MUMBAI: The producers of an old regional film of Shilpa Shetty have announced their plans of re-releasing the film dubbed in Hindi in the first week of January 2008. This has stunned and offended the actress. Moreover, as the re-release is happening without her knowledge and consent.
 
Shetty is quite perturbed that the makers of her 2005 superhit Kannada film Auto Shankar are all set to release a dubbed Hindi version called Shilpa – The Big Don in the first week of January 2008 all over the country without her knowledge and consent.
 
To add to this, the dubbed version even has two songs devoted to Shilpa. The first one goes, Shilpa Shetty, Shilpa Shetty, Shilpa Shetty re, roop aisa ke loot jaaye hum toh yahin re. The second one goes, Shilpa Shetty iski ho gayee, Aishwarya Rai, Mumtaz bhi gayee… kaisa yeh mail hai, tu hi anmol hai, aaja aaja bahon mein.
 
The promo of Shilpa – The Big Don has several scenes where the hero talks degradingly about the heroine’s character, while apparently taming the ‘lady don’.
 
Along with Shilpa, the Kannada blockbuster directed by D. Rajendar Babu, stars south superstar Upendra along with actresses Radhika and Sudharani. The movie was filmed at a variety of locations including Austria, Finland, the Bangalore Palace and the Mysore Lamps Factory.
 
It is the story of an auto rickshaw driver called Shankar, belonging to the middle class section of the society. Shilpa, who plays a money-lender and a lady don, is portrayed as a boorish character. She is unscrupulous in recovering loans given to the poor and designs crude methods to recover money. But in the end, she learns a lesson that reforms her attitude. She makes amends and Shankar embraces her as the two fall in love.
 
The makers have even designed a website in the name of the Hindi dubbed version of the film. On having a glimpse at the film’s promo put up on the site, one can well fathom the embarrassment Shilpa will have to go through on its release.