`Makkhi` to get Japanese makeover: director

New Delhi: After getting rave reviews in Telugu, Tamil and Hindi, director SS Rajamouli`s realistic animation ‘Makkhi’ is all set to be dubbed into Japanese and Swahili.

Rajamouli, 39, whose `Vikramarkudu` and `Maryadam` have been remade in Bollywood as `Rowdy Rathore` and `Son of Sardar`, debuted in the Hindi with the quirky film that revolves around the revenge of a fly. "We shot the film in Telugu and Tamil and dubbed the film into Malyalam. We converted it into Hindi as well and it is a huge success everywhere. Now, we are in the process of dubbing it into Japanese and Swahili. But the process is in its initial stage as we have only spoken to a Japanese authority to dub and distribute the film there," Rajamouli told reporters. The film has been appreciated by the Bollywood A-listers and Rajamouli said he expected positive review right from its inception. "We make a film because we think it is good and people will respond positively but we don`t know to what extent. So it feels great when big directors and big stars praise your film," he said. Rajamouli, who generally makes action films, says `Makkhi` was inspired by a story that his father narrated to him long back. "My father is a scriptwriter. He has done many films down south. He has written for most of my films. It was in early 90s and then I was not even assistant director. My dad used to narrate my cousins a new story after every two days. That time he narrated me the story of Makkhi. We found it very funny and interesting, which I revived when I turned director." But the director said he had almost scrapped the idea of making the film because he was not happy with the animated fly. "Initially I wasn`t sure about the film because a lot of visual effects were involved in it. Last year when I was checking the first shot of our hero (animated fly), I thought to scrap the project because it was not upto the mark. Nothing was right about it but we had already spent 10 crore by them. We had to start all over again with the animation." Asked about why he chose fly as the protagonist of the film, Rajamouli said, "Fly is something which we look at as harmless. We look at it as if it does nothing to us so, the dramatic sense increases. That`s is why we retained the fly." The director roped in superstar Ajay Devgn to give the voice-over of the fly in the Hindi version. PTI