'But Ranveer is a great actor who can really transform himself into the character and it will be interesting to see what he brings to the character of Don.'
Sanjay Gupta made his directorial debut in 1994 with a star-studded, action-packed, thriller called Aatish: Feel the Fire where gangsters wore Armani suits and drove flashy wheels.
From this fantasy world, the writer, producer, director moved to more realistic crime dramas, the Shootout films. Even his last outing, Mumbai Saga, adroitly wove fact and fiction.
Sanjay Gupta gives Rediff.com Senior Contributor Roshmila Bhattacharya his take on the latest Don to enter Bollywood.
The first of a two-part interview on gangsters and gangsters:
What was your first reaction to Amitabh Bachchan's Don?
With Mr Bachchan there's nothing not to like about his performances.
Just this morning, I was watching his 1986 action drama, Aakhree Raasta.
Since I'm currently writing a revenge drama, I decided to revisit this film which I had seen 37 years ago when in college and it bowled me over!
As far as Don goes, I thoroughly enjoyed the 1978 action thriller.
There's a 1980 war drama, Akira Kurosawa's Kagemusha, along the same lines, of a petty thief who because of his resemblance to a Samurai warlord is hired as his double and when the lord dies, is forced to take up arms in his place.
Were you as impressed by the remake, Shah Rukh Khan's 2006 Don: The Chase Begins Again?
Yes, SRK's Don was as enjoyable and again demanded complete suspension of disbelief.
You just have to go with the flow and enjoy the ride.
With Farhan Akhtar directing it, and Excel as the producer, I was excited to see what Shah Rukh does with the Don after almost three decades and I wasn't disappointed. SRK was uber cool!
In fact, after watching Aakhree Raasta, I feel this film should be remade because many between the ages of zero and 40 have not seen it.
It's a great story, a remake of the 1985 Tamil film, Oru Kaidhiyin Diary, and would be a good watch even today.
Was SRK's Don 2 good too?
To be honest, I wasn't too hot on that.
It seemed like it was just trying to cash in on the success of the first film.
That's the nightmare with sequels because of rising expectations you want to give people something different, but often there's a feeling of yeh to dekh liya (I've seen this before) kind of déjà vu.
It's tricky.
What are your expectations from Don 3, which has just been announced with Ranveer Singh?
Frankly, from what I saw of the teaser, it didn't excite me much.
But Ranveer is a great actor who can really transform himself into the character and it will be interesting to see what he brings to the character of Don.
Yes, he is stepping into very serious shoes and has a huge responsibility to live up to Mr Bachchan and SRK's portrayals, but I am sure he knows what he is doing.
