Screenwriter-director Karan Anshuman began his career in films, but it was on streaming that he found true mainstream success, first with the sports drama Inside Edge and subsequently with the cult hit Mirzapur. Karan has since worked on Rana Naidu and the upcoming Glory. All his shows have an undercurrent of crime. Glory, his upcoming Netflix show, merges the world of sports with a crime thriller. In a chat with Hindustan Times, Karan talks about his love for the genre and how the world of Glory differs from Mirzapur.
‘I start writing, and people start dying’
Glory centres on boxing but also explores a murder mystery. Ask him if it was a plan to unify the two genres he has done earlier – sports and crime – and he says, “It’s 100% subconscious.” Karan, who has created some of the most popular crime shows on Indian streaming, drops a bombshell. “I want nothing more to do than make a very sweet romcom.” But there is a hitch, he says. “I start writing, and then people start popping off. Someone shoots a gun, and someone dies. It’s just subconscious. I can’t control it,” adds Karan.
The filmmaker adds, tongue firmly in cheek, “I have a daughter who’s 10 years old, and she can’t see anything I’ve made, and I feel terrible about it.”
How Glory differs from Karan’s previous shows
Glory does have its fair share of fights, but Karan maintains it’s all hand-to-hand combat, which separates it from his previous shows like Mirzapur and Rana Naidu, which were all guns blazing. The reason is that the protagonists are former boxers. He explains, “The brief (to the action choreographer) was essentially that we need very distinct styles. We wanted to focus on hand-to-hand combat because it was boxing. It’s not a gangster thing; it’s not something with guns. In small-town India, fights escalate to hockey sticks. That’s as far as one gets. That is the world of Glory.
About Glory
Glory is a thriller set in the world of boxing in Haryana. The sports drama-meets-whodunnit stars Pulkit Samrat and Divyenndu as two brothers who return to their hometown after their sister, played by Jannat Zubair, meets with a mishap. The show also stars Suvinder Vicky, Sikandar Kher, Ashutosh Rana, and Sayani Gupta. Glory premieres on Netflix on May 1.