Abhishek Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan spar in ‘Raavan’
Ravan, the villain in the Ramayana through the ages and in myriads of Ramlilas across the world, has now been co-opted by Bollywood. Soon ‘Raavan’ will be blazing in lights across the diaspora and the big blockbuster which bears his name is being directed by none less than the iconic Mani Ratnam with super stars Abhishek Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai. The music is by everyone’s favorite A R Rahman, lyrics by Gulzar and cinematography by another major name – Santosh Sivan. Now what could make for a better debut for Ravan?
This should be an intriguing movie, coming from Mani Ratnam who directed Abhishek Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai in the hugely successful ‘Guru’ and once again, the music is from A. R. Rahman, fresh from his Oscar and Grammy wins. The film opens worldwide on June 18, in both Hindi and Tamil versions.
‘Raavan’, it seems, will be not so much about black and white, but about the conflict and complex grey areas of loving and living. Abhishek plays Beera Munda, a lawless tribal and Dev Pratap Sharma, a righteous policeman, is played by Vikram. The battle of good and evil gets even more complicated when Beera abducts Ragini, the beautiful spirited wife of Dev, played by Aishwarya Rai.
As the movie cliff notes put it:
“The forest becomes the battleground. The battle between good and evil, between Dev and Beera, between Ram and Raavan. But when the lines dividing good and evil are blurring fast, whose side will you take. When hate turns to love and the good starts looking evil. Which side will you battle for?”
Aishwarya and Abhishek, lovebirds in real life, play fierce opponents in this film. It will be interesting to see how believable they are as antagonists – here are photos from reel and real life to spice things up till you get to actually see the movie, and also some links to keep you in the loop about the movie.
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Abhishek on Twitter: http://twitter.com/juniorbachchan