Kabir Singh director grills critics; hints at a 'fat guy' who reviewed his film

Bollywood actor Shahid Kapoor has been grabbing the audience's attention as the film has already passed the 200Cr mark. But, the film seems to have touched the wrong tangent for receiving mixed reviews from fans and critics. The audience saw Kabir Singh as Shahid’s one of the best performances in his career so far. Some scenes proved to be intense and the film was instantly tagged as Misogynistic and a film which promoted toxic masculinity. 

While, the audience have been enraged by the scenes in the film,  Kabir Singh, director Sandeep Reddy Vanga has defended some of the most controversial aspects of Shahid Kapoor-starrer, which has become this year’s latest blockbuster despite negative reviews.

According to the reports from Hindustan Times, the director said, “When I started this film, I knew it would be a big success at the box office, but I never thought that the rage would be repeated, and it has multiplied four times now.”

Speaking in regards to the box-office numbers which has made around 300Cr domestically, Sandeep mentioned the film has already become Shahid Kapoor’s biggest solo release of his career.

Asked about the allegations of toxic masculinity and poor treatment of women in the film, Vanga said, “When you are deeply in love and deeply connected to a woman (and vice versa), if you don’t have the liberty of slapping each other, then I don’t see anything there.” Vanga had previously directed the Telugu hit Arjun Reddy, which was also a major box office success and had attracted similar criticism, albeit on a smaller scale.

Kabir Singh and Arjun Reddy turned out to be a few of his soulful directions in show biz. The film has revolutionized the idea of loving someone passionately and the fans can't get enough of it. The film garnered all elements successfully and there’s no denying some critics have grilled the film for the promotion of violence and toxic masculinity. 

Shockingly, the director has even called out with an example and described them as ‘parasites who are the real threat to the film industry’ and said, “Probably they never experienced (love) in the right way.” 

He added, “They were only on the feminist side, they didn’t speak about anything else.” The director was surprised that the conversation was mostly centered around the themes and not the technical aspects of his film. He said this was perhaps because “They (the critics) hate me.”

Vanga repeatedly made references to Rajeev Masand’s scathing review of the film and referred to the critic as “Some fat guy who reviewed my film.”

Speaking about the same Vanga said, “He gave two (stars) and the audience gave Rs 200 crore,” Vanga continued. “I see him giving more than three (stars) to stupid films.”

Providing the example of the Sanjay Dutt biopic Sanju, directed by Rajkumar Hirani and produced by Anupama’s husband Vidhu Vinod Chopra, Vanga said, “Rajeev Masand gave 3.5 (stars) to Sanju. ‘Sanju where is my mangalsutra?’ What happens after that, you can talk volumes about it. Everybody loved it. When he says he slept with 300-odd women, we were all cheering and whistling in the theatre.”

Sanju was also critically panned, but was a major box office success, making more than Rs 500 crore worldwide.

Speaking about a particular scene in the film, when Kabir Singh physically assaults Kiara Advani’s character, Preeti, he said, “She slapped him without a reason, at least Kabir had a reason to slap her. If you can’t slap, if you can’t touch your woman wherever you want, if you can’t kiss, I don’t see the emotion there.”

Furthermore, Shahid also expressed his gratitude towards his fans with a post on Instagram as he wrote: “He is flawed. So are we all. You didn’t judge him you experienced him. You understood him. I have never ever felt so thankful.”