"Salman sir is not Superman but he is a superhero," says Annal Arasu, the action director of Kick, who got the actor to jump from the 40th floor of Poland's tallest building-the Warsaw Palace of Science and Culture.
We see Salman perched on the parapet, crashing through the window and diving into empty space, a la Andrew Garfield in The Amazing Spider-Man 2. Interestingly, the Hollywood film was playing in theatres in the Polish capital when Sajid Nadiadwala's team was shooting there.
"We used cables and took every precaution possible, but we still had our hearts in our mouth for five hours as we watched Salman sir shoot this high-risk sequence. He refused to use a double and took most of the jumps himself. Even the locals and tourists standing below, who had never seen a Bollywood masala movie, cheered every shot taken," recalls Arasu. The action director insists that it is easier to film hardcore action sequences abroad as managing the crowd is easier. "We enjoyed greater creative freedom while shooting in Poland. We got Salman sir to run through the busy streets, dodging cars and buses, and he even drove a bus," he says.
Shooting with the star in old Delhi was far tougher. "When we were shooting around the Red Fort and Jama Masjid in Chandni Chowk, the crowd had to be seen to be believed," he says. Still, with heavy police protection, they managed to can a bicycle chase with Salman.
The sequence sees him pedalling through the busy streets and narrow gallis and also doing cartwheels and jumping from one building, finally ditching the cycle and non chalantly walking across a railway track with the train just seconds away from mowing him down.
Salman did all this in real time with 12 cameras, recording his every move from all angles. So far the longest chase sequence was Sunny Deol racing after Shah Rukh Khan in Darr--A Love Story. But Kick's sequence has broken that record and the production team plans to approach the Limca Book Of Records to officially register it.
Salman has a couple of more chases in the film--on a modified bike and a double decker bus. Arasu also shot some high-voltage action scenes with Randeep Hooda, a cop the masked Salman hoodwinks through the film. "Randeep's introduction sequence will make a huge impact," he asserts.
He says that technically Kick matches up to international standards and the climax has a Hollywood feel to it. "No guns and special effects, it's more hand-tohand combat. We shot the sequence at Mehboob Studio over eight-10 days. We had fighters flown in from London and Dubai."
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