'Laal Kaptaan' a Western with revenge, power & Naga Warriors: Navdeep

When Mughals were on a decline and British on rise, power game was up in air with everyone vying for it but one Naga Sadhu was marching to his own beats for revenge: that's how director Navdeep Singh defines his latest, Laal Kaptaan.  film, set roughly 25 years after historical Battle of Buxar of 1764, features Saif Ali Khan as a "renegade, lone wolf, revenge driven" Naga Warrior. Navdeep, who has helmed NH10 and Marama Six Feet Under, calls Laal Kaptaan an Indian Western. 

"Sholay was our greatest Western ever. But outside of that, we don't have a celebrated history of that. I enjoy ethos of a Western. A frontier land where anything can happen, people are scrambling for things. I kind of did it with 'Marama...' as well. Frontier lands are exciting," Navdeep told PTI. 

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idea comes from a line he had read in a book as a kid, which stayed with him: 'Till a few hundred years ago, a man with ambition and brain could pick up a sword and carve out a kingdom for himself.'

"That time has gone. May be w you can create a start up company for yourself! But that sense of being able to do anything- I loved that," he says. 

Navdeep extended that idea and set it in Bundelkhand in period between decline of Mughals and emergence of British. 

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"It's a period where game is up in air. Marathas are vying for power, re are Jatts, Sikhs and Afghans. film is t about historical events but a personal fictional story played out against this real historical backdrop."

germ of story came to him when he was reading about Begum Samru, who took over kingdom of her husband Walter Reinhardt Sombre, near Delhi.  history book had a mention of Battle of Buxar, which cemented role of British in India. 

"re I read about Naga Warriors who took part in battle, fighting against British. re were just two-three lines mentioned but I was fascinated. So I started researching Nagas of that period. I read about it some 15 years ago and slowly I started to read more about it, history of Naga Sadhus. y were a fascinating group in an exhilarating period, influential politically and militarily. It was an eye opener," Navdeep said.

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What followed was combining an idea he and his co-writer Deepak Venkatesha already had and coming up with Laal Kaptaan in under a year. 

"Deepak and I had discussed a story idea for a long time which was contemporary. We kept thinking where to set it, how to go about as it was a one line idea. n we merged se two ideas into one. One was a bunch of characters and a backdrop and one was a plot idea," he added

Saif plays a Naga Sadhu, a bounty hunter, who finds people who have rewards on ir heads.  director says his character is looking for a particular man for revenge for 20 years, which is why "he wanders lands with blood on his mind. Bounty hunter is his side sustenance."

READ | Saif Ali Khan's Film Laal Kaptaan Is About Power, Revenge, And Defeat

In film, also featuring Deepak Dobriyal, Zoya Hussain, most of characters are nameless. "We call Saif's character ' Hunter', Deepak's called ' Tracker', Zoya is called ' Widow.' re are names to characters in film." he said.

"In first draft of film, title was ' Hunter, Widow and Hanging Tree' which sounds like a Western but obviously re was hindi translation so it became Laal Kaptaan," he added.

title comes from a British East India Army Company jacket Saif's Naga Warrior wears in film.

"re's a bit of a story on how he acquires it. Since it defines his character and way he looks, we thought it could be kind of thing people call him- 'Laal Kaptaan'. We want people to find out who this man is and what he has on his mind," he adds. 

'Laal Kaptaan' is scheduled to release on October 18.