Director Mani Ratnam`s "Raavan" has been described as a `modern take` on the Indian epic "Ramayana " that tells the story of Rama and his wife Sita who is abducted by the demon R─ükshasa king of Lanka, Ravana. But in this modern interpretation, “Raavan” is more of a world than a story.

The highly anticipated movie stars Bollywood real life couple Abhishek Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, as well as Vikram, Govinda, Ravi Kishan, Nikhil Dwivedi and Priyamani. Abhishek plays Beera Munda, Aishwarya Ragini, Vikram Dev Pratap Sharma, Govinda portrays Sanjeevani Kumar, Ravi Kishan plays Sid and Priyamani Serena Munda. The movie’s soundtrack is composed by A.R. Rahman and the lyrics are written by Gulzar. “Raavan” tells the story of a bandit, Beera, who kidnaps police officer Dev ‘s wife Ragini because Dev had killed his sister. But in a twist, the kidnapper falls in love with his victim. A battle between Dev and Beera, Ram and Raavan takes place in the forest and the lines between good and evil soon become blurry.

The drama has been shot on various locations in India, including Kerala, Ooty, Jhansi, Kolkata, Mahabaleshwar and Maharashtra. The cast and crew started filming in 2008 but Mani Ratnam fell ill and it had to be postponed until 2009. “Raavan” has been in post-production since October 2009.

It features several action scenes choreographed by Peter Hein but performed by the actors themselves. Aishwarya, who is dressed by Indian fashion designer Sabyasachi Mukherjee, even cut herself while shooting the movie; the brave actress reportedly climbed a mountain as part of a scene where she wanted to perform a stunt herself, but as is often the case when the stars want to be in on the stunt action, it backfired and she suffered cuts and bruises. “Raavan” hits theaters worldwide on June 18.

BST 0015, July 19, 2010