Imagine stepping out of Churchgate railway station late into the night, and bumping into Akshay Kumar. That could have been a possibility only a fortnight ago. In the last week of October, filmmaker Priyadarshan shot an ambitious action sequence of Haiwaan with leads Kumar and Saif Ali Khan near the railway station. The cat-and-mouse chase sequence, which included 30-40 cars and 100 junior artistes, was choreographed by action director Stunt Silva and filmed over five nights. “Both Saif and Akshay knew how the sequence had to be shot and they cooperated, though Akshay is known to sleep early,” laughs Priyadarshan. 

Haiwaan is an adaptation of Priyadarshan’s Malayalam thriller Oppam (2016). The Hindi movie sees Khan as a visually challenged man with a heightened sense of smell and hearing, who takes on Kumar’s antagonist. “I am doing an action-oriented movie after a long time. Haiwaan is a comedy thriller, almost a cat-and-mouse game with a lot of action,” says the director, whose last Hindi release was the comedy Hungama 2 (2021).