History Film / MonkeyMan

* AmputativeSentencing: Alphonso apparently had his leg chopped off as punishment for trying to back out of a drug deal in the past. The camera shows that neither of his legs are prosthetics, so we can only assume that "leg" is an euphemism for [[GroinAttack something else getting chopped off]].

* AristocratsAreEvil: All of the villains are rich and/or powerful people. Baba Shakti is a populist political leader whose faction [[PoliticallyIncorrectVillain razes the natural world and beats up transgender people]]. Rana Singh is Shakti's right-hand man, who personally executes Shakti's orders to destroy Kid's hometown up to and including [[spoiler:killing Kid's mom]]. The two are regular patrons of the high-class King's Club, ran by Queenie Kapoor, a drug seller and abusive pimp. For more broader examples, the decadent rich skyline contrasted against the suffering, poor slums are a recurring camera shot throughout the film; in one scene Kid points out how little the rich world cares about the poor.

%%* BrokenBird: Lakshmi, the youngest Hijra.

* ButForMeItWasTuesday: Acknowledged. Kid asks Baba Shakti if he knows his mother's name or the names of any of the people he's had killed. He doesn't answer, but the true reply is heavily implied to be "no." It's also implied Rana doesn't recognize the fact his killer is the son of the woman he personally assaulted and murdered.

* AdvertisedExtra: Downplayed. Creator/SharltoCopley as Tiger has a small but significant role, but is billed above most of the Indian cast except Creator/DevPatel due to being the other recognizable "name" to Western audiences.

* AlphaBitch: Queenie is an archetypal example of shitty, privileged middle-to-upper-class Desi women who act like Western mean teenagers and are vicious to anyone they view as beneath them, ''especially'' when it comes to caste.

* AmoralAfrikaner: Tiger, the promoter at the illegal fighting pit where Kid works, has a South-African accent and claims Africa as his homeland. He also rigs the fights in his favor, stiffs the fighters over their pay, and is casually racist, starting with giving his fighters stereotypical names referencing Creator/RudyardKipling characters) and pandering to the majority-Hindu crowd by badmouthing Muslims and Christians.

* AnimalMotifs: Monkeys, obviously. Kid has memories of his mother telling him stories of the Hindu monkey god, Hanuman, and calling him "my little Hanuman" [[spoiler:just before her death]]. His persona when in the fighting pit is called "Monkey Man" and he wears a monkey mask while fighting.

* ArmedLegs: [[spoiler:Baba Shakti's sandals have a set of removable shivs hidden inside them.]]

* AssassinOutclassin: Kid spends years working his way up from the gutter to gain a job as a waiter at a high-end restaurant Rana visits, and purchases a snub-nosed revolver to try and surprise him with in the bathroom. Unfortunately, he botches the element of surprise by trying to force Rana to remember his mother before he kills him then gets distracted by someone coming out of a stall, giving the police chief the chance to turn the tables on him and Kid barely escaping with his life.

* BeautyIsNeverTarnished: Despite his night time job of jobbing for an underground fight club where he gets the shit beaten out of him, his face is always unblemished afterwards, particularly on the second fight we see where he encourages his opponent to punch him in the face repeatedly.

* BigBad: Baba Shakti, a famed guru manipulating the corrupt police and members of the Sovereign Party for his own gain.

