Bounty Hunter
The
Directors’ Note
The script for The Bounty Hunter offers great potential for photography, music, design and notable performances which we intend to exploit to their full.
In terms of its tone our film will have a dark edge; tough and uncompromising. We will bring our documentary experience to bear on the material. It should have a spontaneous and energetic feel together with an uneasiness which reflects the emotional turmoil of our characters. Hand held camera will combine with steady moves to create a mixture of moods; from relative safety to deadly danger.
Our story is set in a tough, uncompromising world where loyalty and honour are everything; and women are property.
Both Kamal and Nazia have always lived on society’s edge. Kamal’s mother abandoned the family while he was still a child. He’s had to live with the shame that brought upon the family. It’s what has turned him into what he is.
Nazia’s life is the way it is because fate decreed that it should be so. Raised amongst the mujra dancers in Mumbai, she thought she was escaping that world when she was bought and brought to England by Amir. Although still young she has seen it all – murder, violence, corruption. It’s made her tough.
Both are broken and tarnished with much inner turmoil. Both are trapped and long for freedom of sorts.
What happens when two such characters come together? Can there be true love between them? Can they find freedom? What are the dramatic tensions that occur?
Kamal is forced to make a series of choices once he comes into contact with Nazia; choices which challenge his values. Deep inside Kamal wants to love and be loved. But engrained cultural values such as honour and loyalty stand in the way. Meeting Nazia makes him realise that he must break free.
Both our central characters come from a world of deep distrust but are driven by needs to escape from that world, to somehow change their existence, to have what others consider normal. They can’t do it alone and need each other. To break out they have to fight against the forces that imprison them. These are the kind of conflicts and themes that attract us to this story. We have been inspired by such Hollywood classics as China Town, LA Confidential, No Mercy and The Godfather.
With The Bounty Hunter we want to break new ground and explore Asian characters and relationships never before seen in a British cinema. Set against a backdrop of an underworld, in the genre of a thriller with a film noir mood, we believe we will be able to create something quite distinct.
