Pakistani cinema offers a vibrant blend of powerful storytelling, cultural pride, and technical growth. From crime thrillers and family dramas to record-breaking action epics, modern filmmakers are successfully expanding the local industry. Zombied, released on Eid ul Azhadeserves praise for a brave genre shift for Pakistani cinema seamlessly blending action with sharp, local comedy. It tried something new for Pakistani cinema, and that deserves credit. The zombie genre, the visual effects, the scale – it was ambitious, and you could feel the effort to give audiences a different experience; it felt like Pakistani cinema reaching for something new. We need our industry to experiment and grow; that matters.
But sitting in a cinema with your family, feeling like your kids have to look away at some points – that’s a rough spot to be in. Especially on Eid, when you’re going out as a family expecting something you can all enjoy together. The awkwardness is real; Eid releases: Aag Lagi Basti Mein with its occasional adult humouron Eid ul Fitr and Zombied with its out-of-place romantic scenes on Eid ul Azha. That says a lot about the shift in what’s getting greenlit as mainstream here. Eid used to mean family films you could all watch without flinching. Now local releases assume you’re okay with bold dressing and close scenes.The zombie-experiment being adrenaline-pumping without a doubt, my only discomfort was with a few scenes that felt forcibly fit in, irrelevant to the story.
Movies are powerful means of storytelling undeniably – except at some points in this one, I found myself wishing the film would trust its own strength. The romanticism, the revealing attire – none of it felt necessary. These scenes aren’t just there; they’re becoming the baseline. The tricky part isn’t just the scenes themselves, the fact that they’re starting to feel like the new normal.
It’s a parent’s POV, not an ethical discourse. It’s not about calling for bans or moral policing; it’s about erasure of a powerful narrative. And if we keep buying tickets anyway, we’re telling producers this is fine – the shrinking of the cinematic experience. There should be a lane for films parents can take their children to without regret. Right now, that lane is disappearing.
The irony is hard to miss: watching Michael with kids was an unforgettable experience; a foreign film, no pretence of sharing our values, no claim to be ‘our’ cinema; Hollywood doesn’t pretend to be our culture. On the contrary, Pakistani cinema does, and that makes the disconnect sharper. We don’t expect it to mimic Hollywood, nor should we. It’s supposed to be ours. The strength of our films was that they told our stories, in our context. Eid is the time of the year you can count on that. We’re supposed to walk into those halls knowing we won’t have to explain things to our children or skip past parts of the film.
The actors and actresses are probably doing what the industry now asks of them – the industry expectations, studio mandates, director’s vision, and strategies to secure roles and maintain their careers. However, let’s stay optimistic to a cinema that feels safe for a family plan to go out and watch together, giving us stories we can laugh at, cry over, and talk about them on the drive home, without having to look away anywhere during the movie, whether it’s gritty, realistic and highly engaging thrillers, high-budgeted spectacles, societal themes, entertaining and light-hearted movies or a zombie apocalypse.
Sana Shoaib | The writer is a published author, former teacher and freelance contributor. She can be reached at sanamujahid6@gmail.com.