* ClassicalAntiHero: Aside from his apparent street connections and ability to take a punch or two, the Kid is rather out of his element early on. He has never fired a gun before and has to spend a lot of time practicing with it and he can barely keep his cool in the upper levels of the club he has infiltrated. And when he finally confronts his mother's killer at gun point, he takes a moment to taunt him instead of just shooting and subsequently gets distracted by a toilet flushing, which leads to Rana attacking him and getting away alive. The culmination of how out of his depth he is is when the Kid attempts to jump out of a window to escape his pursuers only to bounce off of it, forcing him to use the stairs to the parking garage. [[spoiler:After recovering from his wounds and training at the Hijra temple, he sheds this completely to become a nearly OneManArmy.]]
* CombatPragmatist: Kid shows himself to be this several times, using everything he can get his hands on as a weapon -- glass shards, a serving tray, an oven door, and so forth. He's also ''more'' than happy to use his mouth as either a weapon or third hand when needed.
* CoolMask: Kid is shown wearing an intimidating monkey mask as part of his {{Jobber}} role in the fight club. He later on bleaches the fur on it white to evoke the legend of the White Monkey -- "protector of the people"-- when taking the fight to Rana and his superiors.
* CryForTheDevil: InUniverse: While most Hindus consider Ravan to be a "Demon King" and celebrate his defeat as a triumph of good over evil, Baba Shakti secretly reveres him as a visionary who built an empire from nothing. Given Baba is an evil piece of shit who regularly razes villages to the ground to build horrific megafactories that profit on human suffering, it's fitting.

* DidntThinkThisThrough: Kid puts a lot of effort into his initial assassination attempt on Rana, getting both a job as a waiter to covertly approach him with and a concealed revolver to shoot him with, but rather than just shooting him from behind, he invokes his mother while holding the gun from less than a foot away. When he gets distracted, Rana easily knocks the gun away, leading to a prolonged brawl.
* DoesntLikeGuns: Kid is depicted in several combat scenes fighting bare-handed against {{Mooks}}, even those armed with guns, using [[CombatPragmatist the environment to his advantage]] instead of their own firearms. That said, he ''does'' save up enough money from his underground fight club to purchase a revolver to assassinate Rana with, but his inexperience with proper firearm handling means he gets too close to the target when trying to use it, allowing Rana to [[AssassinOutclassin turn the tables on him]]. Therefore, it's less that he doesn't like them, and more that Kid lacks the resources and training needed to properly use guns in a fight, compared to his lifetime of experience fighting bare-handed. Even near the end of the film, when he has the opportunity to secure a gun for free off of [[spoiler:Queenie's corpse]], he doesn't even bother to pick it up.

* EqualOpportunityEvil: For all of Baba Shakti's sins and abuses towards minorities, his and Rana's hired goons are pan-Indian -- for example, a Sikh features prominently in the major battle scenes.

* FriendToAllChildren: The Kid's informant [[spoiler:and the one who bets on him in his final ring fight, getting the Kid the money to give to the hijra]] is a youth who the Kid pays for intel, yes, but there's some affection and familiarity there too. The Kid is also sensitive to children who might be hurt in his RoaringRampageOfRevenge, even though this slows him down. Telling an underaged girl hiding under a bed in the brothel to run while fighting her pimp and slaming the brakes mid-high speed chase to stop from killing a little girl gets him caught by police and savagely beaten.
* FromNobodyToNightmare: Invoked, but ultimately subverted. Baba Shakti is worried that if Kid is left alone "that nobody could turn into a somebody". Alpha too insists that he was made for something more, to fight for everyone not just himself, even drawing parallels to Hanuman. While he does take a level in badass, Kid ultimately remains nothing more than a lone gunman. His monkey mask is not a symbol of faith, but a disguise to bypass the police during a festival, and quickly discarded. He inspires nobody but Alpha and her followers, [[spoiler:and allows the political face of the Sovereign party, who was winning the election, to escape with his life and presumably continue terrorizing the downtrodden. The only concession he makes to helping Alpha is providing their temple with some money and then killing Baba Shakti after he's finished with Rana, and even killing Baba is personal for him. The ending implies that he dies after the fighting.]] He fulfilled his revenge but wasn't shown becoming the kind of 'somebody' that the Sovereign Party has to fear inciting the masses against them.

* GracefulLoser: In defiance of Tiger, Kid [[CurbStompBattle instantly defeats his usual opponent]]. Tiger's initially furious and sends in his toughest fighter to beat Kid up as punishment, but when Kid beats him too and wins over the crowd, Tiger takes his loss in stride.

