Razneesh Ghai: Got action directors from US and Korea

Stating that stunts in films feel repetitive, Dhaakad director Razneesh Ghai on trying to raise the bar with Kangana-led thriller

When setting foot in Bollywood, director Razneesh ‘Razy’ Ghai saw that Hindi cinema lacked women-led actioners. That led to the creation of Dhaakad. It’s evident from the teaser of the Kangana Ranaut-starrer that the makers have tried to raise the bar for action with their spy thriller. Ghai says that he roped in action directors from across the globe as he was keen to deviate from the tried-and-tested stunts and adopt a new style.

Razneesh Ghai

“This wasn’t just a film, but a passion project for all of us,” says the director, adding that he was driven to make the movie “bigger” at every stage. “The producers and I were insistent that we hire key members of the team from other film industries. When you want your film to have high-octane action, you have to go above and beyond. For key sequences, we roped in action directors from the US, Korea, Canada and South Africa. [We also brought on board] Hitz international action specialists, as well as [famous stunt artistes] Cameron Hilts and Sea-young Oh. The Indian stunt team was on par with our international collaborators,” he states.

Dhaakad traces Ranaut’s Agent Agni’s fight against child trafficking and female exploitation. Ghai says action is the movie’s centre-piece. “A pitfall of action movies is that stunts begin to look repetitive. We worked towards avoiding that by roping in stunt choreographers from different parts of the world. We [got] Japanese cinematographer Tetsuo Nagata to ensure that the film’s visual palette is distinct.”

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