Bollywood has few actors who can convincingly pull off an action film. Tiger Shroff comes closest to being a bona fide action star, yet he remains underrated. He has all the ingredients for a perfect Bollywood masala action hero. He is a nepo kid, looks good, has the physique, can jump, kick, flip and do cartwheels like nobody’s business.
Sure, his acting has its shortcomings, but that has never been a non-negotiable for Bollywood’s action films. So while the country is, for once, looking toward the actor, albeit for a firing incident, the question must be asked: why has Tiger Shroff not been given his due?
Tiger made his debut with Heropanti in 2014 and became famous for all the wrong reasons, particularly the line: “Chhoti bachchi ho kya (Are you a little girl)?”
But there is much more to him than that. He was just 24, kicking his way through villains, and not in the usual Bollywood style of throwing a few punches before the bad guys conveniently fall to the ground. He brought a genuine physicality to his action and filled the vacuum in mainstream Hindi cinema for a convincing action hero.
With Baaghi (2016), Tiger tried to give Bollywood something it has rarely explored seriously: martial arts-driven action. For once, we got a proper training montage that showed the physical preparation behind the fighting. The film was a love story set in a martial arts school, and while the romance remained central, Tiger’s fighting skills were impossible to ignore.
What more does an action hero need to do to prove his worth?
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Desi Karate Kid
Tiger may not be winning acting awards anytime soon, but that does not automatically make him a bad actor. And action cinema has never been solely about the art of delivering dialogue. Think of Dwayne Johnson in Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2017) or any of his films. Nobody walked out of the theatre discussing his range as a performer; people remembered the muscles, the stunts and the larger-than-life screen presence.
Tiger has spent more than a decade in the industry without delivering a film that can be called a blockbuster or even a memorable performance.
If things had worked out differently, Tiger Shroff could have become India’s Karate Kid. If only the industry had tried to establish him as a martial arts hero from day one.
All he needed was a decent director, a script set in a martial arts academy and as much Bollywood masala as necessary to fill the theatres.
He just had to allow himself to do what he has spent years training to do: practice martial arts. We don’t need another action film where the villains attack the hero one at a time despite being in a group and take a beating with little resistance. But we can do with a martial arts film, one which ideally understands the art form, techniques and intensive training required.
Why has nobody figured out an appropriate format, script, or platform to showcase his skills properly?
Tiger is not a struggling actor living in a rented apartment who has to accept every film that comes his way to survive. He has the privilege of being selective, and that makes the situation even more frustrating. Instead of making him do a few kicks and flips in films that barely utilise his abilities, why not give him one genuinely good martial arts film such as The Kungfu Master (2020), The Furious (2026), The Shadow Strays (2024) and The Raid (2021)?
A film that shows the discipline, training, physical endurance and technique behind the fighting. He has been training since he was a kid; surely, he deserves at least one opportunity to put those years of work on screen.
But the clock is ticking. Tiger is 36 years old, and while he remains remarkably agile, physical skills inevitably change with age. The speed, flexibility and precision that make him stand out cannot be taken for granted forever. It would be a shame if, after years of training, he is remembered for a dialogue (now a meme) from Heropanti rather than for what he can actually do.
Views are personal.
(Edited by Insha Jalil Waziri)