Masud Rana on 83 Crore Silver Screen

Movie-goers of Bangladesh are going to witness Qazi Anwar Hussain’s famous fictional spy Masud Rana, Bengals answer to James Bond, on the silver screen again, after more than four decades.

A lot of bubbles are rolling around JAAZ Multimedia’s upcoming big-budget production. After their announcement through a post on their official Facebook page on July 22, the ballyhoo over the TK 83-crore project has got more exposure.

JAAZ came up with the idea of making this movie in September, 2018. The movie production company announced that it would subsequently make three films on the first three books of Masud Rana series: Dhongshopahar, Bharatnatyam and Swarnomriga. They took copyright permission from the author.

The company hasn’t revealed who is going to play the popular sleuth. The cast of other characters like Rupa, Kabir Chowdhury, Rahat Khan are yet to be brought to light.

Channel-I and JAAZ jointly launched a reality show to look for the perfect face with flamboyant personality to play this iconic character last year. The show has gone on air from August 2.

A Hollywood production house called Silverline, JAAZ Multimedia and three other production companies are investing on the film. The budget (83 Crore Tk) is overwhelming, compared to the contemporary Bengali movies.

JAAZ has confirmed that renowned cinematographer of Hollywood Peter Field and fight director Phil Tan would join the venture. Hollywood artists like Mickey Rourke, Gabriella Wright, Daniel Bernhardt, Michael Pare and the WWE famous wrestler Khali will be seen playing significant characters. There are other actors too from Bollywood, Tollywood and other industries whose names are not disclosed yet.

As claimed by the official Facebook page of JAAZ, the background work is all settled to take a plunge into the light-camera-action. The movie will be shot in different locations of Thailand, Mauritius and hillside tracks of Bangladesh.

Hollywood based director, Asif Akbar who has his origin in Bangladesh, will direct the film. The chairman of JAAZ Multimedia Abdul Aziz, the director himself and a popular thriller writer of Bangladesh, Nazim-Ud-Daula have built up the screenplay.  

The young thriller writer says, “We have modernized the storyline so as to it can fit into the frame of today’s movie-goers. Uses of different gadgets will add a new flavor to Masud Rana; with a promise of not distorting the original storyline or the image of the character.”

Another team in the Hollywood industry is fine-tuning the screenplay.

This mammoth movie will be dubbed in two languages: Bengali and English. It will be released in Bengali in Bangladesh and Kolkata, and in English worldwide.

In 1974, actor Sohel Rana began his career starring in the first ever movie made on Masud Rana.