With ‘Brothers’, Akshay Kumar comes full circle

After 25 years in the Hindi film industry, Akshay Kumar says he comes “full circle” with this weekend’s release, Brothers, co-starring Sidharth Malhotra, which takes him back into the world of martial arts that first brought him fame.

High-octane sibling rivalry, deep, dark family secrets, mixed martial arts fights for honour and money set the stage for a multi-layered emotional rollercoaster ride after a quiet couple of weeks for Bollywood fans in the UAE.

“This movie is very close to my heart, it means a lot to me, especially because it is a movie about martial arts, which makes it even more important for me,” Kumar tells tabloid!. “The movie is releasing in August this year, which also coincides with me completing 25 years in the film industry and it means so much to me that a movie about martial arts [is] commemorating the accomplishment of my 25 years, when it’s because of my martial arts background that I got into the film industry in the first place. We’re going full circle.”

An official remake of the 2011 Hollywood film Warrior, the Karan Malhotra directed film has been made for an Indian milieu adapting the original’s emotional nuances of estranged brotherly love, an alcoholic father driving family relationships to the brink, a dying child and the fight to save her life, providing the raison d’etre for the blood-curdling climax fight between brothers.

Black-belt karate expert Kumar plays older brother David Fernandes, who quits his teaching job to take up a fight to gain instant cash to help his dying daughter; Malhotra plays the younger brother Monty, an army deserter out to reclaim his lost honour.

The brothers are estranged because of a family secret. Their ageing father is played by Jackie Shroff while Shefali Shah plays their mother, Maria Fernandes. Jacqueline Fernandez plays David’s wife, Jenny, without the glamorous getup and the typical Bollywood dance numbers.

Kumar chatted with tabloid! about his experience working in this film and his relationships with the cast and the crew.

The plot of this movie is inspired by the Hollywood film Warrior. Has it been adapted to the taste of Indian audiences?

We have tried our level best to give the best performance we can. I wouldn’t really compare the two movies, to be honest, as we probably can’t make it better than the original, but we gave it all we could. Let’s see what the audience says.

Is violence an integral part of Karan Malhotra films? First Agneepath and now Brothers — the theme makes violence intrinsic to the story line.

The movie is about street fighting, but there’s a reason why the fighting happens in the first place, which emanates from love. You will get to know that there’s a love story between Jacqueline Fernandez and I. There’s also a family-related love story between Jackie Shroff and Sidharth and also between Shefali and I. The fighting comes later on in the movie; the film’s main emphasis is on its relationships.

A movie with so much action and drama would have great potential for cinematography and emotional intensity. How did you make the action believable?

Despite being a professional martial artist, I underwent vigorous training for six months to be fit for the role. Mixed Martial Arts is a dangerous practice that could result in injuries and loss of life. Even during filming we would end up with abdominal injuries and smacks on our face but overall it was important for the role to look realistic and conditioning for us actors to make the movie as real as possible.

What aspect really pushed your limits?

The most challenging part was fighting like a professional MMA fighter, learning from the best and then trying to catch up with their fighting techniques. But I thoroughly enjoyed it as my teachers are from everywhere around the world — from Brazil, LA, Bangkok and Japan — they are true MMA fighters. It was an honour to learn from the best. As part of our training programme I had to lose up to 16kg and Sidharth Malhotra had to gain 13kg. Whilst fighting was a major physical challenge, we also had to face a lot of mental challenges. A very high level of mental attention is required to remember your punches and every move.

Any anecdotes on sets that you would like to share with the readers?

We had a great time on set. Sidharth is a Punjabi and so am I and director Karan Malhotra. We spoke in Punjabi all the time to the degree the film should have been called Prah (brothers in Punjabi). Sidharth is a very talented young man; he is very professional when it comes to work. Although he had no experience with MMA he did really well. He also went through eight months of training. Sidharth has a great future ahead of him. In Brothers he plays the character of a man unlike his earlier movies, where he’s mostly played young characters.