Prabhas fans, who the actor lovingly addresses as Darlings, have much to look forward to this week. His pan-lingual action thriller, Saaho, which stars Shraddha Kapoor opposite him, releases on Friday. It is a treat that they’ve been waiting for, their anticipation only heightened further by the trailer of the movie, which shows the Baahubali actor engage in a myriad of mind-boggling stunts and action sequences.
Saaho, which is being released simultaneously in three languages–Hindi, Tamil and Telugu, marks Prabhas’ debut in Bollywood, and Shraddha’s debut in South cinema. The movie also stars actors from both industries: Jackie Shroff, Neil Nitin Mukesh, Vennela Kishore, Murali Sharma, Arun Vijay, Mahesh Manjrekar, Chunky Pandey, Mandira Bedi, Evelyn Sharma, Lal, Aditya Srivastava and Tinnu Anand amongst others.
In a recent interview with film critic Rajeev Masand, it was revealed that in an earlier conversation he had with Prabhas during Baahubali, the actor wanted his next project to be something simple and small-scale, like maybe a love story. And now, here we have him pulling off stunts choreographed and shot by Hollywood technicians in a 350-crore film! Of course, the forever shy actor couldn’t help but smile sheepishly at this stroke of fate, remarking that once you go Baahubali-level action, you have to big or go home. There’s no going back!
With Saaho, director Sujeeth and producers Vamsi-Pramod have pulled out all stops with the action and effects. The film has been shot in Hyderabad, Mumbai, Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Austria, Romania and other parts of Europe. In another interview, this time with The Indian Express, Prabhas revealed that technicians from Hollywood movies like Transformers and shows like Game of Thrones have worked on the slick and intense action sequences of Saaho. International stunt choreographer Kenny Bates was roped in as well.
“Shraddha Kapoor and I did a lot of training for the film. More than the actors, it was the technical crew that did a lot of planning. Kenny Bates, who did Transformers and The Italian Job, came to Hyderabad five times and they went to Dubai for the locations.”
“40 people from Hollywood, including technicians who did Game of Thrones and the best truck drivers of Transformers, have worked on this film.”
“The truck sliding you see (in the trailer) is not CGI. It is real. The truck, sliding at 40/50 KMPH speed, couldn’t stop and it banged the footpath. There are a lot of real stunts in the film.”
For an underwater sequence, Prabhas underwent training for deep sea diving. Another extensive stunt was shot atop Dubai’s Burj Khalifa with a budget of 25 crores!
But if you think the movie is all action and gun fights and no substance, then you might be proven wrong. Prabhas also revealed that director Sujeeth is a huge fan of films driven heavily by the script and screenplay. In fact, he insisted Prabhas watch a bunch of Guy Ritchie movies and even David Fincher’s Se7en to prepare for the role. While the original Telugu dialogues have been written by Sujeeth himself, the Tamil dialogues have been written by K.G.R Ashok and the Hindi ones by Abbas and Hussain Dalal (Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani, Judgementall Hai Kya).
The film’s music is already making waves amongst fans, which is barely a surprise since four of Bollywood’s most popular composers—Shankar Ehsaan Loy, Tanishk Bagchi, Guru Randhawa and Badshah—have worked on it.
Saaho, produced by T-Series, is all set to release on August 30, 2019.
Artwork: Dhawal Bhanushali / Mashable India
