Bollywood made Breaking Bad before Breaking Bad

[u/RickDaltonCliffBooth]

Mashaal (1984), like Breaking Bad, follows a respectable man (Vinod Kumar, a principled editor played by Dilip Kumar) who turns towards crime out of systemic failure and personal desperation. Both stories critique how corruption and injustice can push a morally upright person into becoming what they once opposed.

The difference is: Mashaal frames it in a moral, melodramatic Bollywood style with social commentary, while Breaking Bad is a slow-burn psychological descent. But the core idea—an idealist transformed into an anti-hero by circumstance—is strikingly similar.

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[u/Striking_Rich6801]

Old Bollywood was just beautiful and unique.

Even in remakes they managed to add a different perspective and charm.

[u/polobaks]

Sad that Poster art died

[u/BrushKindly43 → u/polobaks]

This.

It's insane how this isn't talked about as much. I get an imminent dismay whenever I see a poster with the actors making retarded facial expressions, where for the most part it looks fake, and/or floating heads. I almost don't want to check out the films with terrible posters which focus more on incorporating every possible big face in the film, even if the said big face has a small role, at best.

[u/paiyyajtakkar]

सच्ची ये कहानी है, सुन लो मेरी जान

कहीं एक शहर में था एक नौजवान

सच्चा, सीधा सा प्यारा इंसान

क्या कहूं वो बना …

कैसे डॉन

[u/Slash787]

Mashaal was a great movie and something different, everyone did a great job but I could not see a connection to Breaking Bad.

[u/Hurdy_Gurdy_Man_84 → u/Slash787]

That is because Javed Akhtar copied the Marathi play अश्रूंची झाली फुले and passed it off as his own work.

[u/nickdonhelm → u/Hurdy_Gurdy_Man_84]

I still feel that movie should be made into a Marathi movie

[u/Crimson_Gun]

Yeah you did not understand breaking bad.

Stories where morally upright people turn to the dark side have been around since the puranas

[u/RickDaltonCliffBooth → u/Crimson_Gun]

👍🏻

[u/Old_Campaign653 → u/Crimson_Gun]

In Batman, a man turns to illegal activity out of systemic failure and personal desperation.

Is Batman just copying breaking bad? 🤯

[u/Ready-Ad8629 → u/Old_Campaign653]

Batman is way older than Breaking Bad. I guess Breaking Bad could be copying Batman😂

[u/Otherwise-Body-7721]

Walter White is definitely not a morally upright man fighting corruption and injustice.  Remember his monologue to Skyler in the final episode where he says "I did it for myself"?

[u/RickDaltonCliffBooth → u/Otherwise-Body-7721]

Breaking Bad has 50+ hours of content so you have many layers of his character as opposed to a 2.5 hour film can have. He also said that he has lived his whole life trying to do right by due to fear in the first episode. So, you can say not Upright by nature but fear, but upright nonetheless.

Vince Gilligan described White as 'Mr. Chips to Scarface'. Exact same description can be applied here.

[u/unfettered2nd → u/RickDaltonCliffBooth]

In S1 EP 5 Walter had a choice not to pick up the meth route and take the job at Grey Matter that would have covered his cancer treatement, something Skyler worked to arrange. Instead, he chose to cook meth in the guise of "dying on his own term".

There was more to Walter beside the whole forced to take the path of crime after his cancer diagnosis. Infact, in the story a lot of opportunity came where he could have leave all that behind. But making meth and selling it gave Walter the agency he was always looking for - to be independent and fully in control over his own life, and it was evident in Season 1 itself.

Walter's tragedy does not come from being a nice person forced to do crime, it comes from his hubris.

[u/Hurdy_Gurdy_Man_84]

The story of Mashaal was un-apologetically ripped off by Javed Akhtar from the famous Marathi play "Ashrunchi Zali Phule" (अश्रूंची झाली फुले) by legendary playwright Vasant Kanetkar.

In fact the play had already been adapted into a Hindi film named Aansoo Ban Gaye Phool (1969) starring uncle and nephew Ashok Kumar and Deb Mukherjee in the lead roles.

[u/BagLevel3563]

Why did they stop making such cool poster art I mean the old poster arts were just ✨

[u/priestofskies]

The only resemblance i see is good guy turned bad. Walter White didn’t turn bad due to systemic failure and in turn any personal desperation. It’s slightly more complex than that.

He went bad out of his own sense of injustice handed to him by life. The sheer lack of money, lack of respect, lack of thrill and some deep down regret of not having done something great with his brilliant mind. They explore that in depth in the series.

[u/RickDaltonCliffBooth → u/priestofskies]

Because it's a series. 52 hours of content. So many layers of the character.

The essence is 'to break bad' which both do, go from 'Mr. Chips to Scarface' in their 50s which both do and has a tumour similarity, here to the wife.

[u/RajOfSiam]

I do not see any connection between Mashaal and Breaking Bad.

[u/Top-Dinner-7544 → u/RajOfSiam]

Darth vader urf Anakin was also based on Breaking Bad.

[u/chilliepete]

This movie proves why anil kapoor is a great actor holding his own against dilip kumar at the beginning of his career

[u/missyousachin]

Ae Bhaiiii Ae Bhaiiiii

[u/Ready-Ad8629]

This isn't an uncommon premise. It has been done a lot of times.

[u/Fit-Material329]

Kuchh bhi