Khuda Haafiz, that stars action man Vidyut Jammwal as a man on a mission to trace his wife (played by Shivaleeka Oberoi) who’s gone missing in a foreign country, is directed by Faruk Kabir. The Telegraph caught up with Kabir, who’s also acted and directed the 2014 thriller Allah Ke Banday, on Khuda Haafiz that streams on Disney+Hotstar from August 14.

What made you want to make Khuda Haafiz? I understand it’s inspired by a newspaper article on a real-life incident...

Yes, it comes from an article that I was very emotionally drawn to. I cut out the article and kept it with me and the story kept coming back to me. It kept resonating with me, and that’s when I started researching on it. I got in touch with various investigative journalists and through an NGO, I luckily managed to touch base with some people who had been part of such incidents. About three odd months of digging and probing was followed by nine-and-a-half months of writing the story, screenplay and dialogues. All through the research, I couldn’t help but be drawn towards the emotional part of the story, more than anything else. For me, to articulate the genre of Khuda Haafiz would be that it’s an emotionally charged thriller. There are not many big-budget action films that also manage to touch an emotional chord. It’s raw and real and it will emotionally resonate with the audience.

But the trailer gives off a very Taken vibe...

Yes, that’s been an apprehension. See, I had read this article way back, much before Taken (a Hollywood action franchise frontlined by Liam Neeson; inset) was even made. But after Taken came out, I became very conscious of the fact that I had to ensure that it didn’t seem like I had taken anything from Taken. I want to be a fiercely original storyteller, I have invested a lot of my time in writing my own stories.
When you see the film pan out, you will realise that it’s not like Taken except it’s about a man on a mission to search for a loved one. That’s something that’s happened in many other films as well, whether it’s Gone Girl, Sadak or Roja. I was aware and conscientious about the fact that I didn’t want to take anything from anywhere. Even if a reference point came out, I detoured and treated it differently from how it’s been done before. Honestly, if I had to take everything from Taken, I would finish the screenplay in only about a month’s time (laughs).

Vidyut Jammwal is a natural choice for an action role, but this is also about an emotionally vulnerable man, something he hasn’t really played before. What made you pick him to be Sameer?

To be very candid, I signed him on because I really connected with Vidyut the person. I knew that whoever played Sameer needed to be really invested in this character and I needed to be really invested in him. The prerequisite was that our wavelengths needed to match and luckily, it did so right from the first meeting. From then on, Vidyut just surrendered to the role. He was ready to shed everything from the past, his larger-than-life action image.... We would have some very uncomfortable conversations right from the beginning, and it was good because there was so much openness from his side to approach this part as honestly as he could. I can safely now say that not only did we have Vidyut giving a bit of himself to the character but I also feel that through playing Sameer, he’s also discovered certain things about himself. He’s been very focused on this film. There are no six-pack abs, no somersaults, it’s an honest story and Vidyut was happy to go with my vision. Without his and Kumarji (Mangat, the film’s producer) support, it would have been very difficult for me to make this film the way I wanted to make it.

You are a trained martial artiste yourself. Did you and Vidyut initially connect on that?

I knew that Vidyut will be able to have the focus and everyday consistent discipline of performance on set in very trying environments. That’s because he’s an extremely well-trained martial artiste and since I have been a boxer myself, I know that you have to have an extremely high level of discipline to be the kind of martial artiste that Vidyut is... one of the best in the world, so to speak. So I simply harnessed that focus and discipline onto the character. We would have very long readings of six-seven hours at a stretch and then convert that to very long hours on set. Vidyut had that in him.

It’s a film with big action set pieces. What were the biggest challenges during shoot?

We were away from home for 48 days in a foreign country where nobody speaks English. But the people of Uzbekistan were very hospitable towards us and I have hopefully made some friends there that will last a lifetime. The weather was crazy... we had to work in sub-zero temperatures. But this is a summer film and so the actors could just wear very thin layers under their clothes. The sun was out, but the temperature was still minus 10 degrees (laughs). So everyone had to really come together and bond and make this film. Bahut mushkil ho jaata hain roz usi energy ke saath perform karna extreme weather conditions mein jisse aap mukhatir nahin hain.
It’s also not a country where many people shoot films, we had to hustle for a lot of things. It was a tough film to shoot... opening up and shooting this film in these large vistas and expanses which I wanted to capture cinematically. We shot it using anamorphic lenses, which were also used to shoot Sholay. There are only two sets of anamorphic lenses in Bombay, it’s that rare and that treasured.

So doesn’t it rankle a little bit that a large-scale action film like this will open on the small screen? There are many people who will watch the film on their phones...

Honestly speaking, my heart is full of gratitude. In this time when people are going through so much despair, when spirits are broken both emotionally and financially and when life is telling us to drop our conditioning and adjust to a new normal, I am so relieved that our film is releasing... I couldn’t be happier. Of course, Vidyut and I had a chat about it and we said that even if we knew from the beginning that the film was being made for a streaming platform, our effort and intention to make good content would be the same. Yes, I did ponder that, ‘Yaar, I’ve made this as such a cinematic film... the whole intention is so cinematic’, but then I realised that human emotions are still human emotions... you can feel them on any kind of screen. For example, Game of Thrones is possibly the biggest entertainment property made in the last decade but it’s been made for the small screen and we’ve watched it on TV.