* HeroesLoveDogs: Kid feeds scraps to a stray he spots outside Queenie's restaurant, which he later utilizes by having said stray sneak his revolver past security when he tries to kill Rana.

* HoistByHisOwnPetard: Baba Shakti's attempted eradication of the poor and minorities only sets him up to be [[spoiler:confronted and karmically put down by Kid]]:
** His order to burn a poor village to make way for a megafactory ensures our protagonist is ''solely'' focused on exacting revenge against him and his goons.
** It's never outright stated, but it's heavily implied the desperately poor criminal underworld that helps Kid get to a position where he can target Rana and Baba are doing it in hopes they can get rid of a thorn in their side.
** It's all but outright said that Baba's constant police raids on minorities, including Hijra, only ensure that a [[spoiler:Hijra temple rescues Kid after his botched assassination attempt, shelters him from the police manhunt, and gives him training and backup for his final showdown with Baba.]] Not only that, but if Baba's cops weren't so focused on beating or ignoring minorities, [[spoiler:they would have bothered to search a Hijra temple to find Kid before he could enact his revenge.]]
* {{Hypocrite}}: Early on in the film, Baba Shakti preaches a message of non-violence but freely commands a corrupt police force to RapePillageAndBurn any land he wants for himself. He preaches generosity, but a news interview brings up the fact the workers are beaten and worked to death for very little. He preaches tolerance, but his police goons have targeted racial, religious, and queer minorities -- and he's implied to be a closeted homosexual, if having a nubile, handsome man as his attendant says anything. Finally, he tries to talk Kid down [[spoiler:during the ending and how violence and revenge only cause more suffering... only to try and get some revenge of his own and violently injure Kid. When Kid overpowers him, he simply pleads to be spared... after trying to kill Kid.]]

* InsistentTerminology: Baba Shakti dismisses a complaint about unfair treatment of workers at a factory he owns, stating that the "factory" is really a "commune" and it doesn't have "workers", it has "disciples".

* {{Jobber}}: Kid supports himself by taking this role in the underground fight club, getting pummeled by more popular fighters for meager cash earnings. This [[TaughtByExperience proves to be useful for him]] when he starts escalating his attempts at {{Revenge}} on Rana and his boss, as endless nights of getting the shit kicked out of him have made him [[MadeOfIron very durable]] in a pitched fight, and [[CombatPragmatist adaptable in hand-to-hand combat]].

* MagicalQueer: After Kid's first defeat he falls in with a camp of warrior hijra[[note]]a "third gender" in the Indian subcontinent[[/note]]. They help him improve his fighting ability; their leader Alpha sympathizes with the harsh pursuit of Kid (as the hijra have also been violently displaced). Alpha takes on a guru role for him, helping him undergo a VisionQuest for clarity of purpose and [[spoiler:leading the others in aiding him in the final battle]].
* ManBehindTheMan: Whilst Baba Shakti is supposedly only a guru whom provides spiritual advice to the Sovereign Party leader, it soon becomes clear that he's really the one actually in charge.

* NoNameGiven: The protagonist's given name doesn't come up during the film's events. Some characters call him "Kid" as a reference to him having a younger appearance than everyone else (and this is used for him in the credits); he introduces himself as "Bobby" to Alphonso (there's a couple cans of "Bobby's Bleach" in the scene to indicate that's a LineOfSightName); and the underground fight ring knows him as Monkey Man, which is a title.

* OhCrap: Alphonso watches a news broadcast about the "terrorist attack" on the Kings club, sees his own face in the security footage, and realises the police are going to come after him as an accomplice.

* PedoHunt: Kid makes a point of beating up a brothel owner rather than continue his escape from the police when he sees an underage girl in the room.

* RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil: Rana at a bare minimum attempted to rape Kid's mother before killing her, giving Kid (and the audience) more reason to want him dead.
* RevolversAreForAmateurs: Kid is a seasoned pit fighter but still brings a revolver with him during his first attempted attack on Rana. It gets knocked out of his hand and their fight becomes a straight-up brawl, which he loses. The next time they meet, he doesn't bring a gun, but is much more able to hold his own thanks to a more refined fighting style.

