It's billed the bloodiest movie India has ever made. Its famous producers want the world to see it
Karan Johar, Guneet Monga Kapoor brought bloody martial arts thriller to TIFF
It's a bloody, unabating martial arts thriller set almost entirely on a train.
That made Kill, an extreme action movie from India, an appropriate fit for the Toronto International Film Festival's Midnight Madness section, where it premiered last week.
Driven by a love story, Kill follows a commander and his army friend while on a passenger train that is suddenly attacked by a team of petty bandits. The commander and his friend fight back — but a mid-film twist pushes the protagonist to an extreme place that considerably raises the stakes (and the blood-curdling violence).
The film is directed by Nikhil Nagesh Bhat and produced by popular Indian filmmaker Karan Johar. The latter is largely known for directing romantic comedies and social dramas — including the 2001 domestic drama Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham, affectionately known to fans as K3G.
"It is a non-stop actioner and can very well be called blood porn," said Johar. "It's blood like you've never seen before in Indian cinema. And it's blood that is cynically, I might say, almost enjoyable to watch."
Johar and his co-producer, Oscar winner Guneet Monga Kapoor, spoke with CBC News about reinventing Indian genre film, how the country's regional cinemas are transcending borders and why the Canadian market is hungry for movies made in India.
The filmmaking duo had a vision: What if they made a violent action movie inspired by Train to Busan, Snowpiercer and The Raid — but one that eclipses these films in pace and gore? What if it had intense fight choreography designed by South Korea's Se-yeong Oh, a prolific stunt co-ordinator whose credits include the revenge classic Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance and Best Picture winner Parasite.
The producers set out to make a movie unlike any ever previously made in India.
"We've never made a genre film that is restricted to a train with so much action and violence and gore," Johar said.
"We almost feel like we have to give a disclaimer to an audience: Watch it on an empty stomach. Watch it at your own risk."
Johar and Monga Kapoor decided they would need a fresh-faced newcomer — a new action star in an industry filled with them — who would be willing to give one year of his life. They found him in first-time actor Laksh Lalwani, also known as Lakshya.
That level of dedication was necessary to stage the high-concept action film, which required months of preparation and training, an extensive undertaking given the scope and continuity of its action scenes, Monga Kapoor said. It's two against 40 as the protagonists fight to take down the thieves, known as dacoit in Hindi, in a claustrophobic space.
"It's not like a drama. You're preparing for it long before you actually come to the set," she said.
'Indian cinema is now ruling the roost,' says producer
Because of the success of Bollywood musicals — known for their lively numbers, infectious songs and lengthy runtimes — North American audiences might not have a thorough conception of how large, multilingual the wider Indian film industry is.
"Indian cinema tends to get slotted as a song-and-dance filmmaking nation," said Johar, who is also the owner of India's second-largest production company, Dharma Productions.
"Every Indian film is a love story and everything has social issues, drama, parental conflict," he said. "But there's so much more that happens in Indian cinema that the world needs to be aware of."
Johar said he hopes that Indian cinema — not just Bollywood or Hindi-language films — will have a similar breakthrough in the global market to South Korean and Japanese cinema.
India has many regional cinemas beyond Bollywood, though the Hindi-language industry based in Mumbai is its best-known export.
The Chennai-based Kollywood industry encompasses Tamil-language cinema, for example, while Telugu-language cinema (known as Tollywood) has emerged with breakout global successes like the Oscar-nominated action epic RRR directed by S.S. Rajamouli, who also directed the 2015 Baahubali action film and its 2017 sequel.
While there has long been a conception that the country's north and south cinemas are operating in silos, recent collaborations have somewhat deflated that idea.
The 2023 film Jawan, for example, stars Bollywood icon Shah Rukh Khan — but he's joined by South Indian big-leaguers, like Tamil-language director Atlee and actress Nayanthara, leading to box office success in the country's south.
"We can proudly say that Indian cinema now is ruling the roost. Because when Rajamouli's RRR does incredible business in the north, when Baahubali breaks records all across India, you realize that actually there is not a divide," said Johar.
"We're all part of the same country, all kind of putting our country and our movies on the global map. And we should really be proud of it. Instead of saying north and south and creating [these] disparities and differences."
Johar said he thinks Canada has boomed exponentially as a market for Indian-made films in the last decade or so. As CBC previously reported, Bollywood films in particular have had a good box office boost in Canada, with Hindi-language films like Pathaan seeing high attendance in theatres here.
"It could mean that the diaspora has expanded, that there are many more Indians and there are many more people from the subcontinent coming and living in Canada," he said.
"We want our films to be viewed by everyone, so we want to break through everywhere," Johar said. "We are hoping that we can actually ride on the supreme power that TIFF has to kind of make sure that our film creates a mark globally."
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With files from Philip Lee-Shanok and Griffin Jaeger
