'You will be blown away with the action Rajkummar (Rao) has done,' says Sailesh Kolanu, director, HIT: The First Case

Rajkummar Rao -starrer HIT: The First Case is gearing up for release this week (July 15). The upcoming Hindi remake, a crime investigative action thriller, has been directed by debutant Sailesh Kolanu who also helmed the original 2020 Telugu film starring Vishwak Sen and Ruhani Sharma . The film revolves around the story of the protagonist Vikram, a police officer with PTSD, who is tasked with solving the case of a missing woman. In an exclusive conversation with Firstpost, Kolanu opens up on why he cast Rao, his approach and intentions behind making the Hindi version, and creating a cop universe with HIT.

Rajkummar Rao says he has been presented in a new avatar, that he got the opportunity to do a lot of (raw) action in the film for the first time and he enjoyed it thoroughly …

Yes, Raj has put in a lot of physical effort in making the action sequence look real, it is unbelievable. I like unchoreographed action that feels real, stuff that happens on the street. It is a very organic action that you will see. Raj loved that and he said he wants to give his full effort into this. If you see action in HIT that happens towards the end of the film, you will be blown away because I don’t think any actor would agree to do such shots. There is this long action sequence while it is raining, there is so much mud around, it was physically so difficult to do that. He got hurt in the process and I was scared how he would react but he brushed it off saying let’s get down with work. He has got all the qualities of doing a full-length action film. Hopefully, I will only write an action film for him (laughs). When I signed him up, I didn’t know that he is a trained Taekwondo artist. I told him, ‘why are you hiding this fact from us’. One day I asked him how come your punches are landing so smooth and that it feels real and he showed me a few videos where he is doing Taekwondo. I told him you should be putting it out there and telling the world about your skills.

You have directed the original Telugu version, how different will the Hindi version of HIT be?

I have retained the soul of the story but the process of investigation that happens, the kind of visual escape that I have shot in, the kind of performances that I have extracted and the kind of briefing that I have given to each character, all that is very different. That is the challenge and I wanted to take that challenge myself. The Hindi film feels very different even though the mood and the soul of the film is retained. That was needed of me. If we had to copy paste frame to frame then I wouldn’t be needed for this project, any other director would have done it. The biggest reason for me coming on board was to treat it as a new film. It is my debut in Hindi. I had to package it well; I had to tweak the sensibilities. In our country if you travel for 300 kilometres and you feel you are in a new country — culture, language, dialect, what we eat, how we react to jokes everything is so different. So if I place this film in a completely different environment automatically the movie will be different.

What would you call the USP of the film? What would engage the audience?

After every 10 minutes the film will surprise the audience, something new happens and the story gets propelled in a very organic way but stakes will keep getting higher and higher. The film will not let you sit back and relax, it will make you keep thinking and you will keep investigating along with the protagonist, the kind of events that will unfold will surprise you. Also, the film has been shot very realistically in terms of performances, in terms of action, in terms of logic behind every scene and all this sets apart HIT from other films. Also, the amount of research we have done on the police department and forensic sciences will win the brownie points from my audience. It will challenge you. The one thing that I believe is in the intelligence of my audience. I don’t believe that we have to spoon-feed, whether it is emotions or information. I feel that in these kinds of investigative thrillers, the audience is also investigating along with the protagonist. I don’t like spoiling the experience of my audience. If I can write something intelligent I am sure they can decode that and understand. The film will make you think. I believe that the audience understands the language of films.

These days there is a lot of dialogue happening around the remakes. Don’t you fear that people must have already watched your Telugu version and may not come to watch the Hindi one as people are consuming a lot of content on the OTT platform?

