Post the release of Salman Khan's starrer 'Sultan', many a similarity was drawn between 'Sultan' and Aamir Khan's announced film 'Dangal'. Both the films are based on the life of wrestlers - 'Dangal' a biopic, whereas 'Sultan' is a love story. But with such uncanny similarities between the two, the audience couldn't help but point them out.
However, the makers of 'Dangal' and 'Sultan', both have maintained that both the stories are different. Talking about the same to a leading daily, 'Dangal' director Nitesh Tiwari said, "We were never insecure about doing the same thing. Two films about wrestling need not be similar. Although Raging Bull and Hands Of Stone are about boxing, how similar are they to the Rocky series? Nonetheless, we didn’t want to resemble Sultan in any detail and we made sure we didn’t."
The teams were in constant touch with each other and were not at all secretive about the story line. Adding to this, Nitesh revealed, "All through the making of our film we kept them (the Sultan team) in the loop about what we were filming. And they didn’t hide their content either. Finally, Sultan was a love story of two wrestlers. Ours is a biopic of a wrestler who trained his two daughters to be Olympic champions."
Nitesh doesn't deny that there are similarities. But said, "The two films are similar in their wrestling backdrops and their motivational themes. Also, Salman and Aamir bulked up to inhuman limits to look like wrestlers past their prime. But that’s it. There are no other similarities. Even if there were similarities, Aamir and Salman are stars that audiences just can’t get enough of. People don’t mind watching them do the same thing."
We all know that both, Salman and Aamir has to go through body transformations to fit the role. In admiration of the two, Nitesh said, "At 50-plus, no actor can afford to take the risks with their metabolism that Aamir and Salman did. To me, they are the stars of the year because they have made kushti a nationally acceptable sport for boys and girls."
