IT'S BEEN THE city's best-kept secret. Even among the 300,000 Indians living and working in Hong Kong, only about 30 knew that one of the subcontinent's biggest film stars, Hrithik Roshan, has been living in Kowloon.
Maybe the secrecy has been a good thing. Back home in Mumbai, Roshan is never far from his four gun-totting security guards, as hoards of screaming fans shadow his every move.
But in Hong Kong it's been a different story. Making his way to the gym along Peking Road last week, the 31-year-old barely raised an eyebrow.
The first thing that catches Roshan's eye as he survey's the cityscape is a poster for the Stephen Chow Sing-chi blockbuster Kung Fu Hustle. And behind the poster lies the reason for his trip to our shores. He says he recently got a chance to see the film - but he didn't just watch it, he studied it. 'The action scenes were mind-blowing,' he says.
Roshan is in town to work under the expert eye of Tony Ching Siu-tung, the action choreographer on the Oscar-nominated House of Flying Daggers and the box-office smash Hero. Ching is preparing Roshan for the sequel to last year's Bollywood hit Koi Mil Gaya (I Found Someone). For four to six hours a day, Ching has been unveiling the mysteries of wushu to Roshan at the Pacific Club gymnasium.
'I didn't make an announcement about coming because I'm here to learn and it's been nice getting around, making a few friends,' says Roshan. 'Everyone here is busy doing their own thing and so am I.'