Big B watches Ek Ajnabee in hospital

Big B watches Ek Ajnabee in hospital

Subhash K Jha

Besides being a diehard Bachchan loyalist, Apoorva Lakhia is also the director of the superstar's film Ek Ajnabee. According to Lakhia, his second film is a homage to Bachchan. And for this reason he took his just-released film to the Lilavati on Saturday evening and showed it to the convalescing mega-star.

"It was something that was bothering me," says Lakhia, "How could Mr Bachchan not watch the film that was made entirely as a tribute to his talent? His illness really took the pleasure out my film. Now that he's recovering I carried the film to the hospital. He saw it and really enjoyed it."

Amidst all this, Lakhia has been accused of plagiarism, an accusation he is undaunted by. "I always knew I was re-making Man On Fire, and I never hid that fact. Initially I was tempted to re-locate the kidnapping story to UP and Bihar. But then we got to know that Prakash Jha's Apaharan is being released around the same time. So we took the story to Bangkok. There're three different versions of the film including one in French. For me the challenge of presenting Asia's greatest star in a unique way was the best part of remaking Man On Fire. Mr Bachchan has already been seen in seven different films in the last one year. I wanted him to be the larger-than-life loner hero like John Wayne and Clint Eastwood. I wanted him to be Mount Everest. I think I've succeeded in doing that,"says Lakhia.

Commenting on the competition from this week's other release Neal 'N' Nikki, Lakhia says, "I respect the Yashraj banner and I personally called director Arjun Sablok to wish him the best. But it's strange that in spite of the stressed sexual content, the film has been given a 'U' certificate. Families are walking out of the Neal 'N' Nikki."