* ShooOutTheClowns: Kid's [[PluckyComicRelief goofy, sleazy acquaintance Alphonso]] only has fleeting appearances and about four lines after his escape from the assassination attempt.

* SinisterMinister: A non-Christian variation. Baba Shakti is a corrupt Hindi guru who uses the police as his own personal army, steals land for his factory, mistreats his workers, and spouts populist rhetoric.
* SirSwearsALot: Queenie frequently sprinkles her sentences with a generous dose of "fuck"s to emphasize her authority.
* TheSmurfettePrinciple: There's one woman associated with the villains: sex trafficker Queenie.

* TapOnTheHead: Exaggerated. Kid is brutally beaten on the head throughout the movie, whether in the boxing ring, knocked out on concrete, and punched during multiple fights. He's never shown experiencing any longterm effects and barely even seems dazed when he gets back up.
* ThrowingTheFight: Kid is told to take a dive a couple times in the underground boxing club where he fights. He tips off Alphonso about one of his fights to earn a promotion.

* VanityLicensePlate: The tuk tuk Alphonso drives has the license plate "53XY 8OY".

* YouKilledMyMother: Kid's motivation to pursue Rana, and later Baba Shakti, is to avenge his mother.

* DepravedHomosexual: In this case, it's not "gay = depraved" as several queer characters are depicted positively and even participate in the fight scenes, but more to highlight a character's hypocrisy: Baba Shakti ''at best'' lets the police actively ignore crimes against Hijra, trans/third gender persons in India, and at worst is actively commanding them to beat them, as we find out when one Hijra is beaten to near death simply for standing up to an attempted extortion/eviction. However, he keeps a nubile young man as a minder during his usual rituals. Adding onto this is the Bharatiya Janata Party, the far-right party controlling India's government (as of 2024), has refused to recognise or legalise gay marriage.

* DidntThinkThisThrough: Kid puts a lot of effort into his initial assassination attempt on Rana, getting both a job as a waiter to covertly approach him with, and a concealed revolver to shoot him with, but rather than just shooting him from behind, he invokes his mother while holding the gun from less than a foot away. When he gets distracted, Rana easily knocks the gun away, leading to a prolonged brawl.

* {{Hypocrite}}: Early on in the film, Baba Shakti preaches a message of non-violence, but freely commands a corrupt police force to RapePillageAndBurn any land he wants for himself. He preaches generosity, but a news interview brings up the fact the workers are beaten and worked to death for very little. He preaches tolerance, but his police goons have targeted racial, religious, and queer minorities -- and he's implied to be a DepravedHomosexual, if having a nubile, handsome man as his attendant says anything. Finally, he tries to talk Kid down [[spoiler:during the ending and how violence and revenge only cause more suffering... only to try and get some revenge of his own and violently injure Kid. When Kid overpowers him, he simply pleads to be spared... after trying to kill Kid.]]

* LineOfSightAlias: When asked his name in the restaurant, Kid says his name is Bobby, after the brand of bleach he's using to clean the kitchen.

* ManBehindTheMan: Whilst Baba Shakti is supposedly only a guru whom provides spiritual advice to Sovereign Party leader, it soon becomes clear that he's really the one actually in charge.

* RevolversAreForAmateurs: Kid is a seasoned pit fighter, but still brings a revolver with him during his first attempted attack on Rana. It gets knocked out of his hand and their fight becomes a straight-up brawl, which he loses. The next time they meet, he doesn't bring a gun, but is much more able to hold his own thanks to a more refined fighting style.

** The three main villains - a corrupt [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godman_(India) Godman]] and head of a violent Hindu nationalist party, a corrupt trigger-happy chief of police who refuses to do any actual police work besides razing entire villages and assaulting women, and a spoiled RichBitch "goddess" who abuses everyone vaguely below them and ''especially'' desperate women they've forced into sex trafficking - are emblematic representations of common issues in India. A fourth minor villain is a government figurehead who gives all his power to the Godman, and another is a AmoralAfrikaner right from South Africa, which has historically racially abused its Indian populace with Apartheid.

