The Devotion of the Jaane Jaan team

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The venue for the Jaane Jaan trailer launch was unusual—central Mumbai’s Snow Ball Studios, but it was just right for the reconstruction of picturesque Kalimpong, the West Bengal town that is known for its educational institutions, military settlements and also growing ginger, within the walls of the studio.

Kalimpong forms the base for Sujoy Ghosh’s latest thriller, Jaane Jaan, produced by Jay Shewakramani and Akshai Puri and based on The Devotion of Suspect X, a 2005 Japanese novel by Keigo Higashino, the third in his Detective Galileo series and his most acclaimed work as of now. The book, and its translated versions, all won different awards, and a film has also been made on it. True to the ethos, mediapersons who registered for the event were made to employ their deduction skills in a contest that used clues and QR codes scanning.

The trailer was enthralling and pointed out to Sujoy’s mastery over the thriller genre, to the point that after Kahaani, Badla and the short film, Ahalya besides his episode (also with Vijay Varma) in Lust Stories 2.

The three protagonists, Kareena Kapoor Khan, Jaideep Ahlawat and Vijay Varma, were present along with the director, two producers and Monika Shergill, Content Head, Netflix, on which this whodunit will stream directly from September 21.

Kareena Kapoor Khan deemed this film as the most challenging and revealed that Sujoy and her had been planning to work together since the last 10 years. Quipped Sujoy at this, “She must have turned down at least a 100 projects of mine!” Kareena also raved about Varma, Jaideep her co-stars and said that hubby Saif had warned her not to take it easy as she had two powerhouse performers with her this time. She confessed that even during a shot, she would sometimes just stop and miss her cues as something about either Jaideep’s or Vijay’s performances made her gape at their prowess.

Jaideep, who spent two hours on the prosthetics make-up needed to become his unique character of a professor on each day of the shoot, joked about how the director was scared that he would turn down the film because of that. But the amazing clarity of the filmmaker and the fact that his good friend Vijay as well as the “goddess” Kareena were also in the cast were his takeaways from the film.

Vijay admitted that it was a unique experience working with Kareena and Sujoy and that this was the first time he had shared space with Jaideep. “We were in the same batch at the Film & Television Institute and have shared so many memories,” Vijay said. “I must also confess that I am a fan of his, besides being a friend. “

Sujoy said that he had chosen Kalimpong as he was not only very familiar with the terrain but had also considered it perfect as a locale for the needs of this thriller, which he considered was more of a love story and a mother-daughter tale than a murder mystery. Jay remarked that a planned recce before the shoot that was to last for a week was completed within just one day as Sujoy knew exactly what he wanted from the town in terms of the shoot!

Monika expressed that this would be, hopefully, the first of many collaborations to come from Netflix with both the producers, Sujoy and Kareena. This was their fifth venture with Vijay Varma, she added, and Jaideep has also been associated with them in the past.