Regina Cassandra is all set to feature in ‘Saakini Daakini’, the official Telugu remake of the hit Korean film ‘Midnight Runners’. When she was offered the role, she had two questions: How will we do this with women and what is the social issue here? Two years ago, Cassandra’s agency reached out to her for the role with Suresh Productions on board.
The Hyderabad-based banner was planning to do another Korean adaptation, following the success of the comedy-drama ‘Oh! Baby', starring Samantha Ruth Prabhu and Lakshmi. The 2019 movie was a remake of the 2014 South Korean film ‘Miss Granny’.
“That’s when I saw the original film ‘Midnight Runners’. It sounded exciting, I loved the screenplay and the story. My first two thoughts were - how are we going to do this with women and what is the social issue since they talked about illegal egg harvesting? These questions were out of curiosity. Having two female leads also sounded very exciting, especially in a commercial film. From the word go, I was down to doing it,” the 31-year-old actor said.
Besides adapting the 2017 action comedy film for Indian audiences, Saakini Daakini flips the gender of the leads with Cassandra and Nivetha Thomas. The Sudheer Varma directorial follows two police trainees (played by Cassandra and Nivetha Thomas) who witness the kidnapping of a girl by a gang running an unfertilised egg harvesting ring and later embark on an investigation to find her.
What also excited Cassandra about the Telugu adaptation was how the core emotion of the narrative changes from sympathy to empathy. “As far as the Korean original is concerned, it’s two guys saving the day which we have seen many times in many films. It’s a tried and tested formula as well. I feel when a guy is helping a girl get out of a situation, he could be empathetic but it’s more sympathy than empathy,” Cassandra said.
“When it’s a girl-empowering or saving a woman, it comes from a deep place. It’s like ‘How could you do this to us?’ Not, ‘How could you do this to them?’ This emotion is important that drives these two girls through the film. It’s closer to home than it would be for a guy,” said the actor, known for films such as ‘Mughizh’, ‘Suryakaanti’, and ‘Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga’.
