Katrina is ready for the cut

To get under the skin of her character in Dibakar Banerjee's Seeta aur Geeta, Kat wants to get tips from Hema Malini on the techniques of hurling knives at her co-stars in the remake.

In the original the veteran actress had played a knife-throwing gypsy street performer.

She tells us, "Hemaji seems to have so much fun playing Geeta! I want to do all the daring stuff she did, including climbing the ceiling-fan in the police station. But what I'm especially fascinated by are the knives."

When told that Kat wants tips for throwing knives, Hema sportingly tells us, "Sure, why not? I think Katrina would make a wonderful Geeta in Seeta Aur Geeta.

But let me warn her it wasn't easy for me to do all the stunts and running around. To play Geeta I needed very high energy levels.

As for the knife-throwing scenes they were made somewhat easy because I had played a knife-throwing gypsy girl in my very first Hindi film, Sapnon Ka Saudagar.

It was great fun and I'm sure Katrina would have fun doing the role."

The part of 'Geeta' requires Katrina to play a knife-throwing gypsy street-performer, a street-side entertainment that was popular 20 years ago. Sadly the genre barely exists today.

Since, Katrina intends to aim real knives at her partners for the street-side entertainment sequences, the hunt is on for real gypsies, who roam the streets in pairs, like Dharmendra and Hema Malini played in the original Seeta Aur Geeta.

Given how Hema and Dharmendra turned out, it might help if the other gypsy is Ranbir.

Legal hassle for Seeta Aur Geeta remake

Seeta Aur Geeta remake runs into legal hassle on issues of licensing.

The Seeta Aur Geeta remake, which was supposed to star Akshay Kumar, Katrina Kaif and Abhay Deol, has run into trouble.

Producer G P Sippy's son Suresh has raised a strong objection against G P Sippy's grandsons, Sascha and Shaan, claiming that they had no right to license the remake to Sunil Bohra, who is planning to co-produce the film with Studio 18.

A source says, "Suresh and G P Sippy's grandsons, Sascha and Shaan, have had issues since a long time. There are problems in the Sippy family."

However, Sascha and Shaan seem pretty confident that they have done no unlawful thing by licensing the remake.

Said Sascha, "I don't understand why my uncle is being so funny. He does not have any documents to prove his claim. We have all the relevant papers in place."

Added Sascha, "The matter is actually in court. The Delhi High Court has in fact restrained Mr Suresh Sippy from infringing our copyrights in several films, including Seeta Aur Geeta."

When contacted, Suresh initially said, "Speak to my lawyers. The matter is under dispute. It is going to the Mumbai High Court." But on being questioned further, he said, "Why just Bohra, I don't want anybody to remake Seeta Aur Geeta at this point of time since I have not licensed the remake.

The rights belong to me."

Does Ramesh Sippy, who has directed several films under the G P Sippy banner, have any problem with the licensing? "No. Mr Ramesh Sippy is out from the family business after our film Brashtachar released in 1989."

Are Akshay, Katrina and Abhay still doing the film? Bohra told Mumbai Mirror, "It's early days. Nothing is finalised on casting as yet."