'Mr Bachchan' is the third remake in the filmmaker's career after 'Gabbar Singh' and 'Gaddalakonda Ganesh'.
Published Aug 14, 2024 | 6:30 PM ⚊ Updated Aug 14, 2024 | 6:30 PM
Harish Shankar is coming up with yet another remake—'Mr Bachchan'. (Supplied)
Director Harish Shankar has been the media’s darling since the last fortnight. Yes, he has a release coming up—Ravi Teja’s Mr Bachchan—but regardless of a film’s fate, promotions or not—he is traditionally not known to mince words.
It’s the same caustic wit and sarcasm that has translated onto the screen effectively across his commercial entertainers—Mirapakay (2011), Gabbar Singh (2012), and Duvvada Jagannadham (2017).
Mr Bachchan is the third remake (Ajay Devgn’s 2018 crime film Raid) in Harish Shankar’s career—after having adapted Dabangg (Gabbar Singh) and Karthik Subbaraj’s 2014 crime comedy Jigarthanda (Gaddalakonda Ganesh; 2019) in the past.
We call it an adaptation because all his remakes are extremely distant cousins of their originals, set to a different meter, reimagined for a new audience, and catered to the strengths of his lead stars.
With Mr Bachchan, the director has woven a new backstory around Raid’s protagonist (which was based on true incidents)—an income tax officer—dealing with his love life, while setting up a strong foundation for his conflict with a corrupt politician.
Anyone who watched Raid and Mr Bachchan’s promos can’t help but ask, “How could he churn a star-driven entertainer out of a plot-driven saga?”
“The foundation of Mr Bachchan rests on the protagonist’s integrity. It’s a story of an officer who doesn’t bow down to money and influence while going about his duty. Unfortunately, integrity isn’t a heroic trait—it’s something all of us must possess. The moral standards of our society have stooped down to such a level that we see a hero in them,” the director remarks, in a candid chat with South First.
Ravi Teja and Bhagyashri Borse in a still from ‘Mr Bachchan’. (Supplied)
The difference between Raid and Mr Bachchan is as good as the difference between Ajay Devgn and Ravi Teja, he says. “While Devgn is an intense, serious actor, Ravi Teja has a different image altogether. Though it’s a story of an honest government officer, can’t he have his share of fun, too? His honesty attracts him to more people and the same is visible in the love story as well.”
“In Raid, the officer raids the politician’s house barely 20 minutes into the film and the story is restricted to the same location throughout. Understanding that the same backdrop may pose a challenge to hold a viewer’s attention here, the hero barges into the antagonist’s house only during the interval. We did what was necessary to set up that conflict halfway into the film.”
Unlike the original, the lead pair in Mr Bachchan isn’t married but still in love. “I think, as a viewer, it’s more interesting to watch the story of a lovestruck couple than a wife and a husband. I may be wrong about it too,” he smiles.
Mr Bachchan and Jikki’s love life unfolds in the 80s and early 90s, revolving around cassette recorders, landline phones and blank calls.
Interestingly, his decision to cast Bhagyashri Borse was born out of a Hindi haiku that goes, “Bahut barson ke baad..apne mohalle mein nikal pada tha..sab log anjaan lag rahe the..par ek khidki muskura rahi this” (After many years, I returned to my street..there were strangers all around..but a window smiled at me). “To bring Jikki alive in a street, I wanted an actress who had no film baggage.”
‘Mr Bachchan’ is a Telugu remake of the 2018 Hindi film ‘Raid’. (Supplied)
Harish reiterated that Mr Bachchan is everything one expects out of a Ravi Teja film. But isn’t it time he gave them something more?
“He’s constantly tried to break his template with Naa Autograph (2004), Sambho Siva Sambho (2010), Tiger Nageswara Rao (2023), and Eagle (2024), you know the fate they met with. I didn’t want to experiment this time and create something nostalgic, familiar, and entertaining.”
