz, Shahood Alvi, Sonia Khan, Akbar Subhani and others.
Released: July 1999; on 2 cassettes.
Directed by Shamoon Abbasi
The story is about leftmenu guys who visit the Murree area and of course fall in love with leftmenu girls from the Murree area. Humayun's character (Rimal) falls for Sonia Khan, but Sonia is engaged with someone else (the town bad guy, smuggler, murderer etc.) The story is fine upto here (read cliched). Then from somewhere comes a ghost that starts haunting Rimal and wants Rimal to come with her. The ghost's name is Muskaan, and this is where the story looses its track, and the viewer is totally befuddled! I had no idea what Muskaan was talking about, but from Rimal's cliched expressions I could only guess it had something to do with finding inner peace?
My apologies for writing such a confusing review, but I was confused myself. If someone has an answer as to what this story was really about, I would greatly appreciate it. My advice don't watch this play even if you are bored out of your mind, because it is an enormous waste of time.
Now coming to the directorial aspects of the play. Shamoon fails to impress. Because of the evident fog in the northern areas of Pakistan, the picture is very fuzzy and not easy on the eyes. There is one boring song to attract the foreign audience but it fails to leave an impression. Beautiful locales won't a successful play make if your story is very confusing and paper thin. Next time Shamoon focus on a strong story, it doesn't matter if it's based around the "kaachi gaalis" of Lahore or Karachi. Humayun Naz as a young lover is hard to swallow. Shahood is there to provide comic relief, but when the viewer is involved in trying to figure out the story, jokes don't really sound funny.