I am aware of the fact that one specific segment of the audience would have watched the Telugu version, I am not discarding that fact. But I still believe if you look at the numbers, the segment of audience who watch the subtitled version on OTT is one small portion. The film audience that go to theatres, many may not have the luxury of watching other language films with subtitles, it is just one small segment of audience. But what about the majority who may not have witnessed my work? Also, those who have seen the original, they too will have a lot of surprises in the new Hindi version. It is a different take on the film and there are a lot of investigative changes that I have done, the story has changed quite a bit. And of course, come and watch for Rajkummar Rao, a self-made star. With an actor of his calibre and after understanding your sensibilities we are presenting a land of your story, you will be surprised with the take we have with the Hindi version. I feel an information based investigative thriller like HIT won’t do justice if you watch the dubbed version or the version with subtitles because you have to be engrossed in the visuals and in that world. You should be investigating along with the protagonist of the film and that is when you will enjoy the journey.

But we have seen that most remakes don’t work, what do you think could be the reason? What were your reasons, intentions and approach for the remake?

If the remake is done with the truest of intentions it will work. From my side I have attempted this recreation in the most honest way because it is not just me who has come to make this film, it is the cinematographer, the editor, the producer of the film Dil Raju who is one the biggest producers in Telugu film industry have come together for the remake. This is not one of those remakes where somebody sitting in Mumbai has suddenly seen a South film, he likes it and decides to remake it into Hindi. With our project, a bunch of people sitting in the South felt that this story is not ending here in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana and we need to take it to the Hindi audience and their sensibilities. We felt the topic that we have touched upon needs to be told to a wider audience. The intention is not to make a bigger film and earn money. Of course, money and profits are important but that is not the reason for me to do this film in Hindi. All the technicians are the same in recreating the Hindi one. The experience that we have given with the original one to the audience in the South we believe in giving the same experience to the Hindi audience. That is why we got Rajkummar Rao and Sanya Malhotra on board because these are actors who have a lot of credibilities. Raj was the only actor on my wish list and I am glad we got him on board. Right from the choice of actors to the kind of approach and intentions we had to make the Hindi film, the audience will see it and they will appreciate that.

You have plans of creating a cop universe, can you tell us something about that?

Yes, there will be HIT Second and the Third Case in Hindi as well. I would like to continue making HIT that is if the audience blesses the first one. But I would like to keep it original from the Second Case onwards. So I want to have a different road map for the HIT franchise in the south and north. All these would be original films and I would like to integrate both the worlds at some point in time. Slowly the boundaries are getting blurred so by having two roadmaps and having this universe developed in two different directions the possibility for me has become endless to integrate them at a certain point in time. Imagine Rajkummar Rao coming and working, or making an appearance in a South film, or a South star that is in the HIT department making an appearance in the North HIT world. It will be very interesting to open up these possibilities.

You have also addressed the mental health issues in the film …

Yes, the protagonist of the film is suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, it is basically anxiety and panic attacks. Unfortunately, we don’t converse about mental health issues in India. In fact, many people don’t realise that they are suffering from post-traumatic stress, they don’t know because they have never been diagnosed. They don’t seek professional help. This film tries to depict the problem in the most realistic way. What are the troubles that person goes through in their life and I feel it can start the conversation. But the film is not about this issue, it is just that his past is haunting him and I show the world how it can hamper your everyday life, how it hampers the investigation, how somebody who is as vulnerable as ‘Vikram’ will tackle a really complicated investigation. That is why it becomes an integral part of the script in the most organic way. The film is not trying to preach about mental health.

Is the crime thriller genre that excites you the most?

I always wanted to create a cop universe; I don’t know why I have this fascination towards the police department, the armed forces… I feel they are the real heroes. I wanted my first project to be based on them. I have shown them in the most realistic way possible because that is the way to glorify them and not to dramatise. But it is not that this is my favourite genre. My subsequent films are all in various genres like I have a musical love story, I have a mythology, there are so many different subjects I have in the pipeline that I am attempting after HIT. But at this point in time HIT happens to excite me the most and that is the reason why I am into it so much.

Seema Sinha is a Mumbai-based mainstream entertainment journalist who has been covering Bollywood and television industry for over two decades. Her forte is candid tell-all interviews, news reporting and newsbreaks, investigative journalism and more. She believes in dismissing what is gossipy, casual, frivolous and fluff.

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