Krrish () is a 2006 Indian Hindi-language superhero action thriller film directed and produced by Rakesh Roshan. The film stars Hrithik Roshan in the main dual lead role, alongside Priyanka Chopra, Naseeruddin Shah, Rekha, Sharat Saxena and Manini Mishra. It is the second instalment in the Krrish franchise and a sequel to Koi... Mil Gaya. In the film, Krishna Mehra, who has superhuman abilities like his father Rohit Mehra, falls in love with Priya and follows her to Singapore, where he takes on the superhero persona of Krrish and sets out to thwart the plans of the evil scientist Dr. Siddhant Arya, who is creating a supercomputer which shows the future.
Krrish was conceived to be a film of global significance and a trendsetter in Indian cinema, with VFX on par with those from Hollywood. To that end, the effects team was aided by Marc Kolbe and Craig Mumma and the action scenes were choreographed by Tony Ching. The music was composed by Rajesh Roshan, while the background score was composed by Salim–Sulaiman. Filming was done to a large extent in Singapore as well as India.
Krrish was released on 23 June 2006 at a budget of 40 crore and, on over 1000 prints both near-record amounts for an Indian film at the time. The film received positive reviews from critics and received a record opening week at the box office. A blockbuster, Krrish grossed a worldwide total of 126 crore, becoming the second highest-grossing Indian film of 2006, behind Dhoom 2. The film received 8 nominations at the 52nd Filmfare Awards, including Best Film, Best Director (Rakesh), Best Actor (Hrithik) and Best Supporting Actress (Rekha) and won 3 awards, including Best Special Effects. At the 8th IIFA Awards, the film received 9 nominations, and won 3 awards, including Best Actor (Hrithik). It also won the National Film Award for Best Special Effects.
Krrish marked a significant turning point in Indian cinema, as it helped pioneer the mainstream superhero genre in Indian cinema and set a new benchmark for visual effects in Indian films. It has become the highest grossing Indian superhero film at the time of its release. It was one of the first Indian productions to integrate large-scale CGI and wire-work stunts comparable to international standards. The film was envisioned to be a genre-defining spectacle that could appeal to both Indian and global audiences, blending science fiction, romance, action, and mythology. The third film in the series, Krrish 3 was released in 2013 whereas, the fourth installment was expected to begin shooting in early 2026. But is undergoing hiatus because of scheduling concerns.
Plot Krishna Mehra, the orphaned son of the deceased couple, Dr. Rohit and Nisha, lives in the small town of Kasauli with his grandmother Sonia. His school principal suspects that Krishna has inherited Rohit's superhuman abilities. Shocked at this, Sonia takes the child to a remote mountain village in Himachal Pradesh to conceal his identity.
Two decades later, Krishna, now a village youngster, meets vacationing girls Priya and Honey, who are camping with their group near his home. After Krishna saves Priya from a hang glider accident, they become friends and grow close. Before leaving, the girls had seen some of his special abilities. After returning to Singapore, they are fired by their boss for taking an extended vacation.
In an attempt to keep their jobs, Honey suggests inviting Krishna to Singapore and making a television program about him. However, Sonia protests this, leading Krishna to question the reason behind her strictness. She states that the people there will only exploit his abilities and reveals the story of his father Rohit and his adventures with Jadoo. Rohit became a renowned scientist, married Nisha and worked with Dr. Siddhant Arya to create a supercomputer that predicted calamities. On the night of Krishna's birth, Rohit contacted them to inform that he was quitting the project and returning, but then reportedly died in a laboratory accident. Nisha died shortly after. Krishna promises her that he will never reveal his powers and she permits him to go to Singapore, aware of his feelings towards Priya.
Krishna arrives in Singapore and befriends a stunt performer, Kristian Li, who is attempting to raise funds to pay for his young sister's surgery. Kristian invites them to the Great Bombay Circus, but during an act, a firework explodes and ignites the tent, trapping several children. Krishna dons a broken black clown's mask lying on the floor and wears his jacket on inside-out, creating the persona of Krrish. As Krrish is being offered a reward for his deeds, Krishna asks Kristian to assume his identity so that he can pay for his sister's surgery.
Meanwhile, Priya and Honey learn that Krishna is Krrish after seeing the footage from Priya's videocamera. They decide to release it to make him a world-famous celebrity. During their discussions, Krishna arrives and overhears them. Just before Priya confesses that she has genuinely fallen in love with Krishna, he leaves, feeling heartbroken. After he confronts her, Priya gets to know about the Mehra family's tragic past. She sets out to stop her boss from revealing Krrish's identity.
In the process, Priya meets Vikram Sinha, the senior security officer of Dr. Arya, who has been searching for Krishna and Sonia for the past 20 years. Sinha reveals that Rohit is still alive, and they were close friends. After completing the machine, they tested it, saw Krishna being born and were further shocked to see Dr. Arya holding Rohit at gunpoint. Rohit destroys the computer after realizing Dr. Arya will use it only for his own needs, but Arya shoots him. Rohit's heartbeat and retina scans are needed to access the computer so Arya keeps him as a prisoner in a comatose state until he can rebuild it.
