
Several large sets were created to give the film a feeling of grandeur, and international stunt experts were hired to coordinate action sequences new to Bollywood. Aiming for high production values, a sizeable amount of money was spent on the film. The Shah Brothers were engaged to produce the film, which was touted to have a huge budget and scale, unlike previous Bollywood films. Following the record-breaking success of that film, Sharma decided to make The Hero: Love Story of a Spy. He first planned a film about India's spy network set in the early 2000s but made the 2001 film Gadar: Ek Prem Katha, which became the highest-grossing Indian film of all time. Sharma had long contemplated making a spy film but felt this was not economically viable for the Indian market because Indian films did not have sufficient budgets. Written by Shaktimaan, the film tells the story of an undercover Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) agent who must gather intelligence about cross-border terrorism and stop the terrorist responsible for it and his separation from his fiance. It stars Sunny Deol, Preity Zinta, Priyanka Chopra (in her Bollywood film debut), Kabir Bedi and Amrish Puri.

The Hero: Love Story of a Spy is a 2003 Indian Hindi-language spy thriller film directed by Anil Sharma and produced by Time Magnetics.
