Kabir Khan: Project was in the making for 20 years

Kabir Khan

Even as he gears up to bring the story of India's first World Cup victory to life with Ranveer Singh-starrer '83, Kabir Khan is garnering the attention of cinephiles with a project that has stayed with him for several years. It was in 1999 that the filmmaker made his directorial debut with The Forgotten Army - based on Subhas Chandra Bose's Indian National Army - a project that had such an impact on him that he harboured the desire to recreate it on an elaborate scale, ever since.

"This is a story 20 years in the making," Khan tells mid-day of his upcoming web offering, The Forgotten Army - Azaadi Ke Liye. "The story moved me passionately as a filmmaker ever since I made a documentary on the subject. I have always wanted to tell this largely unheard story of our valiant INA soldiers, who were fighting for our country's independence in a land far away from Indian soil."

Revisiting those events that concerned India before and after the second World War, the show, a source says, was filmed in locations that were crucial to the events that transpired then. "We shot in Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia. [Certain] locations were recreated in Mumbai on a mammoth scale, even if that meant investing heavily for a mere four-day shoot that required the set-up. The team wanted to make the series look as authentic as possible," says the source.

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