** All of Kid's opponents at the fight club are named for ''Literature/TheJungleBook'' characters; this is likely as much of a TakeThat as it is a ShoutOut, as they're named by a racist white Afrikaner for characters written by a staunch imperialist.

* SuperWindowJump: Attempted but subverted. After his failed attempt to assassinate Rana, Kid attempts to escape by jumping out the window, but just bounces off of it instead and badly bruises his shoulder.

* AmoralAfrikaner: Tiger, the promoter at the illegal fighting pit where Kid works, has a South-African accent and claims Africa is his original homeland. He also rigs the fights in his favor and stiffs the fighters over their pay, and is casually racist, starting with giving his fighters ''stereotypical names'' cooked up by white imperialist authors (in this case, Creator/RudyardKipling characters) and pandering to the majority-Hindu crowd by badmouthing Muslims and Christians.

* AnimalThemeNaming: Everyone in the underground fight ring follows this. Three of the combatants are named Monkey Man, King Cobra and Baloo the Bear, while the guy in charge is known as Tiger.

* FriendToAllChildren: The Kid's informant [[spoiler: and the one who bets on him in his final ring fight, getting the Kid the money to give to the hijra]] is a youth who the Kid pays for intel, yes, but there's some affection and familiarity there too. The Kid is also sensitive to children who might be hurt in his RoaringRampageOfRevenge, even though this slows him down. He slams the brakes mid high speed chase to keep from killing a little girl [[spoiler: which gets him caught. Telling an underaged girl hiding under a bed to run also costs him some time fighting her pimp.]]

* FromNobodyToNightmare: Invoked, but ultimately subverted. Baba Shakti is worried that if Kid is left alone "that nobody could turn into a somebody". Alpha too insists that he was made for something more, to fight for everyone not just himself, even drawing parallels to Hanuman. While he does take a level in badass, Kid ultimately remains nothing more than a lone gunman. His monkey mask is not a symbol of faith, but a disguise to bypass the police during a festival, and quickly discarded. He inspires nobody but Alpha and her followers, [[spoiler:and allows the political face of the Sovereign party, who was winning the election, to escape with his life and presumably continue terrorizing the downtrodden. The only concession he makes to helping Alpha is providing their temple with some money and then killing Baba Shakti after he's finished with Rana, and even killing Baba is personal for him. The ending implies that he dies after the fighting.]] He fulfilled his revenge but never became a 'somebody' that the Sovereign Party has to fear inciting the masses against them.

** Kid is heavily associated with bleach, each instance tying into his plot for revenge. First, he claims that the burns on his hands came from cleaning with bleach, both covering up their true origin and convincing Queenie to give him the jobs "no one else wants". Next, he [[LineOfSightName names himself after a bleach brand]] when Alphonso asks him for his name, and his connection to Alphonso is how he's able to get in proximity to Rana and make his move. Thirdly, to lure Rana away from the rest of the party, he [[spoiler:tips some powdered bleach from the same brand into a capsule and passes it off to him as cocaine, giving him a sudden nosebleed and intense pain]]. Finally, when he resumes his violent campaign against Rana, Kid [[spoiler:bleaches his monkey mask white to associate it with Hanuman and also give him a disguise to get to the King's Club during Diwali]].

** The Hanuman iconography is heavily enmeshed from the get-go, opening with Kid's mother reading him the story of Hanuman and calling him her little Hanuman, Hanuman-associated stories being brought up from time to time, Kid's mask being that of a monkey (Hanuman was a monkey), and Kid even [[spoiler:re-enacts the iconography of Hanuman opening his chest to reveal Lord Rama and Sita inside, albeit so that he relieves his memories of his village being destroyed and Rana killing his mother to renew his devotion to bringing down Rana]]. All of this ties into the association that Hanuman is a warrior of the people; like him, Kid represents the downtrodden masses and fights in their favor.

