Ra.One is a 2011 Indian Hindi-language superhero film directed by Anubhav Sinha and produced by Gauri Khan under Red Chillies Entertainment. The film stars Shah Rukh Khan in a dual role and Arjun Rampal as the titular antagonist, with Kareena Kapoor, Armaan Verma, Shahana Goswami, Tom Wu, Dalip Tahil and Satish Shah in supporting roles. The film's title is inspired by Hindu Saga character Ravana. In the film, a video game antagonist escapes into the real world to track down the player who almost defeated him. The son of the game's deceased creator brings the game's protagonist into the real world to safeguard himself and his mother from the antagonist.
Principal photography began in March 2010 and took place in India and the United Kingdom and was overseen by an international crew. The post-production involved 3-D conversion and the application of visual effects, the latter being recognised as a technological breakthrough among Indian films. With a budget of , inclusive of publicity costs, Ra.One was the most expensive Indian film at the time of release, surpassing the budget of Enthiran (2010). The producers spent , including a marketing budget, which involved a nine-month publicity campaign, brand tie-ups, merchandise, video games and viral marketing. The film faced controversies involving plagiarism, content leaks and copyright challenges.
Ra.One was theatrically released on 24 October 2011, the beginning of the five-day Diwali weekend, in 2D, 3D and dubbed versions in Tamil and Telugu languages with three international premieres being held between 24 October 2011 and 26 October 2011. The film witnessed the largest international theatrical release for an Indian film as of 2011 and was preceded by high audience and commercial expectations. Upon release, Ra.One earned praise for the visual effects, action sequences, direction, music and the performances of Khan and Rampal, but criticism for the script. The film became the third-highest-grossing Indian Hindi language film of 2011 domestically, the second highest-grossing Hindi film of 2011 worldwide, and broke a number of opening box office records. It is also one of the highest grossing Indian superhero films. The film also earned more than worldwide against a budget of , and was a commercial success. It subsequently won a number of awards for its technical aspects, notably one National Film Award, one Filmfare Award and four International Indian Film Academy Awards. While initially mixed around its time of release, the film's reception has improved over the years, thus establishing it as a cult film.
Plot In London, Jenny Nayar, an employee of UK-based company Barron Industries, introduces a new technology that allows things from the digital world to enter the real world using wireless transmissions from multiple devices. Shekhar Subramaniam, who also works for the company, is given a final chance to devise a unique video game. To impress his skeptical son Prateek and upon the request of his wife Sonia, Shekhar uses his son's idea that the antagonist should be more powerful than the protagonist.
Shekhar's colleague Akashi does the motion capture of the game's characters, Jenny does the programming, and Shekhar gives his face to the game's protagonist, G.One, while the antagonist, Ra.One, is faceless and has substantially greater powers than those granted to G.One, including shapeshifting and mind reading, and is imbibed with a self-learning AI. The two characters are given a H.A.R.T, which gives them powers, but also without which they cannot be killed. The game has three levels, and either of the players can only be killed in the third level using a special gun that holds a single bullet, which destroys the opponent's H.A.R.T. While designing the game, Akashi notices some malfunctions but ignores them. When the game is finally launched, it receives a standing ovation, and Prateek is so impressed that he insists on playing it immediately.
Prateek logs in under his favourite alias Lucifer and proceeds to the final level but is interrupted by Akashi. The self-aware Ra.One, being unable to end its turn with Lucifer, becomes determined that Lucifer shall die. When the mainframe fails to shut down, Akashi calls Shekhar, who notices a problem with the game. Ra.One uses the new technology to enter the real world, breaks free and goes to find Lucifer. Ra.One first assumes Akashi's form and asks him about Lucifer. When Akashi fails to reply, Ra.One murders him. After finding the dead Akashi, Shekhar rushes home, but is confronted on the way by Ra.One. In an attempt to save Prateek, Shekhar claims that he is Lucifer, but Ra.One scans Shekhar's ID and kills him after discovering that he is lying.
Prateek notices the strange circumstances of his father's death and realizes that Ra.One has come to life. Prateek and Jenny attempt to bring G.One to life. Meanwhile, Sonia tells Prateek that the family will return to India. Having taken the form of Akashi, Ra.One chases them, but G.One enters the real world through Jenny's computer and after a fight with Ra.One, causes a gas explosion, which breaks Ra.One into cubes and temporarily disables it. G.One takes Ra.One's H.A.R.T., without which Ra.One is weakened but also cannot die. Prateek sees Shekhar in G.One and Sonia realizes she cannot leave G.One behind. They then travel to India through Shekhar's passport. Over time, Prateek becomes close to G.One.
G.One promises Sonia that it will protect Prateek from all harm. Ra.One returns to life takes the form of a billboard model and tracks G.One and Prateek by infiltrating Baron's office.
