Race 3

About the film

Race 3 is a 2018 Indian Hindi-language action thriller film directed by Remo D'Souza and produced by Ramesh Taurani and Salman Khan under Tips Industries and Salman Khan Films. The film stars an ensemble cast of Anil Kapoor, Salman Khan, Bobby Deol, Jacqueline Fernandez, Daisy Shah, and Saqib Saleem. It serves as the standalone sequel and third installment of the Race film series which started with Race (2008) and Race 2 (2013).

Race 3 was released on 15 June 2018, coinciding with Eid. The film was panned by critics for its script, plot, casting, dialogues, performances, music, and action sequences. However, it had a moderate run at the box-office collecting ₹1.79 billion (equivalent to ₹2.4 billion or US$25 million in 2023) in India and approximately ₹3.03 billion (equivalent to ₹4.1 billion or US$42 million in 2023) worldwide.

Plot

Shamsher Singh is a powerful Indian arms dealer in Abu Dhabi and owns a private island, Al-Shifa, for trading arms. Sikander “Sikku” Singh is Shamsher's stepson. Yash, Shamsher's assistant, is a close associate at Shamsher's empire, and Raghuvendra "Raghu" Singh, is the personal assistant and close confidante to Shamsher. In a flashback scene, it is revealed that Rana Singha is Shamsher's business rival, who creates problems for Shamsher's family and his business. As Sanjana and Sooraj, Shamsher's children, reach 25 years old, their family lawyer explains their deceased mother's will. As per the will, the twins are entitled to 50% of the property and 50% of the shares as joint partners (25% each), and the remaining 50% for Sikander. This disparity causes the twins to hate Sikander even more as Shamsher preferred Sikander over the twins. Shamsher tells both of them that Sikander is the son of Shamsher's elder brother, Ranchor Singh, who was actually CEO of Al-Shifa.

In a flashback, that portrays the Handia village of the 1970s, the history of the Singh family is depicted. Both the Singh brothers used to supply weapons to Indian army. Local politicians of Handia asked them for illegal weapons, to which Ranchor refused. His refusal caused a rivalry with a local politician, Gajendra Pathak. One day, during an ambush on an arms truck which was owned by Ranchor's company, Gajendra's son Narendra was killed by Ranchor. Ranchor then died when his car was blown-up by a bomb. The arms company owned by the Singh family was declared to be an anti-state organization and accused of supplying weapons to terrorists. Shamsher sent Sikander to Beijing for studies and took Sikander's widowed mother Sumitra to Al-Shifa. After a year, the twins were born.

In present-day Al-Shifa, one night, Yash talks about his girlfriend. Sikander reveals that in Beijing, he fell in love with a girl named Jessica who severed ties with him. Shamsher's childhood friend Brijmohan tells him that his friend's hotel was used by politicians for their lascivious motives where all the activity was captured on a spy video camera and stored on a hard disk. The hard disk was kept in a bank locker in Cambodia. Shamsher appoints Sikander to recover the hard disk, and he promises to get the disk. The next day, during a party, it is revealed that Jessica is actually Yash's girlfriend. Sikander and Jessica meet privately in the security room. The next day, Sooraj and Sanjana, who had recorded the Sikander-Jessica meet, screen the video to Yash. A furious Yash goes to Jessica's apartment and finds Sikander present with her. Sikander later tells him that both of their past interactions with Jessica were planned by Sooraj and Sanjana, as part of their plan to destroy Sikander. Yash teams up with Sikander against the twins but pretends to be with the twins as well. Sikander, the twins, Yash and Jessica, execute the mission to recover the hard disk.

Production

In the year 2015, it was confirmed by director-duo Abbas–Mustan that a third instalment in the Race franchise was being planned with Saif Ali Khan returning in the lead role. In 2016, it was reported that producer Ramesh Taurani had approached Salman Khan for Race 3, however, he asked Taurani to make some changes in the script. This report was confirmed to be true by Khan himself at the trailer launch event of the film on 15 May 2018. In August 2017, it was reported that Khan had agreed to be a part of Race 3 on the condition that choreographer-turned-director Remo D'Souza would direct the film. In August 2017, it was reported that Saif had decided not to be a part of the film as he was opposed to the idea of him playing a parallel lead to Salman. After media reports surfaced about Katrina Kaif, Jacqueline Fernandez, and Deepika Padukone being considered for the female lead opposite Khan, it was confirmed during August 2017 that Fernandez had been finalised for the role. To prepare for the action sequences that she had to do in the film, Fernandez underwent extensive training in mixed martial arts (MMA).

The shooting of Race 3 began on 9 November 2017 at the Mehboob Studios in Mumbai. The filming of Race 3 moved to Bangkok in Thailand for its second schedule where they filmed a song and an action sequence, which was choreographed by Anal Arasu, at the Floating Market and Rose Garden as well as the jungles of Kanchanaburi Province. After finishing the shoot in Thailand, the team reached Abu Dhabi for its next schedule. The shooting schedule in Abu Dhabi lasted for 35 days where filming was done at Emirates Palace, Yas Viceroy Abu Dhabi, The St. Regis Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre, Emirates Steel and the Liwa Desert. The action sequences in Abu Dhabi were choreographed by Tom Struthers, who has previously worked on movies like Inception, The Dark Knight and Dunkirk. For its next schedule, the film unit moved to Kashmir and later on to Ladakh where Salman Khan and Jacqueline Fernandez filmed a romantic song. During the shooting, Khan was convicted in the Blackbuck poaching case on 5 April 2018 by a Jodhpur Sessions Court, as a result of which the remaining patchwork of the film was completed in Jaisalmer, Rajasthan instead of Abu Dhabi because the film was running behind its schedule and Jaisalmer had a landscape similar to that of Abu Dhabi.

Key details