* {{Foil}}: Baba Shakti and Alpha are a sharp contrast on the difference between someone who uses religion to further their own goals versus genuine faith. Baba Shakti wears expensive clothing and is always well groomed while Alpha wears very simple clothes and has visibly wild hair. Baba Shakti is an extremely rich SinisterMinister who uses his position and the corrupt police to further his wealth in contrast to Alpha who lives in the forest and is explicitly extremely poor. Alpha is queer[[note]]Hijra are trans/third gender people of India[[/note]] but firmly a good person, whereas Baba Shakti lets his cops target hijra while keeping [[DepravedHomosexual a handsome young man as a servant]]. Finally, Baba Shakti can barely fight and uses hidden weapons whereas Alpha is a very skilled fighter who uses traditional sickles.

* CombatPragmatist: Several times. Kid uses everything he can get his hands on as a weapon- glass shards, a serving tray, an oven door, and so forth. He's also ''more'' than happy to use his mouth as either a weapon or third hand, when needed.

* TheHeroDies: [[spoiler:[[UncertainDoom Maybe]]. The final shot of the film is the Kid slumping over, having just been stabbed in the gut by Baba Shakti.]]

* NoHoldsBarredBeatdown: Kid's second fight against Rana is ''brutal'', with him clearly taking his time beating Rana to death with a shoe, only hitting him when he tries to get back up again.

** Alphonso has named his wagon after Music/NickiMinaj - for its bumper and headlights.

** All of Kid's opponents at the fight club are named for ''Literature/TheJungleBook'' characters; this is likely as much of a TakeThat as it is a ShoutOut as they're named by a racist white Afrikaner for characters written by a staunch imperialist.
** Once Kid gets serious and returns to the fight club, [[spoiler:his first fight is a one-kick CurbstompBattle]] in the vein of ''Film/OngBak''.

* SirSwearsALot: Queenie frequently sprinkles her sentences with a generous dose of fucks to emphasize her authority.

* SoundtrackDissonance: One fight scene has Music/BoneyM's "By the Rivers of Babylon" as its backing track - a chilled-out, mellow song to accompany Kid shivving several security guards.

* UnderestimatingBadassery. Rana's superior, Baba Shakti, is well aware of the danger Kid's quest for Revenge on them poses, and warns Rana he should ''not'' do this, ordering him to hunt down the "crazy kid from the gutter" before he becomes [[ZeroToHero something more dangerous.]]

* BeautyIsNeverTarnishes: Despite his night time job of jobbing for an underground fight club where he gets the shit beaten out of him, his face is always unblemished afterwards, particularly on the second fight we see where he encourages his opponent to punch him in the face repeatedly.

** The Kid's assassination attempt against Rana goes sideways, leading to him getting his ass kicked by the police captain [[CurbStompCushion though not without getting a few good hits in]]. [[spoiler: The Kid then returns the favour to Rana at the end of the film, spending most of the fight handing him his ass. Same goes when he confronts Baba Shakti a few moments later.]]

* EveryoneIsArmed: {{Inverted}}, for guns are very rare in the fight scenes. The only times they appear are when Kid's failure to shoot Rana leads to armed cops busting down the King's Club, when the sniper puts a bullet in Kid's abdomen, and when Queenie [[spoiler:pins down Kid behind a table with handgun fire]]. The cops try to CarFu Kid instead of shooting his tuk tuk, the owner of the brothel Kid crashes into uses an axe instead of a gun, and (despite the city being on high alert after Kid's failed assassination attempt) many of the goons in the final battle don't carry a gun -- those that ''do'' wind up [[FatalFireworks getting blown to bits by fireworks]] that Kid had stashed away.