However, he’s well aware that a section of viewers hasn’t been kind to Ravi Teja and Bhagyashri’s steamy on-screen ‘chemistry’.
“These are probably the people who’ve been deprived of love and are envious of them. For heaven’s sake, they’re just two actors playing their parts. Tell me, do I come up with a list of what on-screen lovers can or can’t do in a film?”
Harish Shankar owes his commercial cinema sensibilities to his father, a huge Amitabh Bachchan fan, who eventually introduced him to the idea of heroism.
“By the time I was in 12th, my father regretted introducing me to films. I was drowning myself in literature, plays, films, burying myself in the novels of Yandamuri Veerendranath and Madhu Babu hidden between my textbooks.”
Director Harish Shankar. (Supplied)
“Watching the latest releases of Rajinikanth, Chiranjeevi, and Amitabh Bachchan was a ritual. My father was a regular listener of Binaca Geetmala and Kishore Kumar’s numbers. The fact that I was brought up in Hyderabad, I was equally influenced by Hindi and Telugu cinema. Mr Bachchan, in a way, is a tribute to my growing years,” he quips.
Elaborating why he set Mr Bachchan in the 80s and not in the present, Harish Shankar adds, “Pardon me for saying this, but there’s no excitement in this era. Everything is out in the open sans mystery. Imagine the tension a boy would experience when his girlfriend’s father lifted the phone. When you promised to meet a friend at a cafe, there was joy waiting for him. WhatsApp spoils the fun now.”
Also, the storyteller’s long-time desire was to mount a love story in the BHEL Colony, the area he grew up in Hyderabad. Though the story never got made, Mr Bachchan filled that void, by replicating that backdrop.
“I still hope to break free of my image and do a romance. I tried it with Dagudu Moothalu (which never went on floors) because no actor was game for a two-hero script.”
Meanwhile, Mr Bachchan will remain close to Harish Shankar’s heart, for it rekindled all his fond memories. “The first-ever television set we bought at home was a Dinora (which had doors) when I was 14-15. Radio had been my constant companion and I got accustomed to listening to songs and abridged dialogue versions of a film (referred to as ‘sankshipta sabda chitram’). The only other relief was novel reading.”
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When he was sick of textbooks ‘chemistry looked chaotic’ and ‘mathematics was a mystery’, Harish Shankar was drawn to literature (films, books, and poetry) and imaginative wordplay.
“My creative instincts were shaped by the dialogues in Jandhyala, Bapu-Ramana’s films. As adulthood kicked in, I enjoyed EVV Satyanarayana’s (double-meaning) dialogues more.”
Harish Shankar collaborated with Ravi Teja earlier for ‘Shock’ and ‘Mirapakay’. (Supplied)
If all his inspirations were textual, how did he learn visual grammar? “When a writer says that a girl has stepped out in the rain, everyone has a different visual in their mind. If a director films that sequence, he limits the imagination of a viewer and spoon-feeds them. I feel writers and avid readers have a greater capacity to imagine.”
In his early days in the industry, he wanted to tell stories of the same aroma as Chalam’s classic story “Maidanam” and Yandamuri’s novels “Prema” and “Anando Brahma“. However, all that idealism vanished into thin air when he used those instincts for his debut Shock (2006) and the film tanked.
“Shock was just a flop film that people forgot in a week, but it took me three and a half years to recover from it (literally a shock).”
Ever since Shock, his idea has been to tell stories based on the (mass film) influences he grew up on, without compromising on his music or literary tastes.
“My next film after Shock was Mirapakay. Look at the difference right in the title. Like the popular quote, I am the sum of all I’ve met. My films are a product of my experiences—those I’ve seen, heard, and read.”
For those wondering what to expect from Mr Bachchan, Harish Shankar exudes confidence and adds, “Be it songs, entertainment value, action— I am sure it’ll have a repeat audience. Mickey J Meyer composed all four songs for the film within a week and it augurs well for us that all of them are chartbusters.”
(Edited by S Subhakeerthana)
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