Milan Luthria: “Ekta Kapoor, Vidya Balan, Kangana and even Deepika are female achievers” By Lipika Varma

Director Milan luthria’s latest outing ,” Tadap “with Ahan Shetty and Tara Sutaria has already made a huge buzz not only in the bollywood arena, the audiences have also given a positive reaction after watching the trailer and song of this new born action hero none other than Ahan Shetty/son of Suniel Shetty.

Produced by Sajid Nadiadwala it is a remake of the 2018-Telugu film “RX 100”, the film is set to release on 3rd December 2021.

Milan Luthria is best known as the director of Ajay Devgn's Once Upon a Time in Mumbaai.

He has done a female oriented film starring Vidya Balan like “Dirty Picture” which was not only appreciated but received great reviews and did well at the box office.

He agrees female oriented films can hold at top of the game having a few films under their belt, they can hold the numbers.

Yet with hero oriented films in the Industry it seems to be the way of things. But it does not make the women any less.

Milan always wanted to do challenging and different stories thus tried his hands at varied films like Taxi No-9211…Dirty Picture and now Tadap what’s his mantra of success pat comes a reply, “Doing taxi came along, I grabbed for it was different... Once upon a time something happened and they said you are only doing male centric movies.

So I got to do "Dirty Picture" which is radically different. I was looking at things that challenged me which I had not done before.

So Tadap happened which is again a different story. This was something I never ever thought of .

There could be these reasons…..Firstly-Sajid being a wonderful producer. I like Ahan very much.

But I tested him because I wanted to gauge his potential more. I tested Tara also. After that I started thinking who they are? They were my actors.

They were professional actors on set. They had to work very hard as this is a tough action film loaded emotionally and dramatically.

I threw them into the deep end and they have come out with flying colours in the trailer show

So do you agree Bollywood is a male dominated arena responding in positive the experienced Milan says,” To some extent, but it depends from film to film.

In the corporate world there are so many women who are massive achievers .I have a lot of respect for Ekta Kapoor? I did three films with her.

Ekta Kapoor, Vidya Balan, Kangana and even Deepika are female achievers.

They can hold at top of the game having a few films under their belt that can hold the numbers.

Yet with hero oriented films in the Industry it seems to be the way of things. But it does not make the women any less.

If you look at the film,” Dirty Picture” and Padmavat where Deepika did not play the central character, Sushmita Sen with Arya ,same is the case with Shaifali Shah in Indian crime these shows are all doing as good as a “Sacred Games,” Family Man Patal Lok or a Mirzapur. It’s just these mass audiences want their heroes and they want to be like them.

Milan opines that families & ladies bring success to the films,” I'm a firm believer that eventually, the families and ladies make the film successful.

Giving away an anecdote he reveals, “When I released Dirty Picture they said not come to watch this film.

Shobha jee said,” Why are people saying that ladies will not enter the cinema halls? She had seen the film and loved it.I told her to wait for Monday.

You won’t believe the Monday after the release there was a special show only for ladies all over India. I was waiting for this as I knew they would like it.

It wasn’t a film that objectified the ladies; it went deep into its soul. Similarly,”Tadap” will attract a lot of ladies audiences once the weekend is settled down.

Generally ladies want to go to theatres when it isn’t much crowded .Multiplexes do not matter. My wife has seen the film and liked it.

Adding more appreciating Ekta Kapoor’s as well Vidya Balan’s achievers qualities of sorts he expresses his views about these ladies,” Ekta and Vidya have these precious qualities-----.

They are very confident, very generous ,very giving, and very focused in their work. When they are working they don’t do anything else.

Vidya will not have a cell phone on the sets. Ekta will never get distracted. They are extremely focused. That’s what has gotten them where they are.

Lastly, Tadap is a film with new comer and also one amongst films presently releasing in theatres with just 50 % occupancy yet Milan is not thinking about number but appreciations,” I’m not thinking about numbers.Im thinking about appreciation .

I think we have made an entertaining, gripping, fresh and a clutter breaking film. Because it does not follow any known template of the recent past. It’s not an assembly line product.

I don’t think 50% capacity is a problem; not every show in every theatre runs housefull.

Very often you go to multiplexes with 100 percent capacity, you find half the theatre full.

I guess people have gone through hell during these 2 years owing to the pandemic outbreak so malls, restaurants and theatres as well as tourism will see a high rise. People are looking for entertainment after this lull period.” He concludes.