* FromNobodyToNightmare: Invoked, but ultimately subverted. Baba Shakti is worried that if Kid is left alone "that nobody could turn into a somebody". Alpha too insists that he was made for something more, to fight for everyone not just himself, even drawing parallels to Hanuman. While he does take a level in badass, Kid ultimately remains nothing more than a lone gunman. His monkey mask is not a symbol of faith, but a disguise to bypass the police during a festival, and quickly discarded. He inspires nobody but Alpha and her followers, [[spoiler: and allows the political face of the Sovereign party, who was winning the election, to escape with his life and presumably continue terrorizing the downtrodden. The only concession he makes to helping Alpha is providing their temple with some money and then killing Baba Shakti after he's finished with Rana, and even killing Baba is personal for him. The ending implies that he dies after the fighting.]] He fulfilled his revenge but never became a 'somebody' that the Sovereign Party has to fear inciting the masses against them.

* TheHeroDies: [[spoiler: [[UncertainDoom Maybe]]. The final shot of the film is the Kid slumping over, having just been stabbed in the gut by Baba Shakti.]]

* ItsPersonalWithTheDragon: Because Rana killed the Kid's [[spoiler: mother right in front of him and set his home ablaze]] rather than giving the order to [[spoiler: drive the locals off their land by any means necessary,]] Rana is dealt a ''brutal'' drawn out beatdown, while the Guru is [[spoiler: given a quicker death.]]

* PunchParry: During Kid's and [[spoiler: Rana's]] final fight, they clash with a jab, notably the former [[NoSell tanks it]], while the latter is grimacing in pain afterward.

** When the Kid is purchasing a firearm, the dealer mentions the {{Film/John Wick}} films and produces a pistol that the titular assassin uses. Later on, the Kid's suit during the climax of the film (the black-on-black seen in the poster) is also a reference to the film series, and much of the film is a dreamy, neon-haze underworld like later ''John Wick'' entries.
** All of Kid's opponents at the fight club are named for Literature/TheJungleBook characters; this is likely as much of a TakeThat as it is a ShoutOut as they're named by a racist white Afrikaner for characters written by a staunch imperialist.

** [[spoiler:Queenie is shown to treat the prostitutes in her employ as commodities at best, is heavily implied to outright murder them at worst, allows clients to harass them, and is abusive towards them if they do the slightest thing to disappoint her. Sita pays her back for this abuse by bludgeoning Queenie to death to save Kid.]]

* EqualOpportunityEvil: For all of Baba Shakti's sins, his and Rana's hired goons are pan-Indian -- for example, a Sikh features prominently in the major battle scenes.

** The Hanuman iconography is heavily enmeshed from the get-go, with Kid's mother calling him Hanuman, Hanuman-associated stories being brought up from time to time, Kid's mask being that of a monkey (Hanuman was a monkey), and Kid even [[spoiler:re-enacts the iconography of Hanuman opening his chest to reveal Lord Rama and Sita inside, albeit to relieve his memories of his village being destroyed and Rana killing his mother]]. All of this ties into the association that Hanuman is a warrior of the people; like him, Kid represents the downtrodden masses and fights in their favor.
** The three main villains - a corrupt [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godman_(India) Godman]] and head of a violent Hindu nationalist party, a corrupt trigger-happy chief of police who refuses to do any actual police work besides razing entire villages and assaulting women, and a spoiled RichBitch "goddess" who abuses everyone vaguely below them and ''especially'' desperate women they've forced into sex trafficking - are emblematic representations of common issues in India. A fourth minor villain is an AmoralAfrikaner right from South Africa, which has historically racially abused its Indian populace with Apartheid.

* ShoeSlap: During their second fight, Kid strikes Rana in the face with a high-heeled shoe and [[spoiler:beats him to near-death with it]].

* BittersweetEnding: Kid gets what he wants at the end: [[spoiler:Queenie, Rana, and Baba Shakti are all dead and can't hurt anyone any more, and his allies are all safe for now]]. However, [[spoiler:while Rana and Baba are dead, the remainder of the Sovereign Party still stands to enact their misdeeds upon the population, and Kid may or may not have died after the whole ordeal]].

