Shahenshah

Inspector Srivastav is set up by a clever crime boss and, unable to clear his name, takes his own life, leaving a wife and young son behind. Years later his son Vijay has become a police inspector, but he’s not the idealist his father was; he takes bribes and looks the other way for a price. Meanwhile the city is terrified of a masked avenger known as Shahenshah, who prowls the night and executes notorious criminals after informal trials. The department wants him caught, the public is divided between fear and admiration, and personal loyalties and past wounds complicate every decision without giving away how the secrets resolve.

Released in 1988, Shahenshah was directed by Tinnu Anand, with story credits to Inder Raj Anand and Jaya Bachchan. The film stars Amitabh Bachchan and Meenakshi Sheshadri, supported by a well known ensemble cast in a big-budget action melodrama.

Critical reaction was mixed, though audience response was stronger, reflected in an average user rating around 6.4 out of 10. Reviewers noted its blend of spectacle and melodrama, and the narrative centers on corruption, vigilante justice, identity and the cost of retribution, all wrapped in mainstream masala filmmaking.

The movie helped reinforce Amitabh Bachchan’s late 1980s persona as a tough, morally ambiguous hero, and several visual moments and set pieces stuck in popular memory. Its portrayal of a lone, night-time avenger influenced later Hindi films that used masked or extra-legal protagonists, and it remains a frequent reference point when people talk about that era of Bollywood action.

At the time Shahenshah did well commercially in India, drawing big audiences and keeping the film in the public eye for months. Its box office success reaffirmed star-driven storytelling as a reliable formula and maintained Amitabh Bachchan’s strong box office pull during that period.