General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20264 min read

Mr. and Mrs. Khiladi (मि. एन्ड मिसेस्. खिलाड़ी)

Mr. and Mrs. Khiladi (मि. एन्ड मिसेस्. खिलाड़ी) is a 1997 Indian Hindi-language romantic comedy film directed by David Dhawan and starring Akshay Kumar as Raja, an astrology-obsessed idler who must prove himself to the father of the woman he loves, played by Juhi Chawla.¹ It was produced by Keshu Ramsay under the D.M.S. Films banner, with Time Films also credited as a production company.¹^•² The film is part of Akshay Kumar's Khiladi series and is the only comedy among those films.³

Key fact	Detail
Release	October 1997; sources give 9 October (IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes) or 10 October (Bollywood Hungama, Box Office India)⁴^•⁵
Director / producer	David Dhawan; Keshu Ramsay¹
Lead cast	Akshay Kumar as Raja; Juhi Chawla as Shalu; Kader Khan as Badri Prasad, Shalu's father⁶
Music	Anu Malik; lyrics by Dev Kohli, Anu Malik, and Hasrat Jaipuri⁶
Story and screenplay	Rumi Jaffery, with story credit also to E.V.V. Satyanarayana⁶^•⁴
Remake source	The 1992 Telugu film Aa Okkati Adakku⁷
Series position	The only comedy in the Khiladi series; followed by Khiladi 420 (1999)³^•⁴

Spoilers

Plot

Raja is a good-for-nothing young man with blind faith in the predictions of his astrologer uncle, Chanda Mama (Satish Kaushik), who tells him he will marry a wealthy girl.⁸^•⁹ As predicted, Raja meets Shalu after their cars collide; he is injured and Shalu is arrested, and after he forgives her she falls in love with him.⁹ Shalu's father, the wealthy Badri Prasad (Kader Khan), disapproves of Raja's idle lifestyle and refuses to let the marriage be consummated until his son-in-law earns a lakh of rupees (Rs. 100,000) and hands it over.⁸^•⁹ Raja tries all the wrong ways to collect the money before finally winning a wrestling match, and learns that there is nothing wrong in working hard.⁸^•⁹

Cast and crew

Akshay Kumar plays Raja (also credited as Mr. Khiladi) and Juhi Chawla plays Shalu Prasad (Mrs. Khiladi).¹ The supporting cast includes Kader Khan as Badri Prasad, Paresh Rawal as Pratap, Satish Kaushik as Chanda Mama, Gulshan Grover as Vicky, Himani Shivpuri as Raja's mother, Anil Dhawan as Bose Babu, Rakesh Bedi as Ram Babu, Johny Lever as a bandaged patient, and Mac Mohan as a police inspector.⁶ Anjala Zaveri appears as a dancer in a special appearance.⁵

Behind the camera, Anu Malik composed the music, K. S. Prakash Rao handled cinematography, and A. Muthu was the editor.¹⁰ Rumi Jaffery wrote the story, screenplay, and dialogue.⁶ Singers on the soundtrack included Udit Narayan, Anuradha Paudwal, Abhijeet Bhattacharya, Poornima, and Sapna Mukherjee.¹⁰

Reception

The contemporary trade review in Film Information was negative. It called the story silly, objected to the father-in-law repeatedly slapping his son-in-law, and judged that Akshay Kumar, whom the public viewed as a rough-and-tough hero, would not be accepted by audiences in a role in which he is beaten so often.⁸ The same review praised the action scenes and K. S. Prakash Rao's camerawork, found Anu Malik's music to have mass appeal but no chartbuster, and reported an average opening in Bombay and a dull opening elsewhere, predicting the film might prove a loss for its distributors.⁸

Later assessments differ. IMDb trivia calls the film the first flop of Akshay Kumar's Khiladi series,⁴ while some streaming-platform descriptions describe it as a hit or a commercial success.¹¹^•⁷ On IMDb the film holds a rating of 6.3/10 from about 7,200 votes.⁴

Place in the Khiladi series

The Khiladi series began with Khiladi (1992), and Mr. and Mrs. Khiladi is the only comedy among its entries.³ Rediff.com's retrospective notes that the film introduced Akshay Kumar's deadpan comic timing to audiences, years before his better-known comedy roles.³ The series continued with Khiladi 420 in 1999.⁴

References

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026