[5] Set in Thailand,[6] the plot centers on Balajeet "Bala" Roy, who gets kidnapped and held hostage in a cell.

While in captivity, he practices martial arts which he learns after watching it on the television, with the intention of using it against the people who captured him.

Bala tracks down the restaurant that served him food during his entire captivity and follows a delivery moped to his captors.

Bala tortures the owner Wong Foo for answers by plucking out his teeth with a claw hammer; he then finds out he was imprisoned for "talking too much", and fights his way out of the building.

The film received mixed reviews from critics, although John Abraham and Sanjay Dutt were singled out for praise.

[15] Narbir Gosal of PlanetBollywood.com gave the film a rating of 7.5/10, praising the performances by Sanjay Dutt and John Abraham, while criticising the fact that much of the dialogue and story was copied from Oldboy.

Futuremovies.com gave the film 6/10 and said, "Technically and style-wise Zinda is flawless", and praised Dutt's performance, saying "it is probably the pinnacle of his career".

[20][21][22] Rediff.com reviewer Raja Sen wrote an open letter to Gupta, declaring he would not watch the film due to the plagiarism, and further revealed Gupta plagiarized the whole film in spite of categorically telling him he had lifted one scene from Oldboy and claiming the rest was original.

[23] Another critic Rajeev Masand labeled it a "shameless rip-off" of Oldboy where Gupta "steals not only the plot and characters but entire sequences, and pretty much the whole treatment of the original film.

"[24] CNN-News18 refused to term it a remake since no rights were officially purchased, and went on to criticize its performances, storytelling and the blue tint.

The website pointed out that while the film could be notable to the Indian audience for its experimental storyline around that time, this has not been the case over the years.