From SRK’s ‘Pathaan’ and ‘Jawan’ to Rajinikanth’s ‘Jailer’ to Ranbir’s ‘Animal’: is 2023 the year of action cinema?

2023 saw a resurgence of big-bucks Bollywood and South Indian films, with action genre having a rebirth. Four blockbusters made ₹3,400 crore, with Shah Rukh Khan's "Jawan" leading.

A year’s releases aren’t a sample size big enough to suss out the state of a film industry or the status of filmmaking in the country. Yet, 2023 made it abundantly clear that big-bucks Bollywood is resilient — and resurgent, no matter the severity of the blow. 

Post pandemic, 2022 belonged to directors from the South, with Telugu blockbuster RRR and Kannada hit KGF: Chapter 2 netting the biggest profits. Gangubai Kathiawadi made the year’s big Bollywood imprint.

In 2023, the action genre has had a rebirth like never before. And a lot of it has something to do with films from the South making a real crossover to the rest of this movie-fanatic nation. Starting before the pandemic, and during it, a slew of South Indian films started dropping on major streaming platforms. In 2022, after cinema halls opened and KGF: Chapter 2, written and directed by Prashanth Neel, released in theatres worldwide, audiences embraced the genre of the CGI-driven action spectacle wholeheartedly. The film went on to make ₹1,200 crore worldwide at the box office. 

The massive success of the period action film, and the unprecedented global acclaim that came RRR’s way, possibly set the tone for 2023. Mumbai-based film analyst Komal Nahata puts this in perspective: “I have not seen any other year in which action films have done this well. Pathaan, Jawan, Gadar 2 and Animal have made history — four of the biggest blockbusters ever made in Hindi cinema. There was a theory earlier that action films don’t do well in multiplexes, and a good part of revenue for a film comes from multiplexes. This industry works on the principle of “bhed chaal” or herd mentality. And I see more actions films coming out in the next few years.” 

The combined box office collection of the four films is around ₹3,400 crore, with Shah Rukh Khan’s Jawan leading with a worldwide collection of ₹1,160 crore. Animal made all the wrong noises because of the misogynistic accent to the lead character played by Ranbir Kapoor. Yet, as an action film, it has been hugely successful, with some film lovers going to theatres simply to watch — and re-watch — a particularly violent sequence involving an en masse shootout with a multiple-barelled gun created for the film.

Khan’s January release, Pathaan, revived the hero who was missing in Bollywood — The Everyman who springs to great, and bizarre, heights to save, correct or redeem the rotten, redeeming themselves along the way. This was basically what Bachchan’s angry young man of the 70s was, without CGI. This is what Tamil superstar Rajnikanth’s career rests on. The latter’s film this year, Jailer, which fetched around ₹340 crore at the box office, was elemental Rajinikanth — but with a violence meter that peaked with stunning blood baths.

For cinema from the South, it was just another year. Action has alway been an integral part of Tamil cinema. Film critic Bharadwaj Rangan, author of Conversations with Mani Ratnam, says, “The freshness/ newness that only Hindi film viewers find in Pathaan and Jawan is not really there.” Even a “family film” like Varisu, starring Vijay, has action, says Rangan. But the one South film that stood out for him in terms of action was the Malayalam thriller, RDX, he says. “There is a fight in the open streets of a colony, and it was beautifully choreographed. Another standout was the coffee-shop action stretch in Vijay’s Leo.”