The Big Picture
- Dunki is an upcoming Bollywood film starring Shah Rukh Khan that combines socially relevant themes with SRK’s star-power.
- The movie follows the story of a group of young Indians who dream of a better life abroad and resort to illegal means to achieve it.
- Dunki is a traditional Bollywood potboiler, complete with colorful song sequences, romance, and broad comedy, marking a creative departure for SRK’s recent features.
Just a couple of weeks before the film’s theatrical release, the first full trailer for the upcoming Indian comedy-drama, Dunki, has been unveiled. Starring the Bollywood icon Shah Rukh Khan, arguably the most popular movie star the country has ever produced, Dunki is directed by the hit-maker Rajkumar Hirani. The movie appears to combine the filmmaker’s flair for socially relevant themes with SRK’s natural star-power, and tells the story of a group of young Indians, who, like so many millions of others like them, dream of a better life abroad.
SRK plays Hardy, short for Hardayal Singh Dhillon, a man who lives in a small town in the north Indian state of Punjab, which is infamous for the mass exodus of its youth to countries like England, the U.S., and most prominently, Canada. This is 1995, Hardy tells us in a voiceover. Having recently arrived in the small town, Hardy quickly makes friends with a local barber, a clothes sales assistant, another young man whose profession isn’t immediately identified in the trailer, and a young woman who serves as his love interest. Hardy and his new buddies dream of going abroad — despite the racism they know they’ll face there, and the major change in lifestyle they’ll have to endure. But when their efforts to gain legal residencies fall flat — they even enroll in English classes — and tragedy rears its ugly head, the group is left with no choice but to take the illegal route abroad.
The film’s title, Dunki, is a play on the word “donkey,” but pronounced with a Punjabi accent. It refers to the people whose job it is to transport illegal Indian immigrants to Europe and Canada safely. We watch as Hardy and the gang go on an epic journey across deserts and mountains, rivers and ravines, as they’re shot at and arrested, all to secure a better future for themselves. The trailer ends with a surprise reveal of sorts.
|
Shah Rukh Khan’s 2023 |
Global Box Office |
Rotten Tomatoes Score |
|---|---|---|
|
Pathaan |
$130 million |
84% |
|
Jawan |
$140 million |
88% |
‘Dunki’ Is an Old-Fashioned Bollywood Potboiler
As Hardy speaks about the desperation that drives his compatriots to leave their families and friends to settle in foreign lands, we see an older version of the character, who vows to end the mission he started 25 years ago. Complete with colorful song sequences, romance, and broad comedy, Dunki appears to be an old-school Bollywood potboiler — the sort of movie that most international audiences would associate with India. It also marks a bit of a creative departure for SRK, who’s had the biggest year of his career, with his two action films — Pathaan and Jawan — delivering record numbers at the box office. He’d hope to complete the hat-trick with Dunki.
Also starring Vicky Kaushal, Taapsee Pannu and Boman Irani, the film will be released in theaters worldwide on December 21, a day prior to the release of the Telugu-language action film Salaar, starring Prabhas. You can watch the trailer here, and stay tuned to Collider for more updates.
