Stunt director Allan Amin slams on action in present-day Hindi films – terms it fake
Stunt director Allan Amin slams on action in present-day Hindi films – terms it fake
He recalled that it looks fake.
In Dhoom, he made Abhishek Bachchan and John Abraham fight on the trailer. The same sequence was copied in Pathaan, involving Shah Rukh Khan and John”
Allan Amin is one of the most established and reputed action directors in the country. His fight scenes was just not in action films like Main Hoon Na, Dhoom, Dus, etc, but also in realistic flicks in Satya, Bandit Queen, etc.
In a recent media interaction, Allan Amin explained what’s gone wrong with action in Bollywood in recent times.
Allan went on to add that in the present-day Hindi films, it looks fake. In Dhoom trailer, he made Abhishek Bachchan and John Abraham fight. The same sequence was copied in Pathaan, involving Shah Rukh Khan and John.
He further went on to add that rubbish is shown in the name of action. When you exaggerate, you need to do it only a little. That’s what he did in Dhoom 2 as he made Hrithik Roshan jump from a helicopter onto a moving train. Before filming the sequence, he told a base jumper, ‘Jump, land on the train and show him. He jumped on a trial basis and touched his feet on the train. That’s when he realized that this is possible. And only then, they went ahead with the scene. Or else, they would not have done the scene.
Meanwhile, in Gadar 2 and Animal, the action was more raw. Those two films worked because no one was flying in the air.
Further adding our makers should follow Mission Impossible and see how they do it. Is Tom Cruise stupid to hang outside a plane? Will our actors have the guts to do so? If not, then at least follow what they are doing.
There’s also a trend of getting foreign action directors and these trends were always there. Sometimes, we get foreigners to do action. At times, even foreign cinematographers are signed.
But the problem is that filmmakers, at times, copy and paste. In the 2019 released
War, they took inspiration from fast And furious and other films. The makers are like ‘Aapne yeh uss film mein kiya hai, same cheez mujhe karke do’. Hence, the makers don’t come up with innovative ideas.
Those days actors used to do the stunts themselves…
There were actors like Akshay Kumar who could do stunts. He made him hang under a helicopter and bang into cars in the 1993 released film Ashaant and he did it very well. Even today, he’ll open his iPad and show that scene to you!
He had also done a risky aeroplane scene in the 2000 Khiladi 420.
If he could do it then, he could do it now also. But you need to conceptualize such a sequence. Nowadays, it’s all done against the blue screen. Also, the content has to be there.
About his journey into this line
his dad was an action director, A Ghani. He was initially more into racing and used to race motorcycles as a hobby. He told him , why are you riding bikes? Hence, he started doing stunts and also followed it with a racing career to some extent.
His first film was 1990 Dil and 1992 Beta. He jumped the bike through the bus and truck in Dil. In Beta, shot the ‘well of death’ scene. At the same time, he also worked in a 1998 film Satya.
Those days, there were no cables. So, the action was very realistic in that film. He followed two types of genres when it comes to action. One was the go-all-out type and the other was realistic action. Satya fell into the latter category and so did Sarkar series and the 2000 Company.
One film that stands out is Bandit Queen.The newspapers in the UK wrote about him and the action in the film in their reviews. They wrote that i have to see it to believe the action pulled off in this film.
About a film in recent times that impressed him with its action
was Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning – Part One. That is what real action is, not the one where you are running and jumping against a green screen. It looks fake. The same sequence was copied in Pathaan, involving Shah Rukh Khan and John Abraham. Instead of a truck, it was the bus. It was the same thing but it did not reach the level of Dhoom. If you show a kid the scene of Dhoom and then Pathaan, even he’d say ‘They (Pathaan’s makers) could have made it a little real at least’.
It’s been 40 years since he started working.
He talks about Mission Impossible and to watch its action, so that our industry gets recognized.
News Edit K.V.Raman
