Actors Vatsal Sheth and Ayesha Takia made their Hindi film debut with Abbas-Mustan-directed thriller ‘Taarzan- The Wonder Car’. The film had Ajay Devgn in a special role as Vatsal’s father and also starred the likes of Amrish Puri, Farida Jalal, Sadashiv Amrapurkar, Shakti Kapoor, and Gulshan Grover. The film revolves around Raj who revamps his deceased father's car into a wonderful car named Taarzan.
However, the car comes alive as it is possessed by his father's spirit. Soon, it also starts killing his father's murderers. Released on August 6, 2004, the film has completed two decades since its release in theatres.
ADVERTISEMENT On Vatsal's birthday, we revisit the story behind him bagging the lead role in the film. Talking to mid-day.com, Vatsal had said that he could not have asked for a better debut despite the film getting into the unfamiliar territory of a revenge car.
"I was never skeptical and was more than excited. Abbas-Mustan is a very big name in the industry and I got to debut under them, It was a car movie, and who doesn't like cars? It was such an amazing concept, set up in a nice way, big budget film and we had Ajay sir in the film. I thought it couldn't get better than that," he said.
While the film underperformed at the box office, it soon achieved cult status as people discovered the film on satellite and eventually on OTT platforms. "Unfortunately, when films don't do well at the box office, there are a lot of reasons- Correct time, publicity, market.