http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/11/movies/11chopr.html
In 'Krrish,' Bollywood Gets a Superhero of Its Own
By ANUPAMA CHOPRA
MUMBAI
IS the next big thing in superheroes a masked man who leaps from
skyscraper to skyscraper, saves the world and suddenly breaks into song?
Audiences will find out on June 23, when "Krrish" - a film that showcases
Bollywood's first fully realized Superman-style hero - reaches screens.
"Krrish" is a sequel to the 2003 blockbuster "Koi ... Mil Gaya" ("I Found
Someone"), which was considered Hindi cinema's first major science fiction
film. In it, an E.T.-like alien descends to Earth and is befriended by
Rohit, a good-hearted young man who's not very bright. The alien waves a
finger. Miraculously, the slow, stuttering, myopic Rohit is transformed
into a hero who can dance, woo the beauteous heroine and defeat the bad
guys.
"Krrish" is the story of Rohit's son, Krishna, born with the superpowers
the alien bestowed upon his father, and then some. Unlike Rohit, Krishna
is superintelligent and has a handy sixth sense. He has great physical
strength and is able to leap, like Spider-Man but sans web, among the
trees.
After his parents are killed, Krishna is raised in an isolated village by
his grandmother. But the pastoral idyll is disrupted when an alluring
television reporter arrives in the village to learn hang gliding. He
rescues her after an accident, and romance blooms. Krishna eventually
follows her to Singapore, where he recognizes his special powers and also
encounters the archvillain, a psychotic inventor who murdered his parents
and is now plotting to create a machine that can see the future. Krishna
becomes Krrish, a sleek, leather-jacket-clad flying machine, and,
naturally, saves the world.
Like many Bollywood films, "Krrish" is a family enterprise. It was
produced and directed by Rakesh Roshan, an A-list Mumbai filmmaker, and
stars his son Hrithik. Rajesh Roshan, Rakesh's younger brother, composed
the music.
So far, the Roshans have enjoyed an uncommonly successful collaboration.
Hrithik, a fiercely handsome man with a painstakingly sculptured body, is
one of India's biggest stars. He made his debut in 2000 in a romantic
thriller directed by his father, "Kaho Na Pyar Hai" ("Say You Love Me").
The film was a huge hit and propelled Hrithik into the kind of
superstardom that most actors enjoy only after decades of performing.
Several of his subsequent films were flops, but his father resurrected his
career with "Koi Mil Gaya."
In late 2003, after basking in the success of their second blockbuster,
Rakesh wondered how he might showcase his son in a larger-than-life heroic
role. The idea of doing a "Rambo"-like movie fascinated him, but that
film's one-note story would be impossible to flesh out into a sufficiently
melodramatic three-hour Hindi film. One night, Rakesh said, he sat up till
4 a.m. and watched the entire "Lord of the Rings" trilogy. Afterward, he
recalled in an interview in Mumbai, he asked himself, "If they can make
three films on one ring, why can't we?" Thus the idea of a sequel about a
superhero son was born.
There is little precedent in Hindi cinema for a Western-style superhero,
although Indian mythology and the great Indian epics, "The Mahabharata"
and "The Ramayana," brim with spectacularly heroic men and women. While
the exploits of gods like Hanuman and Krishna have captivated generations
over centuries, Hindi films have traditionally featured outsize human
heroes.
A typical Hindi film hero can sing, dance and play musical instruments as
he single-handedly beats up 10 men, barely breaking a sweat. Urbane city
audiences now demand at least a modicum of realism, but as Connie Haham,
who has written a book about Bollywood, put it, "Even when films became
more modern and supposedly secular, there was always an otherworldliness
to the hero's powers."
To create a homegrown superhero, the Roshans had to start from scratch. A
crucial question: What would this hero wear? Six months of trials and
fittings ultimately led to the rejection of tights and a lungi (a
skirtlike garment, worn mainly by men) in favor of a more modern
all-black-leather ensemble. Some 70 designs for masks were tested. Both
avatars of the hero, Krrish and Krishna, are strength personified. (No
room here for Peter Parker-type angst.) So Hrithik weight-trained and
dieted for two months, gaining more than 15 pounds of muscle.
Rakesh's biggest concern was making Krrish look sufficiently world class.
After all, audiences that have lapped up Western heroes - "Spider-Man" and
"Spider-Man 2" are the No. 3 and No. 2 Hollywood releases in India, after
"Titanic" - would have little patience with cheesy special effects. So Mr.
Roshan turned to the Hong Kong-based action choreographer Tony Ching,
acclaimed for his work on "House of Flying Daggers" and "Hero."
This Bollywood-Chinese martial arts combination presented some distinctive
challenges. Because Mr. Ching speaks no English, Mr. Roshan narrated his
script via an interpreter. In an e-mail interview (also translated by
interpreter), Mr. Ching said that what attracted him was the story, which
"was very romantic and touching."
"Their ideas of the action were beautiful and exactly fit my style," he
said. "Everything just matched well."
To fit Bollywood's comparatively smaller budgets, Mr. Ching slashed his
fee - though even that bargain rate, Mr. Roshan said, was more than the
paychecks of India's biggest stars. Last January, Hrithik went to Hong
Kong and trained for 30 days, learning how to wield sticks and swords and
adopt the correct postures for the harnesses. At the end of the daily
six-hour sessions, Hrithik said in an interview in Mumbai, he "barely had
enough strength to crawl into bed."
The action sequences, which Rakesh described as poetry, were filmed over
90 days, mostly in Singapore. To perfect the visual effects, Rakesh
imported two experts from Hollywood, Marc Kolbe and Craig A. Mumma, who
worked on "Godzilla" and "Independence Day" (and also on "Koi ... Mil
Gaya"). The orchestration for the film's background score was done in
Prague.
All of which has pushed the budget up to more than 450 million rupees
(approximately $10 million). That figure is considered huge in Bollywood,
but is small by Hollywood standards. The Warner Brothers movie "Superman
Returns," which is set to be released a week after "Krrish" (in India,
too), cost more than $200 million.
Still, many in Bollywood are convinced that "Krrish" will corner the
Indian market. The director Shekhar Kapur, who is currently creating a
series of comic books drawn from Asian mythology, said in an e-mail
interview that Indian viewers would see the film because "Krrish can dance
and sing, and Spider-Man cannot, but mostly because Krrish is more rooted
in our culture."
Certainly, unlike "Superman Returns," "Krrish" will offer Indian viewers
the preferred masala mix of action, emotions, melodrama and romance. It
also has a healthy dose of a perennial Bollywood favorite: a strong
maternal angle.
But does Krrish really sing? Hrithik Roshan dodged the question when
asked, and said only, "Well, Krishna sings."
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