While sons Sunny Deol and Bobby Deol are at the moment struggling at the box-office, and the third, Abhay Deol, has not yet struck oil, with his first two films weak at the BO, too, papa Dharmendra and stepmom Hema Malini have started reappearing in films in elderly roles.

They too have had flip-flop results and Dharmendra has now cast aside his action hero image to play a hopeless romantic, the director of his latest movie was quoted as saying.

In Anurag Basu's new movie Metro he will be seen in a full-fledged role and this time he lets those lucky lips do all the talking enjoying romance and even kisses with his co-star, the elegant Nafisa Ali.

Dharmendra and Nafisa Ali play lovers, who deal with contemporary lifestyles and the pressures that come as a package deal with it. Dharmendra's character returns to the girl he loved during his college days. They never got together in the full bloom of youth, but it's never too late to find love at any age.

Anurag says, "Dharmendra and Nafisa's pair in the film is the most romantic. Theirs is an intense love story and is a counterpoint to contemporary relationships.

They could not be together in their youth but he cherished his love all through his life. Dharmendra will be seen on the big screen after a long time with Metro and he has done a terrific job as a die-hard romantic." The film which releases in May highlights younger couples whose careers take preference over love. "Their story is an intense one," said Anurag Basu. "They could not be together in their youth but he cherished his love all through his life."

Dharmendra, 71, has recently been seen as gone to seed, but his charisma still works. As one of India's biggest stars in the 1960-70s Garam Dharam as he was nicknamed by a popular gossip magazine, went on to notch up some 240 films.

Despite his tough-guy image, and his "haath nahin hathoda hai" and "kutte kamine, main tera khoon pee jaaonga" type of dialogues, Dharm Prahji is best remembered as a small-time thief who wears his heart on his sleeve in the 1975 movie, Sholay -- Bollywood's biggest milestone hit.

But added to that were many comic cameos as in Chupke Chupke and Pratigyya, not to mention his big-break film, Phool Aur Patthar, where the bare-chested macho man bent seductively over a sleeping Meena Kumari.

"Dharmendra will be seen on the big screen after a long time with Metro and he has done a terrific job as a die-hard romantic," Basu has told the media. "It is a delightful change from the he-man image he is associated with."