Farhan Akhtar’s Don: The Chase Begins Again turns 20 today, and the 2006 remake still feels like a break from the Bollywood it arrived in. In a new conversation with Bollywood Hungama, cinematographer KU Mohanan looked back at the film’s real action, its deliberate colours and the end twist that gave a 1978 classic a new reason to exist.
Mohanan was an advertising cinematographer, not a feature-film name, when Akhtar brought him on board. He admitted even he was unsure whether he could pull off a production of that scale. “He was a little apprehensive also in the beginning if I would be able to pull it off,” Mohanan said, recalling the early conversations. He took the job as a challenge.
Real action, with SRK at the wheel
The action was meant to look world-class at a time when heavy VFX was neither common nor easy in Hindi cinema. Mohanan says most of the chase material was shot at real speed, with only a few shots finished through visual effects.
That meant Shah Rukh Khan was genuinely driving for some of the film’s most dangerous moments. Mohanan sat behind him with a hand-held camera as Khan hit water barrels and a road roller. For the fireball shot, a camera was mounted in front of the car so the actor’s face was clearly visible.
There was no duplicate. He will do anything you tell him.
Khan did the fireball scene twice, Mohanan said. The cinematographer’s admiration goes beyond the stunts: he called Khan hardworking, supportive and “a dream to work with.” Don led to later collaborations on Raees (2017), Jab Harry Met Sejal (2017) and several commercials.
A remake with a different temperature
The film’s cold blue-green-black palette was not an accident. Mohanan, Akhtar, production designer Aradhana Seth and costume designer Aki Narula agreed on a restricted colour scheme before the camera and look tests. Warm colours were cut from nearly the whole film, with the song Yeh Mera Dil Pyaar Ka Deewana standing out as the warm, red-and-orange exception.
That discipline, Mohanan believes, is why the film does not look like regular Hindi cinema of its period. “It wasn’t a copy of Hollywood. But it also wasn’t like the regular Hindi cinema of that period,” he said.
Why the twist mattered
- Real action: chases were shot at speed, with the star often in frame.
- Strict palette: blue, green and black, with warmth held back for one song.
- New ending: Farhan Akhtar’s twist separated the remake from the 1978 original.
Mohanan grew up with the original Don, so he was excited by Akhtar’s rewritten climax. Without it, he reasoned, there would be little point in remaking the film exactly as before. He credits the twist as one reason the film succeeded at the box office.
Twenty years later, the film still gives fans an easy rewatch brief: watch the chases for what is real, notice how little warmth the frame allows, and stay for the ending that changed the game.
Source: bollywoodHungama.com