Ranbir Kapoor is playing a larger than life quintessential Hindi film hero with the action entertainer ‘Shamshera’. He is pitted against Sanjay Dutt who is playing an evil, merciless, cold-hearted brute force of nature, Shuddh Singh. It is touted to be the clash of the year and Ranbir will be seen pulling off many visually stunning action scenes in ‘Shamshera’.
One such is a Kalaripayattu inspired edgy fight sequence which has been directed by Franz Spilhaus, who has previously choreographed films like the Denzel Washington starrer ‘Safe House’ and Hrithik Roshan and Tiger Shroff’s blockbuster ‘WAR’.
Kalaripayattu is a martial art designed for the ancient battlefield (the word Kalari meaning battlefield), with weapons and combative techniques that are unique to India. In this scene, Ranbir fights an army general with a long, deadly wooden log as their choice of weapon.
Director Karan Malhotra explains, “Shamshera is a film that is extremely rooted to India and its culture and traditions. Being set in the 1800s, it was important that action set pieces also look from that era and are mounted at a visual scale like never before. We wanted audiences to see something new and we have tried to achieve this. Ranbir is playing the Hindi film hero and he has to pull off incredible action scenes. One such scene required him to pull off a Kalaripayattu inspired fight sequence that we shot on a really dusty field and constructed an arena that resembled the arena of those times.”
Karan adds, “As an actor, Ranbir jumps at anything new. So, when we explained the scene to him, he wanted to ace it and I remember he put in many, many days rehearsing the scene with the action director of this sequence, Franz and his team. This scene is filmed on Balli, who has to fight the army general, at a hugely critical juncture of the film. It was a challenging shoot sequence. It was hot, it was humid and it was really really dusty. To make matters worse, it was also windy. But hats off to Ranbir for pulling this off with elan. This is one of the biggest highlight points of the film and I hope people love it.”
The story of ‘Shamshera’ is set in the fictitious city of Kaza, where a warrior tribe is imprisoned, enslaved and tortured by a ruthless authoritarian general Shuddh Singh. This is the story of a man who became a slave, a slave who became a leader and then a legend for his tribe. He relentlessly fights for his tribe’s freedom and dignity. His name is Shamshera.
The high-octane, adrenaline-pumping entertainer is set in the 1800s in the heartland of India.
Directed by Karan Malhotra, this action extravaganza has been produced by Aditya Chopra and is set to release in Hindi, Tamil and Telugu on July 22, 2022.
