Shah Rukh Khan and Emraan Hashmi’s Netflix project Bard of Blood received immense criticism when its trailer released late last month. Most Pakistanis, including Director General ISPR Major General Asif Ghafoor slammed Bollywood for its anti-Pakistan storyline. (In case you missed that controversy, you can follow this link for a quick update.)
The eight-episode series, which revolves around the story of an ex-RAW agent in Balochistan, will premiere on Netflix this Friday. Based on Bilal Siddiqi’s novel of the same name, Bard of Blood has been produced by SRK and starres Emraan in the lead.
Emraan has been promoting and discussing the projects on various platforms. In a recent interview, when asked about his reaction to DG ISPR’s comments on the series, Emraan responded, “This way, you don’t end up making any film because whenever you have content that has even remotely anything associated with anything political related to these two countries [India and Pakistan], emotions do run high. And you have to bear the brunt in this. Social media is full of this.”
He continued, “I think that one tweet [Gen Asif Ghafoor’s] led to other people spewing hate. But to put things to rest, there is no propaganda here.”
“This is based on a book that is written by a then 20-year-old kid back in 2014,” Emraan added. “The political climate at that point of time was very different.”
Emraan finished off saying, “There is no agenda to it. Our show is based on that book and that’s that. You can’t please everyone. You make a show of this nature, which has some kind of political relevance, and it going to snowball and you will have people talking. Everyone has an opinion these days.”
Meanwhile, in another interview, Emraan said that he doesn’t let such issues bother him and said that he is “excited” for the series “since the promo got a lot of traction.”
“I want everyone to see it and I’m sure everyone will love it,” he said.
Speaking to Gulf News, Hashmi said that inordinate care has been taken not to hurt any particular country’s sentiment.
“Remember, it’s primarily for entertainment … It’s a pure work of fiction and all the character and are mission are fictional,” he stated.
Meanwhile, the series has opened to positive responses from critics.
