Chandni Chowk to China unit's lingo trouble

The recent shoot of Chandni Chowk to China seemed to suffer from a communication gap with the Chinese locals. Hiren Kotwani tells more.

Exotic locations are fine but what about the language barrier?

The recent shoot of Chandni Chowk to China seemed to suffer from a communication gap with the Chinese locals in Shanghai and Beijing.

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Lost in translation
It took the Indian unit some days to work in harmony with the Chinese unit. Four interpreters had been hired to facilitate coordination between the Indian and Chinese units.

Choreographer Pony Verma recalls how they had to first learn to count one to ten in their language. It wasn't easy getting their accent, but after a couple of days, we could manage.

The Chinese dancers had to be told time and again that they had to start their steps after the count of four.

Verma says, "They had never seen a Bollywood unit. It took them as much time to familiarise themselves with the Bollywood form of dance,"

Apparently, Akshay Kumar was dressed up as a king and Deepika Padukone as his queen for the song sequence.

Different locales
The song was picturised at various places, like the Forbidden City and Shanghai. Verma says that she would have loved to can a portion of the song at the Great Wall of China, but an action sequence for the film had already been scheduled there.