By Eric Ortiz (@EricOrtizG)
One of the most outstanding action films of the year, in addition to John Wick: Chapter 4 (2023), was presented as a midnight screening at Fantastic Fest. Indian director Nikhil Nagesh Bhat’s Kill (2023) begins as an impossible love story about a commando (Laksh Lalwani) and his girlfriend (Tanya Maniktala), who has just “celebrated” her engagement for an arranged marriage with another man.
Eventually, the actions take place on a moving train, where the commando and his colleague, the family of the woman he loves, as well as a group of robbers are among the passengers. A perfect setting for an action film and, indeed, there’s a point in the movie in which the commandos begin to confront the ruthless criminals, who, by the way, are relatives. The action is well done, no doubt, but Kill hasn’t really started properly: the title of the film, in fact, appears until after some 30 minutes.
Once Kill really accelerates there’s no turning back: it’s truly one of the best action films in recent years, for its structure and its well-justified and very exciting brutality. It offers next-level movie violence and it arrived just when I thought we wouldn’t see this year something as memorable as John Wick: Chapter 4 in the action-revenge genre.
One day after Kill‘s first screening at Fantastic Fest, I spoke via Zoom with its director.
Eric Ortiz (EO): Before the action stars, Kill presents a complicated love story.
Nikhil Nagesh Bhat (NNB): This film is actually an emotional story, it’s a love story at the heart of it. The motivation is the love story, so it needed to be really strong for the action to make sense. I truly believe that action is just a byproduct of the emotion, it’s the emotion that matters and that’s why even in Kill for every action there is an emotional reason.
EO: Where did it come from the setting of a train robbery with a couple of commandos on board?
NNB: When I was studying there were a couple of times when the trains were robbed. In a train of 14 cars, two or three cars were first class. As a student I couldn’t afford to go into first class. On a journey you would get to know that the first class cars were robbed. That’s something that remained in my memory.
The robbers would pass as passengers and when the train had a non-stop run of two or three hours, they would come out and they would loot people, pull the chain and get down. That was the modus operandi. I heard a lot about this growing up and even experienced it while I was traveling.
EO: The family bonds are present on both sides.
NNB: In India, as a society, we stay with extended families, we stay with our parents. Family bonds are respected and appreciated, so that’s the social structure.
You’ll be surprised that even now around 80% of marriages in India are arranged marriages. It says so much about the families, because the families would set up these marriages.
Also, normally when you look at villains, we just look at them as “black,” the hero is “white” and the villains are “black.” The kind of crisis that is happening at the villain’s side, they got trapped in a train where they were trying to hunt and now they are in a train and can’t get down and they’re being hunted. They’re also experiencing frustration. I used the family bond to highlight that.
EO: Kill goes to certain places that are quite daring, one of the robbers kills a teenager, then of course what happens to the main lady. I loved the structure of the movie and how the protagonist goes crazy out of grief.
NNB: That was the heart of the story when I wrote it. Things need to happen for it to become this kind of a gruesome action film.
Like I was saying, it’s an emotional story. Grief and guilt are very strong emotions. Grief and guilt together can create havoc in people’s lives. That is the outcome of these emotions that the protagonist Amrit is facing. That’s where he becomes a killing machine.
EO: Certain action sequences are brutal and some kills, like the one involving a fire extinguisher, are insane. They worked so great with the Fantastic Fest audience.
NNB: I was writing during the first wave of COVID, I was locked in my house. That was very hard. The claustrophobia, the insecurities, the stress, the anxiety, I think I poured out on the people. That’s the outcome from where I was.
There were times when I would keep thinking “what other different way we can make Amrit to kill a person.” It would take a lot of time before I could come up with a certain way and then I would write it down.
There is only enhancement of the blood and the wounds, which we did in VFX. That’s the reason why it looks so real. The setting is very real and I was sure that if the wounds didn’t look real, then the experience would get diminished.
EO: How was working with Laksh Lalwani?
NNB: Laksh is an amazing guy, he’s so committed. We trained for almost three months. Also, Laksh had wanted to get into the army so he did a little bit of training before that. It was easier for him to get into the skin of the character. He’s relentless, the way you see him in the film, he’s exactly like that. He would prep up the other people, so they also performed in the same way. He’s really amazing.
EO: Did you have particular influences from the action-revenge genre?
NNB: Yes, I’ve been an action buff for a very long time. I’ve seen not just the big ones but also all kinds of kung fu, judo and karate films which came to India: The 36th Chamber of Shaolin (Shao Lin san shi liu fang, 1978), Bruce Lee films, Jackie Chan films. Those have been influences. Also, I drew influence from The Raid: Redemption (Serbuan maut, 2011), Oldboy (Oldeuboi, 2003), Atomic Blonde (2017), The Night Comes for Us (2018), John Wick (2014), and even from the recent The Batman (2022), which had amazing action sequences.
Most of these films are heavily influenced by martial arts and in my film, there’s this one guy, or two guys, who are doing martial arts but the rest of them are street fighters. I didn’t have references for the combination of that, we had to design that ourselves, we had to come up with a style that is unique to the film. I’m just hopeful Kill might become a reference for somebody else.