Shahid Kapur has got a new look. Or rather, he has gone back to his old look. Shahid had been sporting a moustache for some time now.

The character he is playing in his father Pankaj Kapur’s directorial debut Mausam, required him to look mature. But now that his scenes in the film have been shot, he has gone back to his clean-shaven look. But interestingly, Shahid seems to miss his moustache.

Mausam, in which the actor plays a pilot, is the first film for which he is going to sport a moustache. While Shahid initially toyed with the idea of sporting an artificial moustache, Pankaj suggested that he grow a real one.

Shahid liked the idea. He was reportedly inspired by Mr Perfectionist Aamir Khan, who grew a moustache for his role of Mangal Pandey in The Rising. Anyway, Shahid is missing his ‘macho’ look. ” Feels weird without it now,” he says.

With Mausam , Shahid joins the league of actors such as Shah Rukh, Aamir, Salman and Akshay Kumar who have sported moustaches in various films. While Salman will be seen with a moustache in Dabangg, Aamir had one in The Rising. Shah Rukh had a moustache in Paheli, Swadesh and Army while Akshay sported one in Sangharsh.

Shahid Kapoor-Priyanka Chopra starrer flick Kaminey, which was released this Friday worldwide, has beaten the swine flu scare and earned a handsome amount of Rs 22 crore in its first three days(weekend 14,15,16 August)at the box office.

This is all from the domestic box office and the earnings from the US, UK and other countries are yet to be taken into account. The multiplexes and theatre owners have reported the attendance to be around seventy- five percent on the weekend, which is great keeping in mind the panic among public due to on- going health emergency imposed by state governments in the country.

Sources close to producer UTV Motion Pictures and director Vishal Bhardwaj say that the overall earning of the first week of ‘Kaminey’ would come to around Rs 25 crore, which is very good for a Shahid Kapur starrer flick.
As far as collection for the weekend is concerned, Shahid Kapoor’s ‘Kaminey’ is behind only to this year super hit flick ‘Love Aaj Kal’, which had Saif Ali Khan and Deepika Padukone in the main lead. Trade sources say that Imtiaz Ali directed flick had earned around Rs 25 crore in the first three days, with an occupancy rate of around 90 percent.

‘Kaminey’ box office collection is likely to increase further after its release in Mumbai, Pune and Thane districts, where it had not been released due to closure of multiplexes and single screen theatres. The state Government had ordered the closure of multiplexes in view of swine flu scare in the city and its neighboring areas.
Meanwhile, the ace film director Karan Johar of candy floss bollywood flicks, has gone out of his way to praise director Visahl Bhardwaj’s vision and expertise in directing ‘Kaminey.’ Karan went to the extent of eulogizing the film and said that it inspired him to turn to serious cinema from his type of mushy flicks.

It may be recalled that Vishal Bhardwaj and Karan Johar had fallen out when their respective films ‘Omkara’ and ‘Kabhie Alvida Na Kehna’ clashed at the box office some time ago. Karan viewed Vishal Bhardwaj’s act of releasing his ‘Omkara’ on the same day as a way of making sure that his film bombed at the box office.

However with ‘Kaminey’, Karan Johar and Vishal Bhardwaj have come close to each other, and now they better understand each other’s craft.

For the team of Kaminey, it was a homework that was one of its kinds. Vishal Bhardwaj, director of the film, instructed his entire cast and crew of the film to watch caper classics like Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels, Snatch, Pulp Fiction and True Romance to catch the finer nuances of a caper thriller.

Even though Kaminey is touted to be an out and out original thriller coming out of Bollywood, it is quite new and unique when it comes to the genre. There have hardly been many caper thrillers
generated out of Bollywood and though recent Kunal Khemu and Boman Irani release 99 did come close, such attempts have been far and few. In fact Fool N Final (which incidentally starred Shahid Kapoor) had it’s bearings with Snatch but it could hardly make an impact amongst the audiences.

“This is why Vishal wanted to be sure that everyone from cast as well as crew members gets familiar with the entire idea of story telling when it comes to a caper thriller”, informs a prominent crew member who was assigned this ‘homework’ just like the rest, “There is a certain ’sur’ in movies belonging to this genre and one miss here or there and the film risks falling flat on it’s face.”

Movies like Guy Ritchie’s Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels (1998) & Snatch (2000), Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction (1994) and Tony Scott’s True Romance (1993) have traditionally acted as text book material not just for India but even West when it comes to caper thrillers.. There have been quite a few movies belonging to this genre that have been inspired from the above mentioned flicks but not many have even managed to touch the surface.

Filmmaker Vishal Bhardwaj too agrees that it was quite a tedious task to make Kaminey. “I was under the impression that it would be easy and fun to write Kaminey. After all it was meant to be a caper so I could let my imagination go wild. However, as it turned out, it was not just difficult to write but further even more difficult to translate the written material on screen”, says Vishal.

Since the narrative includes quite a few characters, the screenplay writing came with its own challenges. “There are as many as eight to ten characters in Kaminey and since each of them have equal intensity and space requirement, there was no time to establish them all”, remembers Vishal, “I had to make them all memorable while catching them into the act.”

This is not all as Bollywood sensibilities had to be taken into account as well, what with Kaminey being pitched as a full on commercial flick with eyes on popular audience.

“Yes, we needed to add all the Bollywood ‘masala’ elements with romance, songs, dances etc. being the much necessary ingredients. It was very tough and now when I look back, I am glad our team was able to crack it all well”, signs off Vishal.

Aiming for a 14th August release, Kaminey stars Shahid Kapoor in the double role of Charlie and Guddu. While Priyanka Chopra plays the character of Sweety, Amol Gupte features as Bhope Bhau. With lyrics by Gulzar, music by Vishal Bhardwaj himself and cinematography by Tassaduq Hussain (of Omkara fame), Kaminey is a UTV Motion Pictures production.