Most filmmakers have movies from one of their contemporaries or predecessors as the films that sowed the first seeds of direction in them. As for Dhurandhar filmmaker Aditya Dhar, that film is Ram Gopal Varma's Shiva, starring Nagarjuna in the lead role.

Speaking about it in CNN News18's 'Highly Recommended' section around the release of his 2019 movie Uri: The Surgical Strike, Aditya said, "It was Ram Gopal Varma's first film, and I think it was one of the most incredible films I had seen at that time. I was really young back then."

Expressing his admiration for the aspects of the film, including sound design, action, and performances, Aditya added, "The overall direction was like incredible." Making a strong recommendation for Shiva, the Dhurandhar filmmaker added, "I seriously, genuinely feel that kids who want to get into films or people in general who have not watched that film, you should watch it."

He also noted it down as a seminal film in the history of Indian cinema, saying that it had a major influence on direction as a concept and on the films that came later.

Interestingly, Aditya's past comments about Shiva are coming back into popular culture discussion now as Ram Gopal Varma has showered his film Dhurandhar and its sequel with effusive praise. The legendary filmmaker has expressed multiple times that the film and its sequel Dhurandhar: The Revenge is a big turning point for Indian cinema. When the first part came out, RGV called it "a quantum leap" for Indian cinema. And when the second chapter in the spy franchise released, he wrote that it "will be like a horror film for all those filmmakers who do not have the ability to make a film with such brilliance, intelligence, integrity and craft."