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Monkey Man Movie Featurette - Dev Patel on Culture

US Release Date: April 5, 2024
Starring: Dev Patel, Sharlto Copley, Sobhita Dhulipala
Director : Dev Patel
Synopsis: Inspired by the legend of Hanuman, an icon embodying strength and courage, Monkey Man stars Dev Patel as Kid, an anonymous young man who ekes out a meager living in an underground fight club where, night after night, wearing a gorilla mask, he is beaten bloody by more popular fighters for cash. After years of suppressed rage, Kid discovers a way to infiltrate the enclave of the city's sinister elite. As his childhood trauma boils over, his mysteriously scarred hands unleash an explosive campaign of retribution to settle the score with the men who took everything from him.
Transcript
00:00 I've long been a huge fan of the action genre and I wanted to infuse it with
00:07 some culture and social resonance. In this city the rich don't see us as
00:12 people. This is a revenge film about faith. I felt a huge responsibility to
00:22 the mythology that this story is based on. My mother used to tell me a story of
00:27 the protector of the people, the white monkey.
00:32 Hanuman is a god in the Hindu mythology that is half monkey half human. He
00:40 symbolizes strength, courage, kindness. There was a time when I really ran away
00:47 from my cultural heritage and then Danny Boyle took me to Mumbai for the first
00:53 time and changed my life. So in the inception of the script I was like you
00:57 know what sometimes to break the mold you've got to be in it. So I doubled down
01:02 and pulled from all of these beautiful textural philosophical parts of the
01:07 culture that I even didn't know.
01:10 Music is so big in the Indian culture. I was like wouldn't it be amazing to do
01:18 training sequence with this huge Indian classical maestro Zakir Hussain. He
01:23 toured with Ravi Shankar, The Beatles. He came down and played the tabla
01:27 ferociously for three days and we have this wordless training sequence where he
01:32 speaks with me through his instrument. You need to fight for your mother, for all of us.
01:39 The film is an ode to my parents and my ancestry. At its core it's about
01:47 the earth, it's about roots and how far someone will go to avenge someone he
01:52 loves. Do you remember me?
01:55 Mario.
01:57 Music.
02:04 you
02:07 you
02:09 you
02:11 [BLANK_AUDIO]