The Khalifa brothers who produced and directed this typical punjabi formula flick hit the jackpot scoring a massive bull’s-eye as the film went on to shatter box office records in the Punjab and make history as the only film in the Punjabi language to score a Platinum Jubilee (75 week theatrical run) in Karachi where the language is not that widespread

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The film follows the theme that was the flavour of the day in those times (and some would say still is 30 plus years on). Our story begins with the local villagers of Nurpur Pind getting excited at the prospect of the Chhota Chaudhary (the junior Landlord) to arrive from the city and take up his duties not that the senior (Vadda Chaudhary) has passed on. There is a buzz of anticipation as the Chaudhary arrives but sadly, for some, he turns out to be a scoundrel of a man – debauched to the core and it’s not long before gross injustices are meted out to the poor villagers who are pretty much used to their Landlords being bastards of the worst kind.

Very soon the vile Chhota Chaudhary (legendary Punjabi villain Mazhar Shah) starts making his presence felt and his insatiable lust for local flesh results in a flurry of deaths as the corpses of young village belle’s begin to float down the local river with alarming regularity. These being the corpses of the girls who mostly commit suicide rather than allow their honour to be compromised by the ghastly Chaudhary and so they stab themselves leaving a frustrated Chaudhary with the cleaning up job to attend to – a job that is simplified by simply chucking the corpse into the river!

Meanwhile one of the upstanding villagers Anwara and his best friend – true sons of the soil are soon snared in the evil Chaudhary’s trap and Anwara is framed for his best friends murder and the following court case is rendered a farce as all the “eyewitnesses” spew a bunch of lies to help the Chaudhary get off Scot free as he always does. And so Anwara is disgraced and sentenced to years in prison and as he is dragged off he swears to take down the kingdom of the diabolical Chaudhary and avenge his friend’s death.

Time passes and Anwera’s young son grows up as an earnest young man who passes his various exams with flying colours and is soon inducted into the secret police where his first major assignment is to go to the same Nurpur pind presided over by the murderous Chhota Chaudhary and to root out the burgeoning crime in the area. But before he heads off to the Pind there is time for him and his sidekick Munawar Zareef to start a fling with two feisty beauties Naghma and her friend and much frolic and banter follows including a song where the two young ladies find that they cannot contain their happiness and must run to the local park to break out into a frenzied synchronized dance or two.

The plot thickens as the Chaudhary and his henchmen take on the new inspector who is in fact none other than the son of the wrongfully disgrace Anwera. There is another earnest young man in the village who takes no nonsense and who is least fearful of the Chaudhary’s tactics, this being Iqbal Hassan who is the son of Anwera’s mate who was murdered by the Chaudhary earlier on. Eventually the plot comes full circle as the good sons of Anwera and his mate take on the evil Chaudhary’s clan and to complicate matters further Anwera is released from jail and becomes a Dakoo (bandit) who is also on his son’s most wanted list. There are the usual fights and mayhem along the way to a barnstorming if utterly predictable climax yet somehow the movie manages to retain its fairly zippy pace and never do proceedings slow to the dullness that one has come to expect form a 160 minute film.

What certainly helped in propelling the film to its enormous success was the music of then newly discovered composers the Tafo Brothers who truly arrived on the scene as their tune sung by Madame Noor Jehan titled “Sun we Bilori Akh Waleya” became nothing less than a nationwide craze and to this day remains one of the huge evergreen classics of Lollywood film history. A short haired Naghma, in trendy slacks, goggles and body hugging polo neck top (the fashion rage in those days!) brings the house down as she attempts to seduce undercover agent Ejaz with the brisk ditty sung by Noor Jehan. Munawar Zareef does his thing to good affect including the prerequisite drag scene which he so excelled at. Though the film doesn’t really offer anything different from the formula fare being churned out by every other producer of the time – somehow the different ingredients that make up this formula clicked so perfectly together that the film was propelled to an unprecedented wave of success, riding on the craze created by Noor Jehan’s song more than anything else.

Sultan Rahi makes an appearnace in one of many villainous roles he used to snag in the early 70's. It was a few years yet before he would be transformed into the nations top screen "hero" even though by then he would have already entered his 40's proving that age hasn't traditionally been a barrier to success in Bollywood and Lollywood. After all Dharmendra, Dev Anand, Rajender Kumar, Dilip Kumar, Manoj Kumar (a college student in Clerk when he was closer to 60 rather than 16) and countless others were also cavorting around the trees wooing teenagers well into their wrinkled days. Likewise Mohammad Ali - balding and paunchy - was still a swinging hero in the 70's and later, even playing the odd college student role at well past 40.

The Khalifa brothers tried to recreate the same formula the following year with Asghara but lightening never strikes in the same spot as they soon realized. Anwara will go down in Lollywood history as a massive Box Office smash and will forever be remembered for the timeless Noor Jehan song that it spawned which remains hugely popular to this day. It may not be a classic film in the accepted sense but it certainly is classic popular Lollywood fare and provides a fascinating glimpse of the style and issues that dominated Punjabi film making in the late 60’s and early 70’s.

A rollicking crowd-pleasing entertainer that has somehow survived the ravages of time rather well and still manages to entertain. Sadly, though the themes of Lollywood films have remained rather static, the style, enthusiasm and joy of filmmaking seems to have ebbed away over the years and now similar fare is churned out but mechanically and soullessly.