How Ranbir Kapoor prepared for fight sequence

Kalaripayattu is one of the oldest martial art forms in India. This energetic form is inspired by the moves of animals like lion, tiger, snake, elephant and cock.

Sharing how Ranbir performed such scenes, Karan explained, "Shamshera is a film that is extremely rooted to India and its culture and traditions. Being set in the 1800's, it was important that action set pieces also look from that era and are mounted at a visual scale like never before. We wanted audiences to see something new and we have tried to achieve this. Ranbir is playing the Hindi film hero and he has to pull off incredible action scenes. One such scene required him to pull off a Kalaripayattu-inspired fight sequence that we shot on a really dusty field and constructed an arena that resembled the arena of those times!"

He added, "As an actor, Ranbir jumps at anything new! So, when we explained the scene to him, he wanted to ace it and I remember he put in many, many days rehearsing the scene with the action director of this sequence, Franz and his team. This scene is filmed on Balli, who has to fight the army general, at a hugely critical juncture of the film. It was a challenging shoot sequence. It was hot, it was humid and it was really really dusty. To make matters worse, it was also windy. But hats off to Ranbir for pulling this off with elan. This is one of the biggest highlight points of the film and I hope people love it."

Shamshera is set in the fictitious city of Kaza, where a warrior tribe is imprisoned, enslaved and tortured by a ruthless authoritarian general Shuddh Singh (played by Sanjay Dutt). This is the story of a man who became a slave, a slave who became a leader and then a legend for his tribe. He relentlessly fights for his tribe's freedom and dignity. His name is Shamshera (essayed by Ranbir).

The film also stars Vaani Kapoor and is all set to release on July 22.