Mumbai: Bollywood actor Ranbir Kapoor learned the art of the traditional martial art Kalaripayattu for one of the fighting sequences of his upcoming film “Shamshera”. Ranbir, who is coming to the big screen four years after delivering the blockbuster ‘Sanju’, is pitted against Sanjay Dutt, who plays Shuddh Singh, an evil, ruthless, cold-hearted brute force of nature. .
The film features an edgy fight sequence inspired by Kalaripayattu, directed by Franz Spielhaus, who has previously choreographed films like Denzel Washington starrer Safe House and Hrithik Roshan and Tiger Shroff’s blockbuster ‘War’.
Sharing the idea behind the sequence and how Ranbir executed it, director Karan Malhotra said, “Being set in the 1800s it was important that the action set pieces also show from that era. And the scenes are set on a scale like before. We wanted the audience to see something new and we have tried to achieve that.
“Ranbir is playing the hero of the Hindi film and has to pull off incredible action sequences. One such scene required him to pull off a Kalaripayattu-inspired fight sequence which we actually shot on a dusty ground and Had built an arena which resembled those people’s arena. Bar!”
Karan further added, “As an actor, Ranbir does anything new! So, when we explained to him about the scene, he wanted to like it and I remember he acted as the action director of this sequence. Together, Franz and his team rehearsed the scene for several days.
“The scene is shot on Bally, who has to fight an army general at a very crucial juncture in the film. It was a challenging shooting sequence.”
“It was hot, it was humid and it was really dusty. To make matters worse, it was windy too. But salute to Ranbir for pulling it off perfectly. It’s one of the biggest highlight points of the film. Is.”
Produced by Aditya Chopra, ‘Shamshera’ is slated to release on July 22, 2022 in Hindi, Tamil and Telugu.