* BrokenBird: Lakshmi, the youngest Hijra.

* AmputativeSentencing: Alphonso apparently had his "leg" [[GroinAttack chopped off]] as punishment for trying to back out of a drug deal in the past.

* BattleBallgown: The Hjiras' lehengas in the final battle.

** The Hanuman iconography is heavily enmeshed from the get-go, with Kid even [[spoiler:re-enacting the iconography of Hanuman opening his chest to reveal Lord Rama and Sita inside to relieve his memories of his village being destroyed and Rana killing his mother.]]

** Kid is heavily associated with bleach, each instance tying into his plot for revenge. First, he claims that the burns on his hands came from cleaning with bleach, both covering up their true origin and convincing Queenie to give him the jobs "no one else wants". Next, he [[LineOfSightName names himself after a bleach brand]] when Alphonso asks him for his name. Thirdly, to lure Rana away from the rest of the party, he [[spoiler:tips some powdered bleach from the same brand into a capsule and passes it off to him as cocaine, giving him a sudden nosebleed and intense pain]]. Finally, when he resumes his violent campaign against Rana, Kid [[spoiler:bleaches his monkey mask white to associate it with Hanuman]].

* ShooOutTheClowns: Kid's goofy, sleazy acquaintance Alphonso only has fleeting appearances and about four lines after his escape from the assassination attempt.

* YouKilledMyMother: Kid's motivation for the entire movie.

* EveryoneIsArmed: {{Inverted}}, for guns are very rare in the fight scenes. The only times they appear are when Kid's failure to shoot Rana leads to armed cops busting down the King's Club, when the sniper puts a bullet in Kid's abdomen, and when Queenie [[spoiler:pins down Kid behind a table with handgun fire]]. The cops try to CarFu Kid instead of shooting his tuk tuk, the owner of the brothel Kid crashes into uses an axe instead of a gun, and (despite the city being on high alert after Kid's failed assassination attempt) many of the goons in the final battle don't carry a gun -- those that ''do'' wind up [[FatalFireworks getting blown to bits by fireworks]] that Kid stashes.

* {{Foil}}: Baba Shakti and Alpha are a sharp contrast on the difference between someone who uses religion to further their own goals versus genuine faith. Baba Shakti wears expensive clothing and is always well groomed while Alpha wears very simple clothes and has visibly wild hair. Baba Shakti is an extremely rich SinisterMinister who uses his position and the corrupt police to further his wealth in contrast to Alpha who lives in the forest and is explicitly extremely poor. Finally, Baba Shakti can barely fight and uses hidden weapons whereas Alpha is a very skilled fighter who uses traditional sickles.

* {{Hypocrite}}: Early on in the film, Baba Shakti preaches a message of non-violence, but freely commands a corrupt police force to RapePillageAndBurn any land he wants for himself. He preaches generosity, but a news interview brings up the fact the workers are beaten and worked to death for very little. He preaches tolerance, but his police goons have targeted racial, religious, and queer minorities. Finally, he tries to talk Kid down [[spoiler:during the ending and how violence and revenge only cause more suffering... only to try and get some revenge of his own and violently injure Kid. When Kid overpowers him, he simply pleads to be spared... after trying to kill Kid.]]

* ActionGirl: The Hijras.

* AmazonBrigade: The Kid spends the middle chunk of the film being nursed back to health by a group of hijra women, who eventually assist him in his final assualt against Rana and his goons.

* BaitAndSwitch: Alphonso talks to Kid about how nice his car is while the camera lingers on an expensive sports car... before switching to show his car is a tuk tuk.

* NoNameGiven: The protagonist's given name doesn't come up during the film's events. Some characters call him "Kid" as a reference to him having a younger appearance than everyone else; he introduces himself as "Bobby" to Alphonso (there's a couple cans of "Bobby's Bleach" in the scene to indicate that's a LineOfSightName); and the underground fight ring knows him as Monkey Man, which is a title.