From the swag displayed in the King teaser, there is no dimming of the klieg light of his superstardom… yet, notes Deepa Gahlot.
At a time when the world needs love, Shah Rukh Khan has decided to drop that romantic image and go for action roles.
It’s could be because the grey hair look he sports in King, as seen in the teaser, means that he has decided to grow (age?) up.
The film stars daughter Suhana Khan as his protegee, so obviously his running around sarson ke khet days are over. And if Tom Cruise, at 63, can hang from an aircraft without using a stunt double, why can’t the newly-senior@60 Khan break a few teeth, literally, as the teaser shows.
Siddharth Anand, with War and Pathan behind him, is quite capable of directing a stylish actioner, which is supposedly based on the 1994 film, Leon The Professional, directed by Luc Besson. A 12-year-old Natalie Portman had made her debut as the kid who attaches herself to a hitman.
Glimpses of the action seen in the teaser are not too different from what is seen in other big-budget, star-driven films, but the dialogue is sharp.
‘Kitne khoon kiye yaad nahin,’ says SRK in a low growl. ‘Acche log the ya bure, kabhi poochha nahin, bas unki aankhon mein yeh ehsaas dekha ki yeh unki aakhri saans hai, aur me uski wajah.’
Killing of good people is not cool, but then the film might have a different point of view.
Still, the man they call King — posed with a King of cards in his mouth — is about ‘1000 jurm, 100 deshon main badnaam, par sabne diya ek hi naam.
‘Dar nahi, dehshat hoon,’ he threatens, as the body count rises.
It’s a teaser just celebrating Shah Rukh Khan despite the film’s large star cast, including Jaideep Ahlawat, Arshad Warsi, Saurabh Shukla, Jackie Shroff, Abhishek Bachchan, Abhay Verma, and Raghav Juyal, with, Deepika Padukone, Anil Kapoor and Rani Mukerji making cameo appearances, according to reports.
Apart from underlining SRK’s action image, the film is a kind of relaunch of his daughter Suhana, whose OTT debut, The Archies did not do as well as expected.
King promises ‘a new SRK experience’ and he signs off with ‘it’s show time’.
His fan following ensures that even really bad films like Jawan do well, and to everyone’s surprise, win him a National Award.
So from the swag displayed in the King teaser, there is no dimming of the klieg light of his superstardom… yet.
Still, the true admirer of his work would expect more from him.
Photographs curated by Satish Bodas/Rediff
