Dhaval Roy (DNA; September 10, 2019)

After a deadly bike chase on Portugal’s highest peak and bringing its city Porto to a halt, Hrithik Roshan and Tiger Shroff have filmed another high-octane sequence for their upcoming movie, War. The two heroes shot on the largest cargo ice-breaker ship that plies in the Arctic Circle. A source tells us that it’s the biggest action scene to have been filmed on ice in the polar region. “In the sequence, Hrithik and Tiger look to beat each other in a jaw-dropping fight on an ice-breaker ship,” says the insider, adding that the vessel is 300-feet long and can break through frost that’s about 10-feet deep. “The production crew had to wait for five months before they could get the permission to film on this ship,” the source reveals.

Director Siddharth Anand confirms, “War has been mounted hugely to give audiences a film that’s the biggest in terms of action spectacle. Yes, it took months but we managed to secure the permission to shoot on a massive ice-breaking ship and filmed a visually-stunning action sequence with Hrithik and Tiger. I hope viewers love what we have shot!”

The filmmaker adds that six year ago, his wife Mamta shot a video of a ship ploughing through the ice in Arctic. “When she showed me this clip, I was awestruck. I knew instantly that one day I would shoot this magnificent visual for one of my films and I’m delighted that this idea worked out for War because when you have two big superstars of our generation in an action movie, you want to give them and audiences the best spectacle one has ever seen,” Siddharth states. This sequence is part of the fight scenes shot on land, water, ice and air.

For War, Hrithik Roshan-Tiger Shroff shoot chase sequence in Arctic Circle in Finland with Dark Knight stunt director Paul Jennings
Mohar Basu (MID-DAY; July 17, 2019)

With two alpha males — Hrithik Roshan and Tiger Shroff — for leading men, director Siddharth Anand knew he would have to up the ante for action in War. Pulling out all stops, the filmmaker shot an elaborate car chase sequence featuring the two in Finland, thus making the Vaani Kapoor-starrer the first Bollywood movie to be filmed in the Arctic Circle.

Knowing that few would be able to do justice to the larger-than-life sequence that he had in mind, Anand roped in Hollywood stunt director Paul Jennings, whose resume includes prestigious projects like The Dark Knight (2008), Jack Reacher (2012), San Andreas (2015) and Game Of Thrones, among others.

A source tells mid-day, "Paul is the architect of this action segment. The crew had done a recce of the location six months before the sequence was shot there. Aware that performing stunts on ice can be tricky, Jennings and his team choreographed the stunts in a way that they were high on adrenaline while using the surroundings to create a visual spectacle. It was shot over a couple of days in the biting cold last year. Hrithik and Tiger practised for weeks before canning the shot."

Proud of how the idea has translated from the storyboard to reel, Anand says, "We were clear that we wanted to give Indian audiences action that they have never seen before. The car sequence sees Hrithik and Tiger perform an adrenaline-pumping stunt that has been shot on ice. We were informed by our production team that we were the first film in the world to shoot an action scene of this scale in the Arctic! Though the sequence was risky, it was so stunning visually that we went for it."