Years before 'Dhurandhar', Dharmendra charmed viewers as spy Sunil in 'Ankhen'

In the current age of glossy spy franchises, it is easy to see Shah Rukh Khan in 'Pathaan' or Ranveer Singh in 'Dhurandhar' and forget that Dharmendra’s Sunil in Ramanand Sagar’s 1968 film 'Ankhen' quietly set the template for the patriotic Indian agent.

Dharmendra's spy who fights like a son

Long before streaming universes and crossover events, 'Ankhen' gave Indian audiences an uber-modern, gadget-loving spy who felt proudly homegrown. Dharmendra’s character Sunil was ready to give it all for his country and not because it’s his job, but because he considers it his duty. Early in the film, a character asks why they are doing work that should be handled by the government, and Sunil answers with a line that still defines the emotional core of our screen spies. If someone attacked your mother, he argues, you would not wait for the police. You would protect her yourself. The mother here is Bharat Mata.

From Ankhen to 'Pathaan' and 'Dhurandhar'

That idea of the spy as a fiercely devoted child of the nation still drives today’s blockbusters. Pathaan is the film which has a spy at the centre who will happily take a bullet for Bharat Mata. This is obviously not the first time that we are watching a spy on screen and buying into his shenanigans. Yash Raj Films has simply given this emotion a slick, global scale, wrapping Dharmendra’s old-school loyalty in high-tech action and franchise storytelling.

Upcoming thriller 'Dhurandhar' extends the same lineage into a new era. Billed as a high-stakes spy thriller set across the 1970s and 1980s, it follows elite Indian agents risking everything on covert missions, blending intense action with a bold push for world-class filmmaking. Ranveer’s Indian spy has already been described as the "wrath of god," but at heart, he belongs to the same family as Dharmendra’s Sunil. Whether in the Cold War world of 'Ankhen', the contemporary spectacle of 'Pathaan', or the period intrigue of 'Dhurandhar', the Hindi film spy keeps circling the same simple question: what would you do if someone tried to hurt your motherland?