Asif has real star quality

When Asif Kapadia’s debut film, The Warrior, was released earlier this year, it got rave reviews from film critics around the country. It’s the story of a professional killer in rural India who decides to give up his job for the local warlord after years of bloodshed — but isn’t prepared for the consequences.

Kapadia has been touted as the herald of a new breed for British film-making — he’s a young British Asian who grew up in and around Hackney, and looks to make films that stretch the eye and the mind. The Warrior chooses not to opt for the Ken Loach or Mike Leigh approach of kitchen-sink drama - Kapadia’s film is a real epic of mythical proportions. It also owes a debt of influence to masters of cinema like Sergio Leone and Akira Kurosawa, something Kapadia readily admits to.

“I was always a Sergio Leone fan and I watched a lot of Japanese films,” he says. “It’s that world of stories that I’ve always been into. The Warrior started off when my co-writer found a small Japanese story about a boy who sees the severed head of his father. We started off thinking about writing a samurai-type film set in Japan, but I don’t speak the language and it’s very expensive.”

Instead he moved the movie’s location to India. It was something that worked on many levels - allowing for the feudal aspects of the film to feel realistic, while at the same time containing a range of spectacular filming locations. Kapadia also picked up local villagers to play parts the film, a move he was very pleased with. “We chose India because it’s a timeless world,” he says. “I speak Hindi and I’d made a short film there before because it’s so cheap to film, so it seemed like a natural choice.”

Unfortunately, the choice of location didn’t make filming any easier — in fact the cast and crew were beset by a range of problems.

“When we were in pre-production, the monsoon season was happening,” says Kapadia. “We were in Bombay and on certain days it was under three or four feet of water. Then we went to film in the desert, where temperatures were touching the forties.”

The madness didn’t end there, though — there were more treats in store for the crew.

“Then we flew to the Himalayas, where it was freezing, under feet of snow. We were in the middle of nowhere and there wasn’t enough space in the hotels to accommodate us all, so people ended up sleeping in converted schools and stuff. One member of the crew was bitten by a rabid dog, there were lots of scorpions and also a very bad case of malaria.

“The difference between this and other films I’d worked on was just that it was so long. On short film, the longest I’d spent shooting was maybe two weeks — on this movie we were shooting for months. As a first-time director, there were a lot of people who had years of experience. We had a few battles, but in the end you’ve got to trust your gut instinct. It’s physically and mentally so demanding that by the end of it I’d turned into a robot. If you watch the DVD version of The Warrior, there’s a lot of footage there that shows how hard the whole process was.”

But after all the trials and tribulations, the end result was worth the heartache, he believes.

“I’m really proud of it. It’s very close to the original idea. It works in an Indian sense, and people who understand Japanese films can also see the links and influences there. And it’s unusual for a first British film — it’s not a traditional subject for a British film-maker, it’s got a real epic scale — and that’s good because I hope it’s kind of a new chapter in British film making.”

Now Kapadia is spending his time working on a few new movie projects — as well as providing assistance and advice to a range of young movie-makers who see him as a real success story. He modestly downplays his achievements, saying that he’s just one of a whole new group of directors who will be hitting our screens soon.

“I’m one of a whole new generation of British movie makers,” he says. “There are a whole bunch of people coming through. And on this film, we had a real mixture of backgrounds — that’s where I think the future of British cinema is — in its diversity.”

Let's hope he's right.