A still from Gangs of Wasseypur.
Director Anurag Kashyap's award-winning epic Gangs of Wasseypur is India's answer to The Godfather and Oldboy and India's coming out party as an international storytelling powerhouse, according to Kolkata born Indian-American filmmaker Adi Shankar.
At just 29, Mr Shankar has created his own counter-culture 'brand' with critically acclaimed R-rated violent feature films and superhero "bootleg" films like The Grey and A Walk Among the Tombstones.
"Outside of the Indian population in the US, there is a growing audience for 'arthouse genre' films," Shankar, US presenter of the Indian crime saga, told IANS in an interview.
"It's unabashedly violent action and crime films for the 'thinking person,'" he said calling the
Gangs of Wasseypur India's first entry on the list of films like
Oldboy and
I Saw the Devil from Korea and
Drive and
Nightcrawler from America.
Part 1 of the film charting 70 years in the lives - and spectacular deaths - of two mafia-like families fighting for control of the coal-mining town of Wasseypur, India, will be released on Janury 16 for an exclusive one-week-only run at several AMC theatres across the US.
Part II will release in the same theatres the following week on January 23, also for one week only. In New York City, the full film will play at the prestigious Lincoln Centre opening on January 16 for one week.
Mr Shankar said he considered it his "civic duty" to help get
Gangs of Wasseypur a mainstream US release because the success of a movie like
Ek Villain, "a clear unlicensed rip off of Kim Jee Woon's
I Saw the Devil" is "shameful and not only hurts the creditability of the Indian film business, but also reflects badly on India as a whole."
"We are better than that, we are a nation of smart, innovative and creative people who have interesting stories to tell," he said. "We must defy the status quo of the vapid consumerist mosh pit India has become."
"This is why
Gangs of Wasseypur is great. It's our answer to
The Godfather and
Oldboy, but it's not a rip-off, and if I can help it find an audience internationally, I have a civic duty to do so," Shankar said.
Describing
Gangs of Wasseypur as "India's coming out party as an international storytelling powerhouse", Mr Shankar hoped to draw the NRI film audience to the theatres with a simple strategy he calls "guilt tripping".
India had a "robust domestic film economy," he said, "but unfortunately, when it comes to making a global cultural impact, India's films have either been lacklustre due to being reactionary to global cinematic trends instead of setting them or in the case of
The Lunchbox, buried due to asinine politics."
"With
Gangs of Wasseypur we have something to be proud of," he said.
He does not think that at 319 minutes,
Gangs of Wasseypur is too long noting that
True Detective, Breaking Bad and
Game of Thrones. "These were much longer than 319 minutes and held audience's attention just fine when binge watched," he said, adding, "We simply don't like to be dictated the terms of when and where we have to consume the content we love," he said suggesting "
Gangs of Wasseypur will find its greatest success on VOD (Video on demand). It's the ideal film for the VOD generation."
Turning to his own work, Mr Shankar said he was inspired to make the kind of films he makes by films like
Road Warrior, Robocop, The Warriors, Escape from New York, Judge Dredd and
X-Men: The Animated Series.
But his films don't have a USP as such. "I just make stuff that I want to see. This 'brand' I've built for myself wasn't by design."
Shankar said he would "love to" make films for the Indian audiences. "I have a project in mind. It's effectively
Die Hard on the Mumbai bridge. It's a hard hitting action thriller that much like
The Grey becomes philosophical," he concluded.