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In the Hindi version, Beera (Abhishek Bachchan) kidnaps Ragini Sharma (Aishwarya Rai) to avenge the death of his sister at the hands of her husband, Dev Pratap Sharma (Vikram).

In the Tamil version, named Raavanan, Aishwarya Rai repeated her portrayal of Ragini, while Vikram portrayed Veera and Prithviraj portrayed Dev Sharma.

Inspired by the Ramayana, the director of Dil Se, Mani Ratnam, filmed both the Hindi and Tamil versions simultaneously.

Tropes used in Raavan include:
  • A Match Made in Stockholm: Between Beera and Ragini.
  • Almost Kiss: The film makes a point of saying that Veera/Beera "never touched" Ragini in all the time he held her captive. This is in the figurative sense: they did actually physically touch, several times, but not in a romantic way. This is a challenge of sorts to the original myth, where Rama accuses Sita of adultery after he rescues her.
  • Anti-Villain: Beera is Type I.
    • Dev arguably becomes Type III by the end of the movie.
  • Downer Ending
  • Gray and Gray Morality
  • Hero Antagonist: Dev although he does a lot of not-so-heroic things and arguably becomes a bigger villain in the movie than Beera himself.
  • "I Am" Song: Beera
  • I Have Your Wife: Naturally.
  • Manipulative Bastard: Dev.
  • Meaningful Name: Dev means "god", and Beera means "warrior". While the western viewer may not recognize it, this is actually pretty blatant symbolism, since versions of both are common words in many indian languages. They only get away with it since both words are commonly also used as names, but think, for example, if you have a Spanish movie where a character is named Jesus, and then he actually turns out to be a Jesus figure. That's how obvious it is.
  • Roaring Rampage of Rescue: Dev.
  • Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Beera.
  • Trickster: Sanjeevani Kumar, played by Govinda is essentially Hanuman from Ramayana.
  • Villain Protagonist: Beera though an anti-villain would probably be a better term.
  • Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters: How the villagers feel about Beera.