by Subhash K Jha

Welcome to the twilight zone. 4 years of research on India's intricate intelligence service has yielded in Mani Shankar's new ambitious spy thriller.

And one year of search for the right face to play the lead has finally ended. Sammir Dattani, currently shooting Madhur Bhandarkar's Corporate and Nisha Chainani's Marathon in Mumbai, flew off to Hyderabad on Sunday to shoot for what promises to be the ultimate espionage drama in Hindi.

Mani Shankar whose 16 December, Rudraksh and Tango Charlie have stretched the boundaries of hi-tech thrillers in Bollywood , has now embarked on his most ambitious espionage thriller ever.

"It's beyond anything that we've seen in our cinema for sure. Like my previous films this is an original. This time I'll take my film and the audience in the secret world of shadows where good and evil become almost one, where fear stalks the street and the thin veil of sanity gets ripped off in an instant."

Mani who has worked with huge Bollywood stars like Sanjay Dutt, Bobby Deol and Ajay Devgan has chosen the rapidly on-the-rise Sammir Dattani for the critical author-backed central role.

Says Mani, "We auditioned a whole lot of young actors from Mumbai .I needed someone with a soft vulnerable sensitive and warm face who could pass off as 19. Though 23, Sammir immediately stuck me as the perfect choice. I needed him to play a boy who's picked up by an intelligence agency at 16. This is the story of a guy who has to fear the bullet from the front and behind. "

"So far spy thrillers in our country mean the glamorous glorified heroes played by Tom Cruise and Sean Connery in Mission Impossible and James Bond flicks. Sammir Dattani will play the kind of raw and real espionage hero that so far have only been discussed in hushed whispers in the power- corridors. The reach and impact of our intelligence agencies is something that's all around us . But we either ignore the disturbing truth or we choose not to think about."

According to the charged and impassioned director, "Sammir plays one of those thousands of young people in our country who are chosen for espionage work and then stuck off the list of the living after they've out-run their use."

"He's a young man who chooses to wear many masks. He enacts a drama where forgetting his lines means instant death. He lives through many deaths and and many lives. He's that unknown guy who chooses to live in the shadow of death so that the rest of us can live in peace."

For Sammir this is a rare challenge and one that he's rigorously preparing for.

"I've to go through at least three personality changes and several levels of truth and untruth. It's a stunning script where espionage meets underworld. At least I've never encountered any such film in my life. It's an incredible role that requires a pro."

"Fortunately for me my character has to be very young, or Sanjay Dutt would be doing it. I'm going through rigorous workshop to get into this intriguing characters. And I've great support from actors like Om Puri, Suniel Shetty, Sushant Singh and Rahul Dev, " says Sammir from Hyderabad.

To be shot at a stretch in about 40 days this untitled film is being produced by a Hyderabad-based company called Color Chips and Mani Shankar.