Action hero to patriot: The journey of Akshay Kumar in films
Akshay Kumar has come a long way from being an action hero to the poster boy of socially-relevant films.
In less than one week, Akshay Kumar's Kesari has proved to be a blockbuster at the box office. The war drama crossed Rs 100 crore on Thursday, making it the fastest movie to reach the figure this year.
Kesari is a dramatisation of the Battle of Saragarhi, where a small Sikh regiment of the erstwhile British colonial government faced a far bigger Pashtun army.
The film is yet another addition to the 'nationalist' movies that Akshay Kumar has starred in. Using IMDb data and a broad categorisation of 120 movies starring him, India Today's Data Intelligence Unit has found out that the number of Akshay Kumar's 'nationalist' movies is on the rise since 2010.
Dividing the genres into action, nationalist, drama/family and romantic/comedy, here is the trend of movies that the Khatron Ke Khiladi has acted in, based on the highest number of films in three phases (1991-1999 action, 2000-2010 rom-com and 2010-2019 nationalist).
(Note: Films with themes of social change, patriotism and historical importance fall under the 'nationalist' tag.)
ACTION HERO PHASE (1991-1999)
The 1990s Akshay Kumar was portrayed as an action hero. He starred as an action hero in 83 per cent of the movies he acted in during this period. During the same period, 9.8 per cent films were nationalist, 4.9 per cent romantic/comedy and 2.4 per cent belonged to drama and family genre. A total of 41 movies were taken into consideration for this.
Akshay began his career with Saugandh (1991) in which he was starred as an action hero, followed by Khiladi (1992). In this period, six movies had the term 'Khiladi' in their titles. Films including Kayda Kanoon (1993), Mohra (1994), Maidan-E-Jung (1995), Insaaf: The Final Justice (1997) and Jaanwar (1999) also belonged to the action genre.
ROM-COM PHASE (2000-2010)
Our analysis shows that from 2000-2010, Akshay reduced the number of action movies and started acting more in romantic and comedy movies.
Between 2000 and 2010, Akshay starred in 45 movies. Out of these 55.6 per cent belonged to the romance and comedy genre. The percentage of action movies dropped from 83 per cent to 24.4 per cent and drama/family and nationalist movies contributed to 13 percent and 7 per cent of his career in this period, respectively.
The iconic comedy film Hera Pheri, starring Paresh Rawal, Suniel Shetty and Akshay Kumar, released in 2000. Its sequel, Phir Hera Pheri (2006) too came during this period. Garam Masala (2005), Bhagam Bhag (2006), Heyy Babyy (2007), Welcome (2007) and Singh is Kinng (2008) were some of his blockbuster comedies during this phase.
Ab Tumhare Hawale Watan Sathiyon (2004), Police Force: An Inside Story (2004) and Aan: Men At Work (2004) were the nationalist movies he acted in during this phase.
NATIONALIST HERO (2010 onwards)
After delivering blockbuster performances for around two decades in action and romantic/comedy movies, Akshay shifted his focus to movies of national importance.
Statistics show that the percentage of movies pertaining to national importance in which Akshay starred increased to 40.7 per cent (2010-19) from 7 per cent in the previous phase.
In this phase, romantic/comedy films got reduced to 40.7 per cent, action films came down to 14.8 per cent and family/drama contributed to 3.7 per cent only.
Films including Special 26 (2013), Holiday(2014), Baby (2015), Toilet Ek Prem Katha (2017), Pad Man (2018), and Kesari (2019) were either patriotic or had a social message to promote a cause.
Even among his upcoming films, Mission Mangal, Prithviraj Chauhan and Sooryavanshi are movies that come under the category.
Not just in films, his interest in patriotism has also seen a rise. Akshay often features in advertisements promoting positive changes in the country and shares patriotic messages on Twitter.
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