While the rest of Bollywood is still finding its feet after the New Year festivities, Akshay Kumar has bounced back into business and began the shoot of his next film Kesari today. The actor, who returned from his Cape Town holiday just yesterday, first addressed a press conference on his January 25 release Padman. Then, this morning, he reported on the sets of Kesari which he is making with Karan Johar’s Dharma Productions.
Akshay announced he means business by posting his first look from Kesari on Twitter and writing, “Feeling nothing but immense pride and gratitude while sharing this. Beginning my 2018 with Kesari.” He described the film as his most “ambitious” and said he felt a lot of passion for it. The actor plays a Sikh in the film and he picked the birth anniversary of Guru Gobind Singh (January 5, 1666), the tenth Sikh Guru who was also a spiritual master, warrior, poet and philosopher, to begin the shoot of Kesari.
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https://twitter.com/akshaykumar/status/949168106860982272
This is the same film whose announcement in December 2016 had caused ripples in Bollywood because it was also the coming together of Salman Khan with Akshay Kumar and Karan Johar. Then, something went wrong and Salman politely backed out of Kesari without offering any explanation why his Salman Khan Films would not co-produce the film. Kesari is based on the Battle of Saragarhi and is a story of action, bravery, pride and valour in which 21 Sikhs of the 36 Regiment of the British Army (now the 4th Battalion of the Sikh Regiment o the Indian Army) defended Saragarhi in the North West Frontier Province against an attack by 10,000 Afghani tribesmen.
https://twitter.com/karanjohar/status/949170306010230784
This is Akshay’s second Sikh character after the popular ‘Singh’ of Singh Is Kinng and Singh Is Bliing. The actor, who already has three films lined up for release in 2018 (Padman, 2.0 and Gold), plans to shoot Kesari even while doing promotions of Padman which releases on January 25. No wonder he’s called the Khiladi.