Many flopped, with a few exceptions:

• Parijat’s novel ‘Sirishko Phool‘ was one of the best novel in the history of Nepali literature. The award winning novel was made into a movie by a Japanese director. But, the movie version of the book flopped.
• Last year, a movie titled ‘Seto Bagh‘ was released. The movie was made on the story of a very popular novel by Diamond Shumsher JBR ‘Seto Bagh’. The movie however couldn’t re-create the charms of the literary work and flopped miserably. A TV serial of the same book was also shot at the time of the movie. I have no information on the fate of the TV serial.
• Writer Karna Shakya wrote a book titled ‘Pal‘ and then made it into a movie by the same name. The book was fairly popular but, the movie wasn’t much successful.
• A Gopal Prasad Mainali’s very popular book ‘Masan‘ was also made into a movie by the same name. The art movie also didn’t come anywhere near the popularity of the book.
• Krishna Dharabashi’s story ‘Jhola‘ was also made into a movie and released in 2014. The movie was successful in winning the top actress award in SAARC Film Festival and was also a commercial success.

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Those were some of the latest Nepali movie made on well known books and stories by well known literary figures. Apart from ‘Jhola’ no other movies were successful. Now, another book – ‘Summer Love’ is being made into a movie. The questions are being raised if the film makers could justify the story of the book or not. Although the team is credible and the artists look promising, we would need to wait till the release to know if it will be as successful as the book itself.

These are not the only movies made on books.

Following are more than a dozen Nepali movies made based on popular literately works.

• Kumari (a 1977 movie) based on Govinda Bahadur Malla, Gothale story ‘Kumari Shova’
• Paralko Aago – Based on ‘Naso’ by Guru Prasad Mainali
• Jeevan Rekha – Based on ‘Antya Dekhi Shuru’ by Keshav Raj Pindali
• Basudev – Based on ‘Kattel Sirko Chotpatak’ by Dhruba Chandra Gautam
• Prem Pinda – Based on a book by Balkrishna Sama titled ‘Prem Pinda’
• Basanti – Based on a novel by Diamond Shumsher JBR titled ‘Basanti’
• Muna Madan – Based on Laxmi Prasad Devkota’s book ‘Muna Madan’
• Basai – Based on Lil Bahadur Chhetri’s novel ‘Basai’
• Masan – Based on Gopal Prasad Rimals book ‘Masan’
• Shirish ko Phool – Based on Parijat’s novel ‘Shirish Ko Phool’
• Pal – Based on Karna Shakya’s book ‘Pal’
• Jhola – Based on Krishna Dharabashi’s story ‘Jhola’
• Seto Bagh – Diamond Shumsher JBR’s novel ‘Seto Bagh’

Some of the movies mentioned above are available to watch in full in xnepali:

• Watch ‘Paralko Aago’ here
• Watch ‘Basudev’ here
• Watch ‘Prem Pinda’ here
• Watch ‘Basanti’ here
• Watch ‘Masan’ here
• Watch ‘Pal’ here
• Watch ‘Jhola’ here

Director and producer Nir Shah has been quite fond of recreating popular books into movies. He is credited for the production of ‘Masan’, ‘Seto Bagh’, ‘Basanti’, ‘Prem Pinda’ etc.

(Please comment if you know other movies made on Nepali books. )