Film inspired by James Ellroy’s ‘L.A. Quartet’.
By Tathagata Mitra
BANGALORE: The word is that Ranbir Kapoor has been taking boxing lessons for his new role in the Anurag Kashyap directed Bombay Velvet.
As exciting as it sound, it is not Bollywood’s first encounter with this sport. It is not even the only Bollywood film of 2014 to have boxing as one of its themes. Sonakshi Sinha has undergone some similar training for her part in Holiday opposite Akshay Kumar. And Priyanka Chopra is also learning the art of this adrenaline rushing sport for her new biopic on boxer Mary Kom.
Fans of Bollywood through all the ages remember a particular hit of Mithun Chakroborty called ‘Boxer’. It was an action film which most people would agree was a very desi take on Rocky. But it was the first time the hero of a Bollywood film was donning the boxing gloves. Or if you remember the Manmohan Desai directed Naseeb in which Amitabh had a few caged street fighting sequences. Having been a boxer in his younger days, Bachchan’s techniques of the contact sport was evident in this film.
Kashyap’s Bombay Velvet is a neo-noir film, a genre not easy found in Bollywood. Kapoor must have been learning boxing as an essential part of his character as a street fighter. The film will also star Anushka Sharma, the female lead, Ranbir’s love interest, and a jazz singer in the film. The biggest surprise of Bombay Velvet is director Karan Johar appearing as the primary antagonist of this film. This is not KJo’s first stint at acting. He had played many small parts in the films of early 90s, including the blockbuster Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge. The film also stars veteran heroine Raveena Tandon, Kay Kay Menon and Siddharth Basu.
Bombay velvet is based on historian Gyan Prakash’s book Mumbai Fables, a story of how the city of Mumbai became a metropolis against the backdrop of love, greed, violence and jazz music. It is still unsure which age the movie will be set in, but it is safe to make a guess that this will be a period piece.
Bombay Velvet is the story of one ordinary man who goes against all odds and forges his destiny to become a ‘Big Shot’. A film about jazz clubs, a passionate love story, a growing metropolis and a phenomenal hunger for a good life, as it describes itself.
Director Anurag Kashyap has said that he initially got inspiration to do a film such as Bombay Velvet after reading the L.A. Quartet, which is a sequence of four crime fiction novels by James Ellroy, set in the late 1940s through the late 1950s in Los Angeles.
Bombay Velvet is set to release in the last week of November this year.