Aamir Khan is an Indian actor, film director, and producer who works in Hindi films. Throughout his 30-year career, Khan has established himself as one of the most popular and influential actors in Indian cinema. Born in 1965 in Mumbai, he is a Bollywood superstar.

His 2001 crossover hit and cult classic Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India (a Hindi-language sports musical) and 2017’s Secret Superstar (a Hindi-language musical drama inspired by a teenage Muslim singer/songwriter who had a fatwa issued against her for singing in public) are just two of the successful films he’s appeared in. His movies are also big hits in Chinese markets.

He is known as “Mr. Perfectionist” in the Indian film industry and has also been called the Tom Hanks of India — which may help explain why he wanted to remake one of Hanks’ most loved movies.

The saga of Forrest Gump started with a 1986 novel by Winston Groom. The title character recalls his life as he bumbles his way through American history, with everything from the Vietnam War to Watergate becoming part of the story.

Here is a bare-bones description of the plot of the movie:

Slow-witted Forrest Gump (Tom Hanks) has a low I.Q. but has never thought of himself as disadvantaged, thanks to his supportive unmarried mother (Sally Field), who constantly reminds him that he can do anything anybody else can do. Bullied by other school kids as a child, he starts to run — fast — and this opens up opportunities in his life that are surprising. He becomes a high school football star and goes to the University of Alabama as a star athlete. He graduates college, enlists in the army, and is sent to Vietnam. There, he meets platoon-mate Bubba (Mykelti Williamson) who wants to go into a shrimping business together, and Lieutenant Dan Taylor (Gary Sinise). Their platoon is ambushed and, while he can’t save Bubba, Forrest rescues Dan (who has lost both legs). In the army hospital, he becomes a ping-pong expert. Back home, Forrest receives the Congressional Medal of Honor and a paddle sponsorship deal for enough money to allow him to buy a shrimp boat. Dan joins him in the venture and they become a huge success, after which Dan invests their profits in Apple and they both become wealthy.

Throughout this basic story, Forrest’s life intersects with major events in American history (assassinations, desegregation of schools, Watergate).

The first time he sees her on the school bus, Forrest falls in love with Jenny (played by Robin Wright). Her father is abusive, and Jenny prays that God will turn her into a bird so she can fly away. Her father ends up killing her mother and is sentenced to life in prison, after which Jenny lives with her grandmother. Her life intersects with Forrest’s at moments over the years, but she’s a hippie social activist who later gets addicted to drugs and contracts a virus that we’re led to assume is AIDS. Forrest pines for her throughout his life, and they make love one Fourth of July, but she always ends up leaving him. After that, Forrest goes out for “a little run,” and ends up running across America four times. When he finally goes home, he finds that he and Jenny have a son, little Forrest. They marry before Jenny dies.

Forrest Gump is a much-loved movie and won the following Academy Awards in 1995:

Best Picture, Best Director (Robert Zemeckis), Best Male Actor in a Leading Role (Tom Hanks), Best Writing/Adapted Screenplay (Eric Roth), Best Visual Effects (Ken Ralston, George Murphy, Stephen Rosenbaum, Allen Hall), Best Editing (Arthur Schmidt).

Now, let’s look at Laal Singh Chaddha, a 2022 Indian Hindi-language remake of Forrest Gump, directed by Advait Chandan from a screenplay by Eric Roth and Atul Kulkarni.

Most of the story and characters stick pretty closely to the original story — Laal’s single mother (Mona Singh) is determined to give him every advantage a normal child would have. His running is spurred by childhood bullying. His love, Rupa (Kareena Kapoor) comes from the same abusive home as Jenny — but instead of praying to become a bird, Rupa prays for lots of money so she can escape forever. She wants to become a rich and famous actress.

Other tonal differences: Instead of waiting for a bus on a bench all day like Forrest, Laal is on a train, where more and more people gather to listen to his life story. Instead of Elvis, Laal meets a young Shah Rukh Khan (an Indian superstar). And to be expected, the historical sequences that intersect with Laal’s life are based on Indian history instead of American. They include events such as the Emergency (declared under times of political instability and internal disturbances), Operation Blue Star (a military operation to remove separatist militants from the Golden Temple), the 1983 World Cup (which India won), and the 1990 Mandal Commission riots (to address caste discrimination in jobs and education).

Laal’s mother sends both him and Rupa to Hindu College in Delhi, where Laal becomes a track star and Rupa joins modeling/acting competitions, hoping for money and success.

After college, Rupa goes to Mumbai to pursue her acting career. Laal joins the Army and meets his friend Bala Bodi (Naga Chaitanya), whose family has been in the manufacture of undergarments for years, which he wants Laal to join — so instead of a shrimp boat, we find Laal in the underwear business. Bodi is killed in the 1999 Kargil war with Pakistan. When Laal runs away from the battle and goes back to rescue fellow soldiers (for which he is awarded a medal from the Indian government), he also finds the wounded Pakistani commander, Mohammed Baali (played by Maniv Vij), but doesn’t realize he’s the enemy and rescues him, too.

Fulfilling the plot function of Lieutenant Dan, the Pakistani Baali, who had lost both legs in the war, joins Laal’s underwear company, which he has named after Rupa. It becomes a great success. Baali goes back to Pakistan to open a school. After Laal’s mother dies, Laal devotes his time to agriculture on their land. Rupa pops up at intervals, but she has become a gangster’s mistress and is sent to prison. This starts Laal’s epic run from the Himalayas to Kanyakumari, from the desert in the west to the Bay of Bengal in the east. One day he just gets tired and goes home.

When he gets home, he discovers that Rupa has written him a lot of letters; she is out of jail and living in Chandigarh. Laal discovers they have a child named Aman. They marry, but Rupa has a fatal illness and dies. The movie ends with Aman going to the same school as Laal had in his youth.

So, yes, this is definitely a conscientious remake of Forrest Gump, but life is no longer like a box of chocolates (as Forrest says), it’s like a golgappa (a crispy fried treat).