Ali Abbas Zafar opens up on making Salman Khan-Katrina Kaif starrer Tiger Zinda Hai
Director Ali Abbas Zafar was the man behind the camera who brought blockbuster film Tiger Zinda Hai to the big screens. The film clocked three years on Tuesday. Ali Abbas Zafar opened up about the journey of making the first part ‘Ek Tha Tiger’ as well as its installment and the pressure he felt while making it. Zafar who took over the reins of the ‘Tiger’ franchise and directed the second installment, said that he had a “huge responsibility” while working on the film as the first installment was a “huge hit.”
“It was a huge responsibility especially because the first part, Ek Tha Tiger, was a huge hit. Secondly, it was coming after Sultan and the kind of love Sultan got, it became an added responsibility for me and Adi to kind of put up a film in front of an audience which is on a level where you know when people walk out of it, they feel that we did justice to the characters created in the first part, as well as took it to the next level,” the young filmmaker said.
The ‘Sultan’ filmmaker said that he tried to diverge from romance to groundedness in the second installment and that is how he ended creating a socio-political scenario for the backdrop of the film. “The first film was mostly romance. But now that the characters were set, I just thought that the second part should be little more real and grounded. The socio-political scenario of the world, global problems with terrorism, and that’s what became the backdrop of the film,” he said.
“We were inspired by a true incident where 39 Indian nurses were captured by a terror group and we kind of gave it a fictional twist and that mission was created and conducted by RAW and Tiger,” he added.
Ali opened up about Salman Khan‘s reaction when the film was narrated to him. “My discussion with Salman Sir when the script got ready, started with the title and the title was Tiger Zinda Hai. So, he smiled at me when we told him the title because his films have such iconic titles and somewhere or the other TZH pictures him in the best possible way one can think of Salman Khan,” he said.
“So, when I narrated to him the idea of the story, he kind of understood what we were trying to do with the film. Because the bone of TZH is about unity, peace, brotherhood, happiness and somewhere or the other Salman Khan as a brand stands for that,” he added.
The film’s leading lady, Katrina Kaif, was unanimously lauded for being a slick, fighting fit, action heroine, who reinvented herself with this film. “Katrina Kaif (Zoya) is a very important part of Tiger franchise. Somewhere or the other Kabir (Khan) had established a very strong hero, female hero in the first part of Tiger,” Zafar said.
“So for me, it was an additional responsibility to create Zoya’s character, which is as strong as Tiger in TZH. The idea was to give her own individuality. The track of Zoya in TZH is not only strong in the screenplay and storytelling but also comes across emotionally very strong,” he added.
Released in 2017 ‘Tiger Zinda Hai’ is one of the biggest blockbusters of Indian cinema.
(With ANI inputs)
