Filmmy

BharathBala Productions (BBP), a popular production house which makes television commercials, documentaries and music videos has now tied up with Walt Disney to produce a feature film in English. They are making a martial arts film titled 19 Steps. The cast of the movie are Padmashree Kamal Hassan, Japanese superstar Tadanobu Asano, and Asin in the lead roles.

19 Steps will be directed by Bharath Bala and music will be scored by leading music director A.R Rahman. Bala and Rahman duo have produced extraordinary music video documentaries like Jana Gana Mana and Vande Mataram.

Bala’s film is based on a script written by the best known writer in Malayalam M.T Vasudevan Nair, a Jnanpith award winner who has won five National awards for screenplay writing. This period film deals with Kalaripayattu the martial arts form from Kerala and will trace its roots to the ninth century.

M.T Vasudevan Nair, the 75 year old literary giant has contributed Kerala folklores and warlords in films like Oru Vadakkan Veeragatha and are now the script writer of Hariharan directed Pazhassi Raja, the costliest Malayalam film ever, a historical featuring Mammootty and Sarath Kumar.

In the film Kamal plays a character role of a veteran Kalaripayattu guru who trains Tadanobu Asano in his fight against his enemies. Asin will play a princess and a martial arts expert who falls in love with Asano. The shooting of the $ 50 million film is likely to start in the summer 2009. Walt Disney wants a fusion of Japanese and Indian martial arts in the film. It will have versions in English, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu and Japanese. Recently Bharat Bala told a tabloid “It’s too early to disclose anything. Currently we are in the midst of negotiations.”