Kannada actor Upendra reacted to a question that compared Kabzaa with the blockbuster film KGF. He explains why his upcoming Pan-India film will be different from Prashanth Neel’s film.
Why Kabzaa is different from KGF
Director Chandru’s ‘Kabzaa’, set to release on March 17, is creating a massive buzz among audiences. After four long years in the making, the film acts as a massive test for the entire team to maintain the pan-India success that Kannada cinema achieved last year with blockbusters like ‘KGF’, ‘777 Charlie’, and ‘Kantara’.
In between all this, people also compared Kabzaa’s making and VFX settings with the blockbuster Kannada movie KGF 2. During a press meeting, Upendra was asked about the same. He replied, “I request everybody, don’t compare any film with any other film. When people saw the teaser of Kabzaa, they started talking about similarities with KGF due to the look and feel. But after the trailer, everybody knows and agrees that this is not KGF. It has got a completely different storyline. I am assuring you that this is a completely different film.”
Meanwhile, Upendra also addressed the growing popularity of the Kannada film industry in the wake of the success of KGF: Chapter 2 and Kantara. The budget of Kabzaa is said to be more than Rs 100 crore and the Real Star thinks the KFI’s growth has helped its technicians.
“The advantage of growing bigger is that everyone gets an opportunity to show talent. Take, for example, cameraman A. J. Shetty. This film has given him such a launch pad. He had already done a film called Kiss. But, in this film, he was able to showcase his full talent. He got everything he needed, from lights to camera filters. This film is a good example of how the talents of technicians can attract people,” said Upendra. Quoted Ottplay.
Importance of technicians
Many do not know but Upendra is a technician before he became an actor. And he just cannot ignore his roots. He has been quite generous in his praise for the technical team behind Kabzaa. “You only see the work of technicians (AJ Shett, art director Shivakumar, composer Ravi Basrur) in the movie. You’re in awe of its making. That’s what we want. And all credit goes to director Chandru,” he added.
Upendra believes that professional technicians were as necessary as stars for the wide success of a movie. “When we value technicians as much as superstars such big movies will happen. We should learn that fact. The medium of cinema is technically strong now. We need talented technicians to make the most out of it. I’m not famous in Bombay (Mumbai). Maybe a few of my pictures could have been dubbed in Hindi. But, this movie is getting such hype there majorly because of the technicians and Chandru,” he opined.
Here’s the full interview: