Sundeep Kishan On His First Sports Film Releasing 5 March

Telugu star Sundeep Kishan is  very kicked about his ready –for-release   film A1 Express. “It is  my  first sports  film, and that too about hockey, a sport that has been neglected for way too long.”

Sundeep hopes to create  awareness  about the game’s potential. “Look at how  kabbaddi has grown every since it got corporatized. I  hope to see hockey getting the same kind of makeover, though I am not so ambitious as to believe my film can do the  turnaround  in  the  fortunes  of the game.”

 Sundeep whose last Telugu film Tenali Ramakrishna  BA  BL was  well-received, laments the paucity  of films on hockey. “There have been two very significant films  in Hindi cinema ChakDe and Soorma  on   hockey. But that’s it. I’m proud to say we’re among the  first to  give  sports  and  hockey so much importance in the South.”

Sundeep reveals that  AI Express is  a remake  of  a Tamil hit. “That’s right.We bought the remake  rights  of  the  Tamil film Natpe Thunai, but made  quite   a few changes from  the original. We  moved the goal posts  in the plot to give it a more rounded  look. We  built on  the character, gave them more space .”

 Sundeep  who  plays the  lead, learnt hockey from scratch. “Of course I knew hockey. I watched the game  , but never  played it. For  the film I learnt to play hockey well enough to  look like  a professional. We also hired some state-level hockey champs  to play  in the  film.All in  all, I feel we’ve made a  film that does  the game  proud.”

The  film releases  only in theatres  on March 5.

Says  Sundeep, “We  got  some really tempting offers  from digital platforms. But we  desisted . A1 Express was made for  the  big screen. We cannot put content  designed  for movie theatres  on  the  digital platform. The two  outlets  must have a separate existence.”