7 Khoon Maaf Story, Preview & Synopsis

Saat Khoon Maaf is an upcoming Hindi drama, thriller and black comedy film directed by Vishal Bhardwaj, starring Priyanka Chopra in the lead role. The film, based on the Ruskin Bond book, Susanna's Seven Husbands, features seven male leads with Naseeruddin Shah, John Abraham and Neil Nitin Mukesh as the youngest husband, as well as Irrfan Khan, Annu Kapoor, Naseeruddin Shah's youngest son Vivaan Shah and Russian actor Aleksandr Dyachenko, in the roles of the seven husbands. Priyanka Chopra will be seen playing a negative character once again after Aitraaz (2004) and Yakeen (2005). Saat Khoon Maaf was first scheduled for release on 21 January 2011, but has now been postponed to 18 February 2011. A story of an Anglo-Indian woman who goes on to kill all her seven husbands.

Production

During production, the film has gone through two name changes. Initially, the project was titled Seven which was then replaced by Ek Batta Saat and finally Saat Khoon Maaf. Mohanlal was initially approached by Vishal Bhardwaj for a lead role in the film, but the southern superstar backed out from the film, for unspecified reasons. And was later replaced by John Abraham.

In this film, Priyanka Chopra's character ages from 20-65 and will be seen going through seven different age makeovers as wife of seven different aged men at different stages of her life, for which prosthetics had to play a heavy part. And for that, director Vishal Bhardwaj has hired renowned Academy Award winning, Hollywood special make-up effects artist, Greg Cannom of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008), to create those seven different looks for Priyanka's role in the film. And out of those the most challenging one was that of the 65-year-old woman, for which the make-up team has used Priyanka's grandmother’s photo to try and make her look as close to her as possible. During the whole process, Priyanka has literally not eaten or not drunk anything for hours thereby starving herself during the shoot that involved prosthetics. Firstly, the make-up takes five long hours at least, to get right. So, it would begin at some wee hour in the morning to get it done by 10 or 11 am. Post that, till the shoot ended, Priyanka could not eat anything, as that would damage the make-up, but she pulled it through because on screen it was looking good and she trusts Vishal to a T. And the final results were so compelling, that even Priyanka's own father couldn't recognise her. Vishal also wanted Priyanka to put on some weight to fit the bill of the character.