Stuntmen association,'Rakta Charitra' makers at loggerheads

Mumbai, May 24 (IANS) The producer of Vivek Oberoi's 'Rakta Charitra' and Bollywood's stuntmen association have locked horns over the fee issue.

'Rakta Charitra' is being made simultaneously in Hindi, Tamil and Telugu and the stuntmen association demands twice the levy on the fights and fighters participating in the trilingual.

When asked about the unusual demand on the film's resources, director Ram Gopal Varma passed on the buck to producer Sheetal Talwar.

Explaining the situation, Talwar said: 'It's true we were asked to pay up three times the normal levy for the fights in 'Rakta Charitra'. The argument given was that Mani Ratnam's 'Raavan', which is in two languages (Tamil and Hindi) had to pay twice the levy.

'But we argued back that in 'Raavan' all the fights in the two languages were different since the Tamil and Hindi versions of the film star different actors. In 'Raktra Charitra', we have exactly the same cast in Hindi, Tamil and Telugu and the fights have not been shot twice over. Only the close-ups in the two versions are different.'

It seems shooting fight scenes for multilingual films won't be a 'cheap' affair. The association now demands twice the levy on the fights and fighters participating in a bi-lingual. And if it's a three-language film, then a producer has to pay levy three times that of a one-language film.

After a week-long fight, the association has brought down the levy to twice rather than thrice the normal amount.

However, 'Rakta Charitra' producer is still not willing to pay up the amount demanded as it would entail an extra burden of Rs.5 to 6 million on their budget.

'We're fighting it out. Let's see,' said Talwar.

Based on the life of an alleged outlaw Paritala Ravi, 'Rakta Charitra' also stars Shatrughan Sinha and Tamil superstar Suriya.