According to sources working on Dibakar Banerjee's Shanghai, throughout the shooting of the film, an intense competition has been on between its two leading men Abhay Deol and Emraan Hashmi. Hashmi has reportedly put on weight and grown a paunch to suit his character of a Rajput tapori well.

Not to be outdone, Deol is leaving nothing to chance to outperform Hashmi. To get the diction of a Tamilian character right, Deol, who plays the role of an IAS officer from Tamil Nadu, summoned a diction coach to help him out throughout the shoot.

Last week, Deol reportedly rang up the director late at night requesting that they sit and watch the entire unedited film, so that he could further work on his dubbing. A special screening was arranged, and the young actor was reportedly upset about his diction in a number of scenes.

When contacted, Banerjee said, "Abhay caught himself faking the accent at several points. For example, Abhay's pronunciation of 'branch' sounded like 'crunch', when it should have sounded like 'ranch'. Abhay corrected that, and many other such mistakes, in the re-dubbing."

Prior to the shooting, both Dibakar and Deol had met IAS officers from Tamil Nadu posted in North India to get the accent and character correct. According to a source, in spite of the preparation, Deol was not satisfied, mainly because of the Hashmi factor.

The director added, "When we sat down (for the special screening), Deol took notes and pointed out areas where he thought he had goofed up with his accent. The diction coach also sat with Deol for the re-dubbing." Asked if a competition is building up between the two leads, Banerjee said, "I got the best out of both my actors. If it's got to do with a sense of competitiveness, then it's a very healthy competition."