'Laal Kaptaan' a Western with revenge, power and Naga Warriors: Navdeep

When the Mughals were on a decline and the British on rise, the power game was up in the air with everyone vying for it but one Naga Sadhu was marching to his own beats for revenge: that's how director Navdeep Singh defines his latest, "Laal Kaptaan".

The film, set roughly 25 years after the historical Battle of Buxar of 1764,
The idea comes from a line he had read in a book as a kid, which stayed with him: 'Till a few hundred years ago, a man with an ambition and brain could pick up a sword and carve out a kingdom for himself.'
"It's a period where the game is up in the air. The Marathas are vying for power, there are Jatts, Sikhs and the Afghans. The film is not about the historical events but a personal fictional story played out against this real historical backdrop."
"I read about it some 15 years ago and slowly I started to read more about it, the history of Naga Sadhus. They were a fascinating group in an exhilarating period, influential politically and militarily. It was an eye opener."
"Deepak and I had discussed a story idea for a long time which was contemporary. We kept thinking where to set it, how to go about as it was a one line idea. Then we merged these two ideas into one. One was a bunch of characters and a backdrop and one was a plot idea."
The director says his character is looking for a particular man for revenge for 20 years, which is why "he wanders the lands with blood on his mind. Bounty hunter is his side sustenance."
"In the first draft of the film, the title was 'The Hunter, The Widow and The Hanging Tree' which sounds like a Western but obviously there was no hindi translation so it became 'Laal Kaptaan'."