Amitabh Bachchan to launch the Kabzaa trailer on March 4

In less than an hour, the world will finally get to see the much-awaited trailer of Kabzaa: The Rise of Gangsters, produced and directed by R Chandru, with Real Star Upendra in the lead. The trailer was earlier supposed to be launched at a mega event in Mumbai, in the presence of the cast, including Upendra, Kiccha Sudeep and Shriya Saran, among others, as well as big names from Bollywood. But this plan had to be scrapped in the last moment, after Kannada film fans demanded that a major event like this ought to be done on home turf. For a while, it was believed that Chandru would have an on-ground event in Bengaluru, but he decided against it, opting instead to have an online launch only. And he’s got one of the biggest names in Indian cinema to do the honours. At 5.02 pm, Amitabh Bachchan will launch the trailer of Kabzaa.

The film, the narrative of which takes place between 40s and the 80s, explores the rise of a gangster, who goes on to rule over India. Chandru’s idea was to present his tribute to KGF, a film that he says inspired him a lot. For this, he got KGF composer Ravi Basrur on board for Kabzaa, as well as cinematographer AJ Shetty, who assisted Bhuvan Gowda on the Prashant Neel directorial. The end result was that the first teaser that Chandru revealed was panned for being way too similar to Rocking Star Yash’s KGF. Then came the title track, which also got no love, with netizens calling it a rejected version of a KGF song. The second, Namaami Namaami, was a tad better, but the third, a dance number featuring Upendra and Tanya Hope was also a dampener. In effect, in the run-up to the film, there was very little buzz about Kabzaa, with netizens saying there was nothing to be excited about. They hope that the trailer changes that.