Shah Rukh Khan turned 61 and chose violence, again. Not in the metaphorical, Bollywood-box-office sense, but the high-octane, punch-people-on-screen kind. With King, the Badshah is bringing his action-hero dreams full circle. While actors negotiate with their knees after 40, SRK tore up the ‘slow down’ memo years ago.
King is not some late-career makeover for SRK because the box office developed a new appetite for the swagger-oozing action hero. We just got so busy swooning over Raj and Rahul for decades that we did not notice Shah Rukh, the action star, hiding in plain sight.
Shah Rukh, as he has said himself, always wanted to be an action hero. So when Aditya Chopra called him for a film back in the 90s, he thought the guns and fights were finally coming. Instead, he was handed Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (1995) and a chocolate boy called Raj.
Shah Rukh felt conned and kept putting Chopra off. He almost said no to the biggest film of his career because he was sticking to his action-star dreams.
The rest was history. As Aditya Chopra said on The Romantics, Shah Rukh’s eyes “have something that cannot be wasted on action”.
Shah Rukh stretched his then almost-famous arms on trains, at weddings, at airports, on beaches and in sarson ke khets. He became the lover boy all women wanted and men could only dream of becoming.
Except that Shah Rukh, the romantic hero, already had an action-hero side hustle right from the start.
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King Khan of action
Darr (1993) may have been a psychological thriller, but Shah Rukh was fighting a hunky Sunny Deol in it. Karan Arjun had revenge, reincarnation and enough dhishoom-dhishoom to keep the single screens delighted. In Baazigar (1993), he was chucking people off buildings and seething with revenge. Anjaam (1994) had him in another dark, violent avatar. The bad and bruised boys; the boys with a gun and a grudge: Shah Rukh had quite the collection. The romantic hero was never a one-trick pony.
Even his romance or comedy films had a healthy dose of stuntman Shah Rukh. In Main Hoon Na (2004), Major Ram could take on terrorists and still find time to flirt with Sushmita Sen. By the time he took over as Don in 2006 and returned in Don 2 five years later, he was no longer merely sneaking action into the plot. He was playing the slick, swaggering, unapologetically dangerous protagonist of an out-and-out action thriller. Om Shanti Om (2007) gave us a reincarnated superstar with a revenge agenda; Ra.One (2011) was his ambitious attempt to bring a home-grown superhero spectacle to Indian audiences. It was big, bonkers and gloriously Shah Rukh. These were bigger swings from a star who had earned the freedom to take them.
And yet, even then, the action-star itch remained unscratched. Shah Rukh has said that he came to the film industry to be an action hero, but “missed the boat” because he was made a romantic hero instead. He wanted the classic action-hero poster: a white vest, a great body, blood, a girl and a gun. He even told Aditya Chopra, after Pathaan (2023) finally came along, that he was happy to have proved he could do action. The man was practically asking for a certificate of completion.
But the trouble with becoming the King of Romance is that the audience can get a little possessive. We wanted the open arms, the aching eyes, the grand declarations. We wanted the man who could make a woman feel like the only person in a room of thousands. And Shah Rukh delivered.
But somewhere along the way, the action-loving Dilli ka launda got filed away under the world’s most famous romantic hero.
When full-throttle action vehicles Pathaan and Jawan (2023) arrived, the guns, explosions, and bruised faces sent theatres into a collective tizzy. Shah Rukh was having a whale of a time. The box office went ka-ching, the fans went berserk, and the industry was reminded that the man who had once wanted to make action films had not exactly given up on the idea.
Nobody had really offered SRK the genre before, and finally he was making over-the-top, Mission: Impossible-ish cinema he loved watching.
And what a sight he is in action. Shah Rukh has a wiry, restless physicality — the dancer’s instinct for movement, the ability to turn a punch, a pivot or a slow walk toward the camera into a full-blown event. He knows how to work a frame, when to smirk, when to snarl and when to let that voice do the heavy lifting. We have spent years swooning over its velvet baritone. But let it drop into that low, menacing register and the man can make a threat sound like a birthday invitation you would be foolish to decline.
Now comes King. The title itself is a wink from a star who has finally got the playground he wanted. Raj and Rahul are safely tucked into our collective hearts, along with the violins and the Swiss Alps. But the man behind them has always wanted a little more gunpowder.
So, on his birthday, a small request to the universe: give King Khan all the action and all the big-screen mayhem he has been dreaming of. We have had our romance. Now let the King have his John Rambo moment.
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(Edited by Ratan Priya)