During the promotional tour of Rocky Handsome, John Abraham shared details about his month-long training in Thailand, learning new martial arts techniques and how he would soon make a film which will bring bikes back to the fore. Shrabasti Mallik reports
We have seen him beat up the bad guys and deliver some hard packed punches but with Rocky Handsome, John Abraham will be taking action in movies (especially in Bollywood) to a whole new level. If you have seen the trailer of the movie, you will know what we are taking about. And what’s more interesting is that the actor himself believes that the forms of martial arts that are depicted in the movie will soon become a trend in the industry. “Specially the Silat. It is a form of martial arts which uses knives and it will catch up soon,” Abraham sounded optimistic.
From the looks of it, the movie is going to be a thorough action film but we were told that everything in the movie generates from the bond that Abraham’s character shares with a seven-year-old girl. Abraham said, “It is a fantastic film — fully commercial, emotional and action roller coaster. It is two hours of relentless action.”
In many ways, both the director and the actor feels that the movie will raise the bar of how India sees action. And Abraham believes in delivering an act rather than just saying it. It was when the two were deciding on the movie that they realised they needed to present action which would be a few notches higher than Force. “When we decided to do this film we knew that we had to push the envelope. We decided to take it a few notches higher and went to the oriental belt — Chinese, Japanese, Korean martial arts. We hired a team from Thailand and when they demonstrated it, we realised how difficult it would be to pull it off. But John went there and trained to get in tune with that kind of action,” Kamath explained.
Speaking about his character, Kabir Ahlawat, Abraham shared, “The character is complex and layered. He is hard and there is a lot that has happened in his life. And as the story unfolds, the audience will know the experiences the character has been through and why he is like that. When you see it you will understand what a beautifully and emotionally charged film it is.”
Apart from all the action and the fighting, there is a little girl at the heart of the movie. Both Kamath and Abraham were all praises for her. Abraham said, “We feel that it is difficult to work with children. But Diya has been very special because she has been always been on time and is a very disciplined kid. It was a joy having her in the film,” to which the director added, “We were initially worried about how we would manage a six and a half year old kid because they are impatient and at the end of the day, get cranky and exhausted. But with Diya we had no problems.”
Unlike others in the industry, neither of them denied the fact that the movie is based on a Korean film titled The Man From Nowhere. In fact, Kamath said, “It’s adapted because no matter how hard you try, you cannot make a Korean film. It will not be palatable for the Indian audiences. It was adapted with Indian sensibilities, or rather my sensibilities. Also, inspite of being an action film, it is a musical — it has five songs. You cannot take a Korean film and put in songs. I took the story because it was interesting and then moulded it to the way John was playing the character.”
Did you know that Kamath plays the villain in the movieIJ “Something that I will never do again. It happened by accident because I had to fill in for the actor when he backed out. I am used to doing theatre but acting and direction I have never done together. It is scary because I used to get confused on the sets. But direction has always been my first love and I enjoy acting but not the two together,” he laughed.
Talking about his love for bikes, Abraham said that he is looking forward to doing a movie that would bring bikes to the fore. “Nowadays bikes are used as props where people dance around it. I want to change that,” he pointed out. When asked about his different choices when it comes to acting and producing he said that he wants to marry commerce with content. “I have different visions. I like working in films that are entertaining, but as a producer my visions are different,” he concluded.
photos Pankaj Kumar