Karisma Kapoor's Birthday: Celebrating Some of Her Underrated Performances

Though Karisma wasn’t the first star kid to get launched in Bollywood, she was probably the only one who carved her name without any backing from any so-called influential production house or collaboration with any superstar. Picture this: Karisma has never worked with Karan Johar or his production house Dharma Productions and did a film with the late and legendary filmmaker Yash Chopra (Dil To Pagal Hai) when she was already an established star.

As for superstar co-actors, the actress did work with the coveted “Khans,” having done only two projects with Shah Rukh Khan (Dil To Pagal Hai and Shakti: The Power). She however worked with Salman Khan and Aamir Khan multiple times, but before they became a part of the “Khans” club.

Her go-to director was David Dhawan and their teaming up produced so many blockbusters. However, in this article, we are not going to discuss them. Rather we will celebrate her underrated performances. Those films where Karisma went beyond her stylish and glamorous fashionista image and showed us so much more of her calibre. So, let’s start.

Celebrating Karisma Kapoor's Underrated Performances

A search about Karisma Kapoor’s top performances will throw up obvious names like Raja Hindustani, Dil To Pagal Hai, Biwi No. 1, and Hero No. 1, among others. But, the National Film Award winner has done some incredible work, where she did earn praise from critics and viewers, but those films somewhat are not synonymous with her name. They are:

Fiza (2000)

One of the most layered executions by Karisma on celluloid, Fiza brought forth the actress’ real mettle in front of us. Directed by Khalid Mohamed and set against the backdrop of post-1993 Bombay riots, the story is about the titular character (Karisma) in search of her brother Aman (Hrithik Roshan) who went missing during the riots. Upon getting reunited with him after years, she finds out that he’s now a part of a terrorist group. This forces her to come face to face with painful questions of morality, family, and justice.

Karisma, not only did a stellar acting job, but she also set the floor ablaze with her dance performance in the aesthetically shot Aankh Milaoongi.

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Zubeidaa (2001)

Another strong titular character performance by Karisma, Zubeidaa was directed by the stalwart Shyam Benegal. The actress stood out despite being in the same frame as notoriously excellent actors like Rekha and Manoj Bajpayee. Critics considered this as one of her best till now, but Zubeidaa unsurprisingly underperformed at the box office.

Karisma as Zubeidaa brought in front of us the defiant, troubled, wilful, and passionate queen with full aplomb and surety.

Shakti: The Power (2002)

Shakti: The Power was made when women-centric films weren’t such a rage, making Karisma somewhat of a pioneer for being a commercial star to lead such a movie. As Nandini fighting her criminal and despotic in-laws, who are involved in feudal gang wars, and trying to escape their clutches after her husband’s death with a son in tow, Karisma breathes fire in every scene she is in.

She snatches the power from every other actor, standing shoulder to shoulder with genius performers like Nana Patekar and Deepti Naval.

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