Each year the Busan International Film Festival screens movies at its outdoor stage. Among the titles this year was Kalki 2898 AD, a sci-fi box-office sensation from India. The story pits superhero gods against each other in a dystopian future of deserts and decaying cities.
A passion project for writer-director Nag Ashwin, the film was shot over four years, interrupted at times due to the pandemic. More than 25 sets were built at Hyderabad’s Ramoji Film City. Nitin Zihani Choudhary’s production design included working models of specially designed vehicles, like the fan-favorite, AI-augmented Bujji chase car.
Like last year’s RRR, the Telegu-language Kalki has crossed over to a broad audience partly on the strength of its all-star cast, earning over $18M at the U.S. box office alone when it was released this past summer. International icon Amitabh Bachchan plays immortal warrior Ashwatthama. Telegu action hero Prabhas is Bhairava, an untrustworthy bounty hunter. Deepika Padukone, India’s highest-paid actress, has a crucial role as the pregnant Sumathi, her fetus the potential victim of deadly lab experiments.
Ashwin’s script unfolds on a massive scale, hurtling its characters from vast battles to heated chases, pausing only to detail its characters’ complicated backstories. The supporting cast––Kamal Haasan, Shobana, Disha Patani, and many others––bring menace, humor, and heat. There’s a hypnotic score by Santhosh Narayanan, excellent camerawork from Djordje Stojiljkovic, and world-class visual effects.
Kalki was produced by Vyjayanthi Movies, founded in 1974 by C. Aswani Dutt. His daughters and co-producers Swapna and Priyanka met with me after the Busan screening to talk about the complicated, challenging production.
“Although this was an extremely high-budget film for India, I’d say Ashwin is the most cost-conscious director around,” Swapna Dutt said. “Whenever he wants to make a change to the script, he keeps it within the sets he’s already created.”
Ashwin’s sense of editing, of holding the entire story in his head, proved essential in a production that stretched out for years. Swapna pointed to one sequence where Bachchan’s part was filmed two years ago, while Prabhas’s was shot just before post-production started.
“He has an editing suite in his office,” added Priyanka, who is married to Ashwin. “His everyday routine is to cut material before shooting.” Priyanka said that COVID forced an early halt to production. “We started a bit of shooting and then the second wave started, so we had to take a big break.”
“Waiting is a big toll on a creativity,” Swapna added. “It’s hard to wait for a project he’s been wanting to make for years.”
Swapna Dutt and Priyanka Dutt at Busan International Film Festival.
While Kalki is a big step up in budget, Ashwin’s earlier films were also ambitious. He shot much of his debut feature, Yevade Subramanyam (2015), at the Mount Everest Base Camp in Nepal. He followed that with Mahanati (2018), a biopic about the Indian star Savitri.
“He wanted to tell her story to a new generation,” Swapna said. “We loved her because we grew up with her, but we weren’t quite sure a younger audience would understand how important she was. The film ended up winning three national awards and Savitri became a household name all over again.”
The sisters joked that their father could get a little frazzled with Ashwin’s shooting process. “Back in the day, they would just shoot until they were done,” Swapna explained. “We like to shoot one block, then take time off to schedule the next block.”
“They used to finish a film in 30 days,” Priyanka said. “We took over a year to make Mahanati, and four years for this one. It took us 100 days just to shoot the action scenes for Kalki.” One prolonged chase sequence in the second half––involving Ashwatthama, Bhairava, storm troopers, and rebels––took more than two years to shoot. “We called that the ‘Off-Sector’ fight,” Swapna said. “We shot some in the beginning, and then Ashwin would decide on a different set-up and add to the sequence when he could come back to it. We shot Off-Sector throughout the whole production.”
“Ashwin wasn’t necessarily changing the sequences as much as letting them evolve,” Priyanka added. “And because we had all the sets, it was easy to go back and pick up more shots.” The stunts in the Off-Sector chase take place on several simultaneous layers. Surprisingly, some of the action was worked out on the spot.
“When we work with Western action choreographers, that’s when we’ve done previs,” Swapna said. “Most Indian action choreographers don’t use previs.”
“Putting things down on paper or previs doesn’t work for Ashwin,” Priyanka said. “I mean, he’ll note basic points, like this beat and that beat. In between those beats he knows there’s something more the actors will be doing. It’s more organic that way.”
Ashwin also had to juggle the demands of a large cast of veteran stars. However, the sisters said the performers put aside their egos to make a better film.
“Mr. Prabhas was the first to join,” Swapna said. “He’s a huge star, but one without any insecurities. He didn’t care about getting beaten up by Mr. Bachchan. ‘Your fans aren’t going to like this,’ Bachchan said, but Prabhas was like, ‘It doesn’t matter, sir. Let’s be in character.’
“And for Kamal Haasan, a superstar, to come onto this and play a villain––that was really unusual,” she continued. “He understood the story. ‘I’m playing my part,’ he said. It was incredible to work with these actors. And I have to say, they all loved being on set.”
For Westerners unfamiliar with Indian beliefs, the background of Kalki may seem daunting at first. “Yes, but we’re trying to set up a very simple format,” Swapna argued. “There’s a bit about the biggest war of our times, the Kurukshetra. It’s also called Mahabharata. There’s a curse, and now we’re all waiting for the rebirth of God. That’s really the throughline for Hinduism.”
Kalki 2898 AD ends on a cliffhanging note. Ashwin will begin the second part after finishing a limited series whose production was delayed by the pandemic. Like this film, the next chapter will be shot with an Arri Alexa 65. Some sequences will feature 1,000 extras.
“We have an IMAX version, and we converted it to 3D,” Priyanka said. “The 3D version was extremely successful in India. It was a shot in the arm for theater owners. We’ve been told that some shuttered theaters actually reopened to show Kalki.”
“Some productions try to shoot bilingual versions,” Swapna said. “We prefer not to. A few shots, especially the tight close-ups, Ashwin would film in both Telegu and Hindi. But for the most part it’s Telegu.”
“Then we dubbed it into Hindi, Tamil, Malayalam, and Kannada,” Priyanka said.
Like with RRR, Netflix is streaming the Hindi version of Kalki, while Amazon is streaming it in Telegu.