Raveena Tandon on why Bollywood can’t keep up with South Indian films: ‘They all wanted to become Hollywood’

Raveena Tandon spoke about the difference between the south and Hindi film industries and why she feels Bollywood is losing touch with the masses. Like many others, Raveena said that she believes south Indian films are rooted in Indian culture, while the Hindi film industry is busy trying to ape the West.
In an interview with Bollywood Bubble, the actor said this is what she has observed about south Indian films. Citing the example of the KGF movies — Raveena plays the PM in KGF: Chapter II — she said that neither film would work had they not had an emotional core.

She said, “Somewhere in the 90s, till the time melodious music and stories came in, there was a lot of aping the West. They all wanted to become Hollywood, with choppers and Westernising… Somewhere, there was a loss of Indian culture in our movies. And the minute I used to go shooting down south, they had such a strong ethos about their culture and their customs and their rituals. The movies would revolve around those kind of stories. Immediately, the masses would identify and they would be super-duper hits.”
Raveena added, “That is what I felt was lacking in the scripts that we were making back in Mumbai, and I used to feel that we are going away from what the masses are identifying with. Even though KGF 1 and 2 may be portrayed as an action movie, until and unless you don’t have emotions that are holding people’s hearts, I don’t think any movie can be a success. When your emotions are surface-level, it doesn’t work.”
Earlier this year, Raveena was seen in the Netflix thriller series Aranyak, in which she starred with Parambrata Chatterjee and Ashutosh Rana. KGF 2, meanwhile, is breaking records at the box office, having made over Rs 500 crore worldwide in its first weekend of release. The success of KGF 2 comes at a time when many are noting how south Indian films are succeeding in both theatres and on streaming services.