The ‘Alpha’ Factor: The Action Heroine In Hindi Cinema

My earliest memory of seeing a female character doing an action sequence in a Hindi film is Kareena Kapoor’s Princess Kaurvaki in Santosh Sivan’s Asoka (2001). Mostly towards the climax, when the princess — presumed dead by her lover, Emperor Asoka — returns as the brave warrior leading the Kalinga army against him. Back then, it was novel to see “women in male-dominated fields,” not least in lavish historicals that are built around aura-farming men, monologues and stunts.  

I remember the gasp in the cinema hall when the pale-skinned and brave girl reveals herself on the battlefield. The choreography wasn’t all that elaborate, but watching 19-year-old Kapoor brandish a sword and hold sway in a testosterone-drenched setting raised an improbable question: What if someone like her were to be the protagonist of the massively mounted story? What if the gorgeously photographed film had unfolded from her perspective instead?

We knew the answer, of course. There would be little to no takers for a serious mainstream entertainer headlined by an actress in a culture that thrived on aspirational masculinity and gendered relationships. Kaurvaki — and many strong female figures like her — could only exist as part of a Hero Package. They could be ‘heroines’ who punched above their weight and surprised viewers, as long as a Shah Rukh or Salman or Hrithik remained the top draws alongside them. When performers like Vidya Balan and Priyanka Chopra soon emerged to prove that women-centric dramas could be commercially successful, the spiritual descendants of Kaurvaki, too, widened the agency and physicality of women in action vehicles. They were still paired with male stars, but their presence was no longer limited to the margins of the genre.  

Stars like Katrina Kaif (the Tiger franchise), Taapsee Pannu (Baby), Deepika Padukone (Pathaan), Anushka Sharma (Sultan) and Samantha Ruth Prabhu (Citadel: Honey Bunny) stood out with focused set-pieces and themes in franchise action thrillers. Pannu’s Nepal-hotel-room brawl instantly lifted the street-cred of the male-saviour-driven Baby. Kaif, in particular, expanded the realms of aggression and social dynamics without fetishising the sensuality of these characters; the towel-fight scene in Tiger 3 remains a watershed moment in a career marked by brutal outings in Bang Bang!, Dhoom 3 and others. On paper, they may have been ‘action heroines’ who supplied the glamour, but they played these roles with the confidence of ‘female action heroes’ who led their own parallel narratives. They did, in quick bursts, what the writing couldn’t afford to.

The barriers are subtle, though. It's worth noting that the successful movies with butt-kicking female leads are more rooted in the real world. Like Rani Mukerji’s Inspector Shivani Shivaji Rao in the Mardaani series: a no-nonsense cop who uses her profession to smash the patriarchy (literally) and defeat diverse sections of men. Like Priyanka Chopra in Mary Kom: a hard-as-nails Manipuri boxer who breaks the glass ceiling in a nation rigged against marginalised strivers. Like Anushka Sharma in NH10: a grief-stricken urban woman who channels her inner rage to become a vengeful survivor in a violently misogynistic environment. Or like Alia Bhatt in Raazi: a deeply entrenched secret agent whose humanity keeps puncturing her reluctant sense of duty.

The point is that none of these are primal actioners (think Charlize Theron in Atomic Blonde or Mad Max: Fury Road). Action is only one dimension of their personality; psychological and social warfare are integral parts of the protagonists’ journeys. Kahaani is an example, too; Balan’s character employs the chauvinism of her surroundings to her advantage and conceals her action-thriller identity till the end. Her femininity became a ruse; her combat-training seldom surfaced.

It’s also worth noting that YRF franchises have often been at the forefront of this motif. Whether it’s scene-stealing heroines or female-led actioners, the path has been laid: from the Dhoom movies and the Tiger films to Pathaan, War 2 and the Mardaani sequels. It’s only fitting, then, that the latest in the YRF Spy Universe, Alpha, is completely centered on Alia Bhatt and Sharvari. Despite the studio’s track record, the stakes are high. It’s a risk, because the history of this sparsely populated sub-genre has one catch.

Whenever fantasy-coded or ‘pure’ actioners dare to have women going solo — like Sonakshi Sinha in Akira, Pannu in Naam Shabana, Kangana Ranaut in Dhaakad, or Bhatt herself in Jigra — the movies fail to do hero-sized numbers at the box office. It rarely works. Regardless of the competence and conviction of the performers, most audiences aren't conditioned to see female stars own the spotlight in gravity-defying stories without the ‘crutch’ of male counterparts. Especially if the pitch and scale is so heightened. It’s as if South Asian moviegoers (and storytellers, to an extent) can’t suspend disbelief and imagine women in larger-than-life templates if it’s not exoticised through the male gaze.

The title, Alpha, is a direct nod to this chink in the cultural armour. It signifies the long-overdue switch from the supplementary to the primary: from the action heroine to the female action hero. It’s still uncharted waters; nothing changes overnight. Evolution comes before revolution. The fate of the film is almost incidental. Action movies are panned all the time, but it’s the camera that’s finally panning first. After all, a princess took one giant step in the battlefield so that small leaps became the norm on the screen.