Lakhia's Mission is Dangerous - Article

Apoorva Lakhia's much spoken about venture Mission Istanbul is a hardcore action thriller. The director has been in the news ever since news broke that he has scrapped the promotional video of the film with Aishwarya Rai Bachchan making a special appearance in the song. When contacted, Apoorva clarifies, "We never planned to have Ash. They are just rumours but yes we are planning to shoot a song but there's still time. Nothing has been decided as yet. We have still to shoot two songs and four days of patchwork. I have five songs and two music videos in the film."

Ever since the director began shooting the action thriller, the actors have met with a lot of mishaps. "It has been a hardcore, realistic and fast-paced movie where the action moves very fast. Shabbir Ahluwalia broke his leg, Zayed Khan's hair got burnt and Suneil Shetty was hurt by shrapnel. It was full of calamities. The shoot was only stalled when Shweta Kumar was doing an action scene and her leg was busted by a log of wood. We had to undergo a lot of problems," reveals Apoorva.

He goes on to add, "My stars were made to undergo a lot of training. Viveik had to go through Tai Chi training and lot of stretching and action training. There are scenes where they had to do a 110 storey building rappelling. There were high-density car chases and underwater shots too. We had to prepare our artistes for that and so they had to have these warm-up sessions every morning before the shoot. Shweta was also given driving lessons because there was one particular scene where she has to take a sharp 360 degree turn. We have shot action scenes with 45 people together on a set. All this has not been very easy. But yes, I can guarantee one thing, you will see action like you have never experienced on the Indian screen."

Zayed, who plays a TV journalist in the film was asked to put on weight for the role. "Yes," says Apoorva, "and we had a reason for it. The film also has Nikitan Dheer in a pivotal role opposite Zayed and he's six feet four inches tall and robust. Zayed looked small in comparison, so I asked him to put on some weight for the role. He took Nikitan's picture and stuck it on his bathroom wall. But later told me that it was a bit too much getting up in the morning and watching Nikitan on the walls of his bathroom so he took it off."