Bollywood's new Bond

The success of the super-slick Race has unleashed a whole new genre of "stylish thrillers" in Bollywood.

Despite their track record by way of delivering hits in thrillers such as Baazigar, Aitraz and Humraaz, directors Abbas Mustan seem an unlikely enough pair when they start talking about "stylish" cinema.

Yet, Race, their latest with current toast-of-tinsel town Saif Ali Khan, is just that: A stylish thriller, jump cuts and all, that keeps you at the edge of your seat till the very last frame. It is slick, undoubtedly, with its fast cars (including a delectable blue Audi, blown up in the very first scene!), Derby equivalents, posh foreign locales and a very good looking star cast indeed.

On the other hand, what is surprising is how all these disparate elements have managed to come together to present a picture of sophistication that consumers of mainstream Hindi cinema, till now, imagined only Hollywood could provide. A Bond flick or the Mission Impossible series? Now, watch the Bollywood equivalent.

Barely a week at the box office, Race is racing ahead, domestically and even internationally. In its opening four-day weekend in the UK market for instance, the film collected Rs 3.66 crore, the biggest opening for a Saif Ali Khan film ever, while the first three days collections from the US market were around Rs 3.22 crore, according to trade analyst Taran Adarsh. But it's is not just about numbers.

What Race, and a handful of big blockbusters before it, Dhoom, Dhoom II and Don, have done is introduce us to a whole new genre of Hindi cinema "" the stylish thriller. The films are Hollywoodesque in the sense that the gap between mainstream Indian and Western cinema seems to be collapsing.

And they are a far cry indeed from formulaic potboilers of the past, typically pegged as "family dramas", where the only drama would be by way of ridiculous fist-fights (or with swords or antiquated guns), unseemly blood and gore, villains in fancy dresses, and almost foolhardy "suspense".

The new genre, on the other hand, is more reflective of our own urban sociology "" the films are urbane, even if they are glammed up and turn several conventions on their heads.

While the plot (with all its twists and turns) takes precedence over character (usually with hardly any background or dimensions), there's a clear break from the inward-looking operatic cinema that Indian audiences always seem to have favoured. And these new action films also portray many more moral ambiguities.

In Race, for instance, while there's a paper-thin justification for the "bad guy", the women, interestingly, remain unapologetic about issues that would have been unacceptable even a decade ago "" double crossings, even extra-marital affairs. Besides which, of course, the traditional villain has now become the new cool guy, almost worthy of emulation! (Think Hrithik Roshan in Dhoom II.)

Director Sanjay Gadhvi who made biker flick Dhoom in 2004 and kicked off this whole genre recalls the beginning. "Dhoom was supposed to be a stop-gap film," he says, "I was supposed to do another film but that didn't happen. Then, one day, Adi (Aditya Chopra, producer) walked into my cabin with this idea..."

It was supposed to be a cops-and-robbers story "" in a car. But Gadhvi changed that to bikes because "it would be younger and cooler, a little more dangerous, more romantic" and "because the actor would be more visible rather than in a box".

The target audience was the 15-25 years age group (and women), and the way Gadhvi treated the routine heist is now history "" "the villain had no justification, he didn't live in a villa... in a swimming pool, on a float surrounded by blondes".

Instead of the Ajit clone Bollywood watchers were used to, John Abraham played a pizza boy-cum-suave robber. The all-important bikes ("I cast the bikes first," says Gadhvi) including the Hyabusa, were actually bought for Rs 1 crore.

Since then, things have only got bigger, better and more expensive. If Dhoom was made on a budget of Rs 10.5 crore, Dhoom II was made at Rs 40-50 crore (it made Rs 200 crore) and this year is set to see a spate of other such big-budget films all in the bracket of Rs 35 crore plus. Film analyst Komal Nahata says, "If last year was dominated by comedy, this year will be dominated by action films."

Apart from Aamir Khan's Ghajini, and Saif Ali Khan's Tashan, both being looked-forward-to eagerly, there are other projects: Akshay Kumar has been roped in for Shirish Kunder's Joker trilogy (the first film is slated to release in early 2009), Salman Khan is said to be preparing for some death-defying stunts in his new, closely-guarded film this year, and there's Blue, starring Sanjay Dutt, Akshay Kumar and Suneil Shetty, India's biggest "" on a budget of Rs 100 crore!

Clearly, the action genre is back and in a new format. The emphasis is on creating awe-inspiring spectacles and stunts "" a far cry from the past when the height of an action director's achievement would have been the hero's cinematic entry on two moving bikes! That, of course, was Ajay Devgan, son of former stunt master Veeru Devgan, making his debut in Phool Aur Kaante (1991). In contrast, in Race, close to Rs 7 crore were spent on the stunts alone.

Kanishka Sharma, India's only Shaolin practitioner and more-recently "fight choreographer" in films like Don and Goal, suggests that the way "action" is conceptualised has undergone a big change.

Apart from the stunts, directors are increasingly seeking out hand-to-hand combat experts to design sequences and train actors in the manner of Hollywood or other Asian films "" the Crouching Tiger... after-effect. Sharma, for instance, trained Shah Rukh Khan for a couple of months ("in the middle of summer in Mumbai.... We'd practice from 2 pm to 5 pm, drenched in sweat") after director Farhan Akhtar approached him personally.

And clearly, foreign inspiration and expertise shows up in the entire look of the films. If stylist Anahita Shroff Adajania has managed to impart a super glamourous "international" look to protagonists in film after film, song after song, and is in huge demand, there are foreign technicians and make-up people too.

Dhoom II, for instance, used MI type masks (Hrithik in the Queen's get-up or as a janitor) and each of these "faces" cost the producer £5000 "" procured from Hybrid, a firm in Leeds. The company has since found other patrons in Bollywood. Clearly, nothing is too much these days.