Teja – Arjun to clash on screen in Zanjeer

Telugu superstar Ramcharan Teja arrived in Mumbai on Wednesday to meet the cast and crew of the Hindi-Telugu bi-lingual Zanjeer which kick starts next month. And the first thing that director Apoorva Lakhia did was to take Teja for a cop-cut hairstyling.

Says a source close to the film. "Amitji in the original Zanjeer kept long hair covering his ears. It became the rage of the nation. But our cop Vijay will dress and sport a hairstyle like a cop. So we took Teja for a crew-cut."

Teja, we hear, would be spending time with real cops in Mumbai before playing Inspector Vijay. Though Teja was keen to meet his immediate co-star Priyanka Chopra, especially since she would be speaking all her Telugu lines herself, Teja was in Mumbai to plan his action sequences with Arjun Rampal.

The two actors, as we all know, play the roles done by Amitabh Bachchan and Pran in the original Zanjeer. In the old Zanjeer, they had an extremely crucial fight sequence in the film. The new Zanjeer would take that fight sequence to new heights.

Says a source close to the project, "The combat scene between Amitji and Pran Saab in Zanjeer was one of the film’s highlights. Teja and Arjun Rampal would be re-designing the entire sequence. For one, they would both be shirtless. It would be a bare-chested fist-to-fist pulse-pounding bloodied and gory sequence of approximately 7 minutes in duration, akin to Salman Khan and Sonu Sood’s climactic combat in Dabangg, but far more graphic gory and bloodied."

Interestingly, Teja who has a predominantly action image in his home state Andhra Pradesh, had flown down to Mumbai to discuss and work out the fight sequences.

Confirms producer Amit Mehra, "Yes, Teja is here. And we’re planning the action sequences. Javed and Eijaaz who did the raw guttural fight sequences in Shootout At Lokhandwala, The Dirty Picture, Ram Gopal Varma’s forthcoming Department would be directing the action sequences in Zanjeer."

Adds Ramcharan Teja, "Yes, I met Priyanka Chopra. She is a nice warm and fun person. And yes, I got my hairstyling done today. It’s looking …different! My director Apoorva Lakhia’s enthusiasm level is really high. And that’s a quality I really like."