Shekhar Kapur reveals how he shot a crucial scene in Mr India without special effects, explains why Ramayan used green screen and they didn’t

Shekhar Kapur also revealed that Javed Akhtar came up with the dialogue 'Mogambo khush hua.'

New Delhi | Updated: July 29, 2023 01:26 PM IST

2 min read

Anil Kapoor starrer Mr India was directed by Shekhar Kapur.

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The iconic 1987 sci-fi film Mr India starring Anil Kapoor, Sridevi and Amrish Puri remains a fan favourite even after 36 years. Director Shekhar Kapur recently took a trip down the memory lane and remembered how tough it was to execute certain scenes of the film without using any special effects.

A Twitter user posted a snippet from the film where Arun Kumar (Kapoor) gets the power of invisibility for the first time. Replying to the post, Shekhar wrote, “This was perhaps the toughest scene to shoot in Mr India. We did not then have Green Screen technology which is so common now. This was shot by masking part of the lens of the camera, then rolling back the film negative precisely and masking a different part of the lens. Five times.”

The iconic dialogue ‘Mogambo Khush Hua’ is remembered even today and when one of the users asked Shekhar who came up with the line, the director credited writer Javed Akhtar for the same.

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A user then asked, “Ramayan Serial and Mr. India both were released in 1987. If cheaply budgeted Ramayan serial could afford to use Green Screen tech, why not you?” Replying to the query, Shekhar said, “Ramayan was for the small screen and pixelation shows less. On the big screen it would look very awkward and unreal.”

Mr India was a big hit and became the second highest-grossing film of the year in India. The film was remade in Tamil as En Rathathin Rathame and Kannada as Jai Karnataka.

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