Leaked climax of Kites is incorrect: Director

By Indo-Asian News Service

Director Anurag Basu says he is offended and disturbed by the reported leak of the climax of Kiteseven though that is not how the film ends. He also believes the movie should not get an A-certificate by the censors as it has no such intimate scenes.

"The climax that got leaked was thankfully wrong," Basu said, reacting to reports that lead actor Hrithik Roshan and Mexican actress Barbara Mori, who play lovers in the movie, die in the end.

"That is not the climax of the film, but it clearly offended me because many sections of the audience would believe it to be the actual end," he told IANS in a telephonic interview from Mumbai.

"They will go inside the hall with that perception which is very disturbing. It is very unethical. A film has growth only till the climax and if the audience has any perception about the same, there is no fun watching it then. It is really disturbing," he added.

Basu, who has to his credit films like Life in a...Metro, Gangster and Murder, also put rumour mills to rest regarding the yet-to-be announced censorship certificate for the movie.

"Kites is not an A film. It (censor certificate) can be U or U/A but not A - that is 100 percent...There are no intimate scenes in the film as such that will require an A certificate," he said.

A love story about an Indian man's affair with a Latin woman and their predicament as they don't understand each other's language, Kites is about their thrilling journey filled with precious moments and unexpected betrayal.

Releasing simultaneously in Hindi and English on May 21 in over 60 countries, it has been produced by Hrithik's filmmaker-father Rakesh Roshan and will be distributed and marketed by Reliance BIG Pictures.

The English version, shorter by half-an-hour than the two-hour long Hindi one, has been presented and reworked by Hollywood director Brett Ratner.

Shot in Los Angeles, Las Vegas and Santa Fe, the much anticipated project also stars Kangana Ranaut.

Noteworthy is that Kangana has been visibly absent from promotions of the movie. Asked if she had been sidelined, Basu said: "She has not been sidelined from the promotions. We don't want to include Kangana very much in the promotions and give a wrong perception of the film."

"If we include more of Kangana in the promotion, it will give the perception of a love triangle between Kangana, Hrithik and Barbara, which it is not. It's a love story between Barbara and Hrithik. She has a special appearance in the film and that's what her role is in the promotions too," he explained.

Earlier rumoured to release in 2009 and then in January 2010, marking Hrithik's 36th birthday and his completion of 10 years in the film industry, Kites has seen a constant delay in coming to the box office.

"The perception of delay happened because people thought the film was ready and was shown in Cannes last year which is not the case. Actually what we had shown there was just the working tape," said Basu.

"We were ready only by winter (last year), but because it's a huge film and we have both the Hindi and English versions releasing together, to meet all the logistics, we decided the final date as only May 21," he added.

Basu's future projects include a romantic movie with Ranbir Kapoor and Priyanka Chopra and a biopic on Kishore Kumar.