Music changes with audience tastes, but retro music often cuts across generations. No wonder music directors conjure up remakes of popular songs from days gone by.
Director Ashim Ahluwalia hired Norwegian DJ Olefonken to create the chopped track 'Zindagi Meri Dance' from Mithun Chakraborty’s hit Dance Dance (1987). The remake is turning out to be big hit as well.
Actor-producer Arjun Rampal and the makers of Daddy have shared a behind-the-scenes video of the peppy track. Rampal and director Ahluwalia shared their thoughts on how they wanted the remake to be. The number has been choreographed by Caesar with international import Natasa Stankovic burning up the dance floor.
“My favourite song is this old Bappi Lahiri song called 'Dance Dance'," Rampal, 44, said. "It has been remixed by Norwegian DJ Olefonken. He has given a real cool kick to it but has kept a retro vibe to the whole thing. The most important thing was to not make the song look like a song, but to make it look like you are watching a movie from the 1970s and 1980s.”
Ahluwalia said that though the music was electronic, it was still "so desi. There is something so real and genuine about it and so not overproduced."
The director explained that the song is an old Mithun Chakraborty track, and there is a gangster (Rampal playing the titular Daddy aka Arun Gawli) hanging around with a cabaret going on. "I wanted to keep it very raw, very real, very analog, and like desi 80s feel," he said. "It's crazy like the dry ice on the floor, the cheap rocket with the girls coming out of it. That’s the way we thought we were cool in the 1980s and we should be proud of that.”
Rampal was all praise for Stankovic, the Serbian model and actress who plays the cabaret dancer. "You will feel like you’re watching a Zeenat Aman or Parveen Babi," he gushed. "Natasa looks a lot like Parveen. She dances beautifully, she saw all [1980s actresses] and just became a movie star from that period."
Daddy is set to be released on 8 September. Watch the making of the 'Zindagi Meri Dance Dance' song below. You can predict the fate of the film at the box office here.