Guneet Monga: 'Kill' Will Be A Roller-Coaster Ride

The movie from filmmaker Nikhil Nagesh Bhat is one of the most anticipated titles after its much-hyped premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) in August this year where it received positive reviews.

Starring newcomer Lakshya along with Raghav Juyal and Tanya Maniktala, "Kill" can be best described as an edge-of-the-seat thriller, said Guneet, who runs the banner Sikhya Entertainment with Achin Jain.

"We are in the business of creating audio-visual experiences, just like a roller-coaster ride. I feel very used to seeing a love story, we are used to seeing people crying in the cinema. We are used to seeing a certain emotion which comes close to us and these are frequently travelled emotions.

"I always wanted to do a movie, which had a big scale and never seen action before. This is a 100 minute film with 90 minutes of action. It is India's most violent film," she told PTI in an interview.

Filled with many martial arts and gruesome action scenes, "Kill" is about two star-crossed lovers -- Tulika (Tanya Maniktala) and Amrit (Lakshya) -- who find their romance jeopardised after Tulika’s family whisks her aboard the Rajdhani Express bound for both New Delhi and an arranged marriage.

Amrit and his fellow commando buddy Viresh then embark on a romantic “rescue” mission, which goes awry when the train is suddenly stormed by a gang of bandits.

The film's director Bhat is a friend of Guneet and helped the producer get financing for her 2013 movie "The Lunchbox", starring Irrfan Khan and Nimrat Kaur.

"When I was making 'The Lunchbox', he was working as an executive with Dar Media, the studio that funded the film.

"We were just talking about movies and I was pursuing that we should do something new. And during that conversation, he narrated one line of the story -- A train robbery gone wrong, there will be two commandos and 40 goons. And the whole film will be set on the train," Guneet said.

Bhat's one line narration left her impressed and she asked the filmmaker to develop the idea further.

"I was like 'Wow', to be able to create that space where you will keep the audience engaged and keep innovating the visual language to last it for 100 minutes. And it was a challenge and I loved doing that. With Nikhil, it was amazing to collaborate because he wrote a beautiful script and then Dharma came on board and became the studio."

Recently, the film was picked up for distribution in the US and the UK by Hollywood studio Lionsgate, which also backed Keanu Reeves' "John Wick" film series.

It is for the first time a major Hollywood studio has teamed with Indian production companies for a Hindi-language release.

Guneet, who was the producer behind two Oscar-winning documentaries -- "Period. End of Sentence" and "The Elephant Whisperers" and has backed features like "Gangs of Wasseypur" movies, "The Lunchbox", "Masaan", "Pagglait" and "Soorarai Pottru" through Sikhya, said the team will soon unveil the plan for the India release of "Kill".

"We will be syncing up the dates with global release. And that is a journey that will happen in the months to come. Hopefully, it will be early next year. But it's a play with Lionsgate and everybody, so it needs to be synced up," she added.

Besides "Kill", Sikhya and Dharma are also partnering for the Hindi remake of French classic "The Intouchables" with Collin D’Cunha attached as a director for the project.

The original film, which released in 2011, featured French star Omar Sy and Francois Cluzet. The buddy comedy is about two grown men coming together from starkly different backgrounds to help each other overcome different aspects of their life holding them back.

"We are also innovating that but I'm not in a position to talk about it. We are doing something new with it. It's our favourite film, Karan and mine. It's a larger than life film on friendship with beautiful drama and also talks about disability in mainstream cinema.

"So taking that and making it our own will be a journey and I'm very excited about it. I will be disclosing the new things in it very soon," Guneet teased.

She said her partnership with Johar's Dharma Production as well as that with Ektaa R Kapoor has been enriching for her.

Guneet credits the two production banners for protecting, supporting and championing her "thoughts and ideas of working with first time directors or getting into new genres".

"We were able to do 'Pagglait' and 'Kathal' with Balaji. And with Karan, it was 'The Lunchbox' first, now 'Kill' and 'The Intouchables' remake.

"Sikhya is very proud of both of these partnerships and they both have a very individual journey and tastes. When we are working together, they are my studio and they allow me to create what we want and they add their power on positioning, marketing, distribution and finance."

Guneet said she learnt how to create content and root the stories in the mainstream through her partnerships.

"A lot of people are doing filmmaking these days but how do you elevate the journey, it is only through partnerships," she said.

Her dream is to celebrate Indian cinema and the country's diversity through stories about people "that look and talk like us in many languages".

"And the studios that allow me to do that, you know, let's partner. That's how these partnerships with Dharma and Balaji work," she added.