Bollywood enters Seoul
I was watching this song Tu Hi Meri Shab Hai from the film Gangster on TV yesterday and I noticed that they showed something which looked like the Cheonggyecheon river. In the next scene they are on the Seoul Subway which I know too well. In another scene there is a bus with something written in Korean at the side - so I was thinking that the place was indeed Seoul, but then it could have been some other place.
So, I googled.
So, I googled.
- From Korean Rhapsody
How did you zero in on South Korea considering this exotic country has never been tapped by any Hindi film-maker before?
My first choice was Australia. It was Bhattsahab who suggested South Korea. Surfing the net I was impressed with how beautiful the country is. Also, I realised that it would be Fall when we would be shooting there and I was hoping to get lots of red and gold leaves. I have to thank Mukesh Bhatt. I can’t imagine any other producer daring enough to not only give his director the go-ahead to shoot in a strange country but ensure that we were cleared in a week’s time.
How did the South Koreans react to an Indian film unit in their midst?
(Laughing) We were like aliens...Aliens who sang while walking on the road. Korea is a very closed world without much of tourist exchange, so they had no inkling what we were up to. Language was a big problem with even our interpreter speaking little English. But it being an Asian country we soon realised that our values and morals were the same.