India, June 20 -- Pore over a list of Bollywood releases long enough, and deja vu will hit. Two films titled Kesari came out this year. One, subtitled Chapter 2: The Untold Story of Jallianwala Bagh, is a follow-up to the 2019 Akshay Kumar hit of the same name. The other, with Suniel Shetty, Vivek Oberoi, and a suffix: Veer.

Even when some titles seem new, old connections emerge. Chhaava, one of the year's hits, means lion cub in Marathi. That's close to the 2024 Singham Again (Singham is lion in Tamil), and Tiger 3. All three titles indicate stories of a hypermasculine hero - an idea that also echoes in this year's Deva (starring Shahid Kapoor) and Sikandar (starring Salman Khan), and Pathaan, Jawan, and Animal (2023).

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