Meanwhile, Dr. Arya who has re-built the computer gets shocked to see Krrish killing him. Dr. Arya quickly visits Kristian's house and shoots Kristian dead. After learning about Kristian's death, Krishna suits up and uses his superhuman speed to pursue Dr. Arya to his remote island, where he had imprisoned Rohit. When Dr. Arya looks into the future again, he sees that the visual has not changed. When Krrish enters the compound, he defeats Arya's thugs, but Dr. Arya shoots Sinha dead and holds Priya and Rohit at gunpoint. Krrish saves Priya and Rohit and injures Dr. Arya fatally. After revealing to Rohit that Krishna is his son, Krishna and Priya take Rohit with them back to India, reuniting him with Sonia. Rohit re-uses the supercomputer created by his late father to summon Jadoo, and thanks him for his family once again.
Cast
Special appearances Puneet Issar as Komal Singh, Priya's camp leader Akash Khurana as Father Robericks, Principal of the Catholic School Mithilesh Chaturvedi as Mr. Mathur, Rohit's former computer teacher Archana Puran Singh as Nayantara, Priya and Honey's boss Kiran Juneja as Amisha Kalyanan, Priya's mother Preity Zinta as Nisha Mehra, Rohit's wife and Krishna's mother
Production
Development In November 2004, the Roshans confirmed they would produce a sequel to Koi... Mil Gaya (2003). They announced that actors Hrithik Roshan and Rekha would return for the sequel, but that Preity Zinta would be replaced by Priyanka Chopra. Chopra also confirmed the same, adding, "The story will start where Koi... Mil Gaya ended." Before Chopra, Amrita Rao was cast as the female lead, and she and Hrithik starred in a photoshoot. However, the results of the photoshoot left Rakesh Roshan dissatisfied, and thus Rao was removed from the project. Rakesh Roshan hoped that the film would be remembered as the first to prove that the Indian film industry is equal to Hollywood. He decided to push the story forward by focusing on the son of the previous films's protagonist, who would inherit his father's special abilities. The story combined elements of Indian mythology (the main character's name Krishna alludes to the Hindu Lord Krishna), Chinese martial arts and Hollywood films to set itself up as a film of global significance.
Pre-production
Rakesh Roshan wanted Krrish to be a trendsetter in Indian cinema, with visual effects on par with Hollywood films. He hired Hollywood special effects experts Marc Kolbe and Craig Mumma, who had both previously worked on such films as Independence Day, Godzilla and Sky Captain, to help create the visual effects for the film. Roshan also hired Hong Kong action director Tony Ching after admiring his work in Hero. Before production began, Hrithik Roshan went to China to train with Ching for the cable work that would be needed to make his character "fly". A storyboard of the film was prepared and sent to Ching to help him develop the action sequences. Additional production credits include: Farah Khan – choreographer, Samir Chanda and Sham Kaushal – art directors, Baylon Fonesca and Nakul Kamte – sound, Nahush Pise – makeup artist, Sham Kaushal – assistant action director.
Filming Krrish was the first Indian film to be shot in Singapore under the Singapore Tourism Board's Film-in-Singapore subsidy scheme, and over 60% of the film was shot there. Shooting was accomplished on location over a span of 2 months, from September to November 2005. Locations featured included the Singapore Zoo, the Gateway building, and the Singapore National Library. Another major filming location was Robinson Road, where heavy rains caused production delays. The Singapore police were on location to block roads and protect the filming equipment, such as when the film's action scenes required two 250-foot high industrial cranes. Author Audrey Yue noted that the film shoot benefited Singapore by leading to domestic and Indian film-induced tourism.
Filming also took place in Manali and Film City in Mumbai. During filming of a flying stunt, one of the wires that was tied to Hrithik Roshan broke, causing him to fall 50 feet, though he landed safely on a shop's canopy. Hrithik described the incident as a "freak accident", stating, "I was skydiving to my death till I fell on a six-feet-long canopy of a shop that was out because of the slight drizzle. The canopy had iron rods. But I missed those rods too. What do I say? I guess the right word to describe the situation would be jadoo (magic)." Roshan also suffered other injuries during the film's production. He tore the hamstring in his right leg during a circus scene, singed his hair while running through fire in another action scene, and broke his thumb and toe during strenuous training for the wirework.
Post-production
Indian firm Prasad EFX assigned a team of more than 100 VFX specialists to work with Marc Kolbe and Craig Mumma to create the visual effects for the film. Included were sophisticated 3D modelling and computer animation, including whole body scans, 3D replicas of vehicles, fire sequences, complicated wire removals and compositing work. They prepared over 1,200 VFX shots, accounting for approximately 90 minutes of screen time. Describing the effects, Rakesh Roshan stated, "If you liked the visual effects in Koi... Mil Gaya, you will find them far better in Krrish. I do not think audiences have seen anything like this in Hindi films."Subhash K. Jha, Indo-Asian News Service, Mumbai, 18 June 2006
Music
The film's soundtrack, composed by Rajesh Roshan, was released on 28 April 2006 by T-Series. Lyricists included Ibraheem Ashk, Nasir Faraaz, and Vijay Akela. Salim–Sulaiman provided the background score. It became the seventh best-selling Bollywood soundtrack of the year. Marketing
As a part of the marketing, Merchandise was offered for sale prior to the film's release to maximize profits. These included action figures, masks, and other toys.
A Krrish game was made in 2006 by Indiagames after the release of Krrish.
Release Theatrical