Bipasha Basu furthered her image as the new sexual heroine of Bollywood with "Gunaah" and a few months later in early 2003 capped the concerted effort with the release of "Jism". The year 2002 saw a trend towards a whole new racy and erotic mentality in mainstream Bollywood releases. Not since the 70s films of Raj Kapoor and Feroz Khan had woman shown so much skin and brazen eroticism.

During the later 1980s and 1990s, the 'revealing' of woman had shown a shift toward a more conservative attitude on the state censored Bollywood screen. The screen heroine by the late 1990s had in fact become, for the most part, modernity demure and if sexy, a nice-girl sexy.

For a short period in 2002 and early 2003 Bipasha Basu took on roles that tried to change that. She portrayed a series of Film Noir styled characters that were erotically charged and possessed. In films like "Ajnabee", "Jism" , and "Gunaah". Her effort caused a press sensation and she was billed as the new Zeenat Aman the sexy screen goddess of 70s Hindi Popular film. However Bipasha also received her share of conservative press and public backlash for these films and she had a change of heart. By mid 2003 Bipasha Basu was stating that she would no longer take on the plethora of super sexy roles that were being offered her and would opt for more 'dramatic' parts.

The trend toward new boundary pushing imaging of female sexