Bollywood’s latest action archetype hits theatres on Friday, and it comes in twos.
Shiv Rawail’s “Alpha”, starring Alia Bhatt and Sharvari, follows two government-trained assassins armed with advanced technology and backed by professional handlers. In contrast, Nachiket Samant’s “Baby Do Die Do”, headlined by Huma Qureshi strips all of that away.
In “Baby Do Die Do”, Qureshi plays a deaf and mute woman trained to be a killer by her own father from childhood, using nothing but their cramped, poor neighbourhood in place of any real facility. Produced by Qureshi’s brother, Saqib Saleem, the movie also stars Sikandar Kher and Chunky Pandey and is billed as a crime thriller laced with dark comedy.
Both movies hit theatres on July 3.
The trailer for “Alpha” dropped on June 17, while “Baby Do Die Do” followed with its trailer on June 22.
Seen together, the movies mark a shift in Bollywood’s portrayal of women as killers from the opening frame, no disguise required. That’s new. The genre’s older instinct was to hide the violence behind a reveal.
In Ram Gopal Varma’s “Kaun” (1999), Urmila Matondkar’s character spends most of the film appearing to be the victim before being exposed as the killer only in the final stretch. Similarly, Sujoy Ghosh’s “Kahaani” (2012) sees Vidya Balan portray a helpless, grieving widow, when in reality she had orchestrated the hunt for her husband’s killers from the start.
“Alpha” and “Baby Do Die Do” don’t bother with that misdirection. Their protagonists are introduced as assassins from the first scene, and both films want you to know it- starting today.