During a friend's wedding reception, Ra.One hypnotizes Sonia, assumes her form and kidnaps Prateek. Ra.One then instructs G.One to give him its H.A.R.T. back, revealing that it has sent the real Sonia to crash the Mumbai Suburban Railway train into the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus. G.One saves Sonia just in the nick of time despite the train crashing and the station premises getting destroyed. After a brief moment with Sonia, it returns to save Prateek. The game resumes with Prateek controlling G.One's moves. Following a lengthy fight, they successfully beat the first and second levels and reach the third level. With little power left, G.One and Prateek trick Ra.One into shooting G.One without its real H.A.R.T. attached.
Ra.One, angered, multiplies itself into ten apparitions after taunting Prateek over his idea of having an antagonist who couldn't die. Prateek is unable to differentiate the real Ra.One, and remembering Shekhar, asks G.One to recover hints. G.One responds with a quote he gave Prateek in his last few days: "If you join the forces of evil, its shadows shall always follow you." The pair then realize that only one of the ten Ra.One apparitions has a shadow. G.One then shoots the shadowed apparition in the H.A.R.T and destroys it. To shield Prateek, G.One absorbs Ra.One's remains from the explosion that followed after Ra.One's destruction, and finally disintegrates to return Ra.One to the realm of the digital world, leaving Prateek heartbroken. Several months later, Prateek and Sonia return to London, where Prateek finally manages to restore G.One's H.A.R.T and bring it back to the real world.
Cast Shahrukh Khan in a dual role as Shekhar Subramaniam, a game designer G.One, the protagonist of Ra.One game Arjun Rampal as Ra.One (penultimate form and the main antagonist of the game) Kareena Kapoor as Sonia Subramaniam / Ra.One (disguised) Armaan Verma as Prateek Subramaniam / Lucifer Khan appears as Lucifer in the opening sequence, later revealed to be Prateek's daydream Shahana Goswami as Jenny Nayar Tom Wu as Akashi / Ra.One (disguised) Dalip Tahil as Barron Satish Shah as Iyer Nishi Singh as Iyer's wife Suresh Menon as the taxi driver Delnaaz Irani as the school teacher aboard the hijacked train Elisha Kriis as Party Girl Joe Egan as The Daddy Shola Adewusi as Airport Cop Ben Hawkey as Billy Mike Parish as Australia Tourist Georgia Curtis as Backing Dancer Ravi Pandey as Lord Rama in a divine attire at Dussehra festival
Cameo Appearances Amitabh Bachchan as the narrator for Ra.One game (voice-over) Rajnikanth as Chitti The Robot; the character appears as a computer-generated likeness due to the actor's unavailability Sanjay Dutt as Khalnayak Priyanka Chopra as Desi Girl, Khalnayak's captive and Lucifer's girlfriend Ninad Kamat as game instructor (voice-over)
Production Development
According to director Anubhav Sinha, the idea of Ra.One originated in 2005 when he saw an advertisement on television which showed children remotely controlling a human. He was attracted to the concept and wrote a script based on it. Sinha then approached Shah Rukh Khan, who liked the story and decided to produce the film under his production company Red Chillies Entertainment. Sinha wasn't sure about retaining Khan's support after the former's previous film Cash (2007) became a commercial failure, but Khan reportedly "remained unchanged".
Khan felt that the film possessed significant commercial potential in addition to being a fulfilment of his "childhood dream" to be a superhero and to fly. He stated that he wanted to "make a film that gives me the right to deserve the iconic status that I've got for 20 years", and also said that he wanted to make a film dedicated to father-son relationships, which were, in his opinion, "neglected" in Bollywood. Khan's idea was to make a simple family drama which expanded into an action film. He declined to make the film in English to increase its appeal for Western audiences, feeling that "cracking Hollywood on their terms" was unnecessary. Both Khan and Sinha credited their children for providing encouragement and regularly "approving" the film's execution.
Red Chillies Entertainment continued to work on other projects before finalising the production aspects of Ra.One. After providing the visual effects for My Name Is Khan (2010), the studio focused solely on Ra.One and did not take up any other films. Khan initially approached a number of directors to helm the film, including Aditya Chopra and Karan Johar, but they declined; eventually, Sinha was made as the film's director. To prepare the film's premises and characterisation, Sinha spent several months viewing video clips, digital art portals and comic books. Sinha and Khan also watched around 200 superhero films from all over the world. The storyboards were designed by Atul Chouthmal, who was contracted after he met Khan at Yash Raj Studios. While the former began work on the storyboards, the producers hired a storyboard artist from Hollywood. Chouthmal revealed that Khan and the other artist differed on their visions of the film, and so he was brought back. Before filming, Khan reportedly took tips from actor Kamal Haasan regarding the production of large-scale films, having been impressed by Haasan's Dasavathaaram (2008).
The title of the film received significant media attention due to it being the name of the antagonist rather than the protagonist. The move was considered innovative and noted as a sign of the "rising importance of the villain in Bollywood." According to Sinha, the title had not been planned as such, and was ultimately chosen because Ra.One "sounded cooler" than G.One. Khan was advised to name the film after his own character; he declined to do so, citing the inter-dependence between good and evil. He also called Alfred Hitchcock as his inspiration, and pointed out that the antagonists in films like Sholay, Mr. India and Sadak were better remembered than the protagonists.
Casting