Watch out for cricketer Rani in ‘Dil Bole Hadippa!’ (IANS Preview)

NEW DELHI - After starring in back-to-back duds like Thoda Pyaar Thoda Magic and Saawariya and doing a few cameos in the last two years, Bengali beauty Rani Mukerji returns to the big screen in a new avatar in Dil Bole Hadippa!. Releasing Friday, the film will see the actress playing a man too!

Produced and distributed by Yash Raj Films (YRF), the romantic comedy is the directorial debut of Anurag Singh, who has been an associate director for five films with filmmaker Rakesh Roshan and with Sanjay Gadhvi for Dhooom 2.

The movie also marks the entry of Shahid Kapoor into the YRF camp. He is paired opposite Rani.

The film tells the story of Veera (Rani), a fire-cracker of a girl who lives in a small village but dreams of playing cricket in the big league. Rohan (Shahid) is an accomplished captain of a county cricket team in England and returns to India to captain his father’s cricket team, which has been losing consecutively since the last eight years.

In a village where girls don’t play cricket, Veera has to wear a turban and beard to disguise herself as a man to fulfil her dreams. Her brilliance on the field earns her rave points and an entry into Rohan’s team.

There is something which the film says very subtly because preachy films can be really boring. ‘Dil Bole Hadippa!; is very entertaining and in the end, it just leaves you with a thought, Shahid had said.

The 31-year-old actress also hit the gym in vengeance for her toned look in the movie.

“Rani is very committed towards her body and her dedication has resulted in mind-blowing results. She is looking outstanding,” celebrity trainer Satyadev ‘Satya’ Chaurasia had told IANS.

Debutant director Anurag Singh says the film has been shot entirely in villages.

“There is no trace of any city or skyscrapers in it. We did all our shooting in villages outside Chandigarh, Ludhiana and Amritsar over 80 days,” he said.

Asked why he chose Rani and Shahid for the lead role, he said: “I wanted to bring in a pair which had never worked together before. There is some sort of freshness about Rani and Shahid working together. There was instant chemistry between the two,” he added.

The film has had its share of controversies too. Initially, the title of the film was Hadippa but the rights to the same had been bought by filmmaker Sanjay Leela Bhansali who refused to part with it on YRFs request. The movie title was then announced to be “Dil Bole Hadippa!”

Then the Punjabi Cultural And Heritage Board showed displeasure over Rani’s character in the film donning a patka instead of a pagdi, since an adult Sikh normally wears a pagdi and not a patka.

The Sikh community also raised objection regarding the use of a patka sign in place of a dot on letter ‘I’ in the movie title …Hadippa.

Apparently, this is YRF’s second film on a sport after their hockey-centric 2007 hit Chak De! India. Also starring Anupam Kher and Dalip Tahil along with item girls Rakhi Sawant and Sherlyn Chopra, the movie premiered at the ongoing Toronto International Film Festival.