Ghazi: Rana Daggubati Hopes More Underwater War Films Are Made

New Delhi: Rana Daggubati, who is prepping for the release of Ghazi said that he hopes more underwater war films are made in India. Ghazi is a war drama with gruelling underwater scenes. Rana, 32, told PTI that Ghazi, which is India's first underwater war-at-sea film, will push other filmmakers to explore this genre. "With this film we knew it's the first underwater war film we were making. We had to make it aesthetically correct as we did not have a reference point," he told PTI. The Telugu-language Ghazi, which will be released in Hindi as The Ghazi Attack, is based on the story of how Pakistani submarine PNS Ghazi was sunk by Indian submarine S-21 during the 1971 war between India and Pakistan.

The Baahubali 2 actor earlier told Hindustan Times that hat he did most of the stunts himself. "I am a certified deep sea diver with a professional diving licence, but it has been a while since I did my last dive and I so wanted to try my skills. I had to do a few rehearsal rounds before I started the shoot, but it was not so simple because we didn't know what we would encounter. We had to look out for sudden water currents and for pieces of metal. To shoot such scenes one has to be trained specially."

Rana plays a naval officer named Lt Commander Arjun Varma. His other castmates are Kay Kay Menon and Atul Kulkarni. The crew of S-21 was forced to remain underwater for 18 days - Ghazi will document their survival.

"We consulted so many Navy people before we started shooting. It's the film that glorifies the Navy, giving them the due credit. It's a big incident that has happened in 1971 before the war," told Rana to PTI. "It's the first Naval submarine-based film in this country, the West has made so many films like that. We have the fourth largest Navy in the world and we don't have a film on the Navy which is quite surprising. We were happy to make one," he told PTI.

Rana Daggubati underwent a massive physical transformation for his role in Ghazi, which also stars Taapsee Pannu and late actor Om Puri. The film will release on February 17 and will release simultaneously in Telugu, Tamil and Hindi.

Meanhwhile, Rana Daggubati will be seen in the concluding part of S S Rajamouli's magnum opus Baahubali 2 as Bhallala Deva. The film will release on April 28.

(With PTI inputs)