Dhwaja — an intense love story with a strong political backdrop

Very few people would want to essay a double role in their very first film, but that is what excited Ravi, because it gave him an opportunity to showcase his acting skills. CBG Productions’ Dhwaja, which releases today (the remake of the Tamil hit Kodi) has a lot in store for audiences. “It is an intense love story with a strong political backdrop; an edge-of-the-seat action thriller, with a gripping screenplay. The songs, composed by Santhosh Narayanan, are to look out for, as is the climax, which was shot over seven days. The climax of

Dhwaja

and

Kodi

are different, and this should give people who have watched Kodi a reason to watch our film,” says Ravi.

Hailing from Mysuru, Ravi moved to Bengaluru to pursue a course in acting. Having known Upendra for many years, Ravi was an assistant director on

Uppi

2. “I wanted to work with him, to know how the industry works. That experience really helped, after which, I started working on a script. At the same time, a friend told me about Kodi, and after watching the film, I realised that it was a lot like the script that I was working on — with two shades to the hero. I really liked Kodi and thought that it would be a good idea for my first film to be a remake, since even if I make any mistakes, I have a reference,” says Ravi, who adds that it was a challenge to maintain continuity with the two different looks. “One of my looks is with a beard, and the other is clean shaven. So, we had to shoot the bearded portions first, go back to the same location after a month and make sure that everything on set was exactly the same, to shoot the scenes of me as clean shaven. That was challenging,” he adds.

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