For the climactic battle in Apoorva Lakhia's Mission Istaanbul, the reed-thin Zayed Khan put on 11 kg and weighed 75 kg for the first time in his life. All because he had to take on the movie's bad man Nikitin Dheer, who is 6 feet 4 inches tall and weighed 86 kg.
This scene is supposed to be the climax sequence. Zayed was excited when he was told about the climactic situation and requirement of this role. 'I suddenly had to weigh beyond what I ever usually did. I had to match Nikitin Dheer because there was a lot at stake for me. 'Mission Istanbul' sapped me. This project meant a lot to me,' Zayed said.
Mission Istaanbul targets the youth audiences across the globe and is all set to invade the Indian Box Office from 25th July, 2008. The film casts actors Suniel Shetty, Viveik Oberoi, Zayed Khan, Shabbir Ahluwalia, Shriya Saran, Nikitin Dheer and debutante Shweta Bharadwaj. Mission Istaanbul is an action flick directed by one of the most innovative action directors, Apoorva Lakhia and produced by a joint venture of Balaji Motion Pictures Ltd and Suniel Shetty's Popcorn Motion Pictures Pvt Ltd.
The pace of the film is relentless and the actions are mind boggling. The film moves in a rock solid direction and has a strong theme. The Mission Istaanbul script saw 22 drafts before it was finalized. All the star-cast in the film has been made to perform out of ordinary stunts to give it a brush of reality. Zayed and Viveik were made to jump from a four storey building. Buildings and helicopters were blown up, cars were smashed and many such things were done to make it a bigger project in the leagues of action flicks.
The music of the film is outstanding and perfectly matches the film's plot. Turkish Singer Ege sung an awesome romantic song 'Jo Gumshuda' in the movie. It has been scored by Bollywood's renowned music Directors, Anu Malik, Shamir Tandon, Chirantan Bhatt and Mika. The overwhelming lyrics have been penned by India's ace lyricist Sameer. The action Director for Mission Istaanbul are Javed and Ejaz Shaikh and the Dialogues are written by Raj Vasant. The film is an outrageous approach toward the new era action films in India and probably might turn out to be the Indian MISSION IMPOSSIBLE.
BALAJI MOTION PICTURES LTD march towards presenting a top of the line entertainment software to Indian feature film audiences after Balaji Telefilms Limited, whose serials rank among India's most watched television programming. With MISSION ISTAANBUL awaiting release and big films like Bhool Bhulayia, Sarkar Raj already making success stories at the box offices, and C Kkompany and EMI just awaiting release, this group will also actively produce and distribute both Indian and Foreign motion pictures all over the world.