Ranbir Kapoor’s “Animal” broke several box office records. Directed by Sandeep Reddy Vanga, the film released on December 1 and became a huge success despite facing backlash for its storyline and characters’ bad behavior. The film made its OTT premiere on Netflix after successfully collecting over Rs 800 crore at the global box office. Among those who praised the film, Jipi Grewal and Sargun Mehta praised Sandeep Reddy Vanga for representing the true essence of Punjabi culture.

Speaking to DNA, Gippy Grewal said, “Animals is doing good business in Punjab because people like the film. Abhi toh bahut change ho gaya hai. Pehle kya hota tha ki logon ne Punjab suna bahut tha, dekha nahi tha. Isi liye jo Punjabi ya Sikh character banate, woh unke khudh ke imagination. Hum dekhte the, we used to say “Yeh kaha ke Punjabi hai”, “Kaun hai yeh log? ” Now, the industry has changed in big and good ways (a lot has changed now). What happened before was that a lot of people had heard about Punjab but had not seen it. So their creation of these characters was based on their own imagination. We used to see this and say, ‘Where does he look like a Punjabi?’, ‘Who are these people?’).”

Sargun Mehta added: “Sandeep Reddy Vanga was very critical of everything and even in Aziz’s last shot before killing his Sikh cousin, he was fearless Looking Aziz straight in the eyes and accepting his fate like a lion. He (Sandeep) didn’t do it just because he wanted to. He kept the Punjabi courage intact throughout the film, Arjan Vili described it very well. So I think even Bollywood realizes that we are known for much more than that (fun).”

“Animal,” released on December 1, tells the story of a man and his troubled relationship with his father. In the film, Vijay (played by Ranbir) is an anti-hero who will protect his father at all costs, including shooting 200 people with a machine gun.