Top News

'Khel Khel Mein' director talks about Hindi cinema's 'weird detour'
28 Apr 2026

Filmmaker Mudassar Aziz, who directed the film Khel Khel Mein, has shared his thoughts on the changing landscape of Hindi cinema.

In an interview with Variety India, he highlighted key reasons behind this shift toward more commercial movies.

"Firstly, cinema is a reflection of the times we live in," he said, adding that mainstream Hindi cinema took a "very weird detour" from its original path.

'You must have often heard that nobody...'
Regional cinema

Aziz further added, "When we took that detour toward slightly intellectually-stimulated stories, we lost our core audience somewhere to dubbed Telugu films, and regional cinema, that was still catering to those kind of stories and plots."

"You must have often heard that nobody does mass cinema like Telugu. My point is, Telugu cinema started doing mass cinema because of Hindi cinema."

'We fell off the bandwagon...'
Legacy

Aziz further stressed that Hindi cinema was once a pioneer in massy films with classics like Amar Akbar Anthony, Deewar, Mard, Trishul, and Sholay.

He said Telugu cinema's current trend of making massy films was inspired by this path taken by Hindi cinema.

"We did mass cinema, and they picked it from us."

"But we took the detour along the way to make slightly more intellectually stimulating stories, and we fell off the bandwagon."

'He was entertaining the large cross-section...'
Impact

Aziz also defended the success of Telugu films like Pushpa, saying it wasn't a one-off case.

He noted that actor Allu Arjun had already become popular in regions like Bihar before the film's release.

"Much before Pushpa, Allu Arjun had become a hit in Bihar. And he was entertaining the large cross-section population that loves that kind of massy cinema."