Netflix India on Monday debuted the trailer for Vishal Bhardwaj’s Khufiya. The film, starring Ali Fazal, Tabu and Wamiqa Gabbi, is a moody espionage thriller based on real events.
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Khufiya is adapted from the 2012 novel Escape to Nowhere by Amar Bhushan, the former chief of the counter-espionage unit of Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW), India’s external intelligence agency.
The book presents a fictionalized account of the case of Rabinder Singh, a former R&AW spy suspected of being a CIA mole. In 2004, Singh escaped from Delhi despite being closely surveilled by his superiors.
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The trailer opens at the R&AW headquarters in New Delhi in 2004. “We have a mole in the agency,” says a voiceover as we track the movements of Ravi Mohan (Ali Fazal), suspected of betraying his nation by purloin top-secret documents for a foreign power. Ravi is being closely watched by a team of counter-espionage spies, led by Krishna Mehra (Tabu). His wife (played by Wamiqa Gabbi) and young son are under constant surveillance too, even as Ravi maintains his innocence. “I am a bloody patriot,” he avows aggressively.
The world of Khufiya unfolds in a shroud of intrigue, betrayals and close shaves. The latter half of the trailer centres on Ravi’s eventual and daring escape out of the country. It also introduces a mysterious character played by Bangladeshi actor Azmeri Haque Badhon. We also meet Ashish Vidyarthi representing the R&AW top brass.
“I have always been very fascinated with the world of espionage and am truly excited to explore this genre with Khufiya,” Vishal Bhardwaj said in a statement. “This film gave me a chance to reunite with Tabu, and work for the very first time with two very talented actors - Ali Fazal and Wamiqa Gabbi. It also marks my first creative collaboration with Netflix which has been both exciting and rewarding.”
Khufiya will premiere on Netflix on October 5.