Bollywood celebrates rocking year, riding high on action flicks, unbridled masculinity and misogyny

Bollywood stars Deepika Padukone (left) and Shah Rukh dance at an event to celebrate the success of their movie Jawan. — AP

Bollywood has made a financial comeback this year worthy of one of its traditional singing-on-top-of-the-hills moments.

India’s Hindi language movie industry made an impressive recovery after a pandemic-driven slowdown, audience fatigue with big studio productions and Bollywood megastars, and streaming platforms taking away a large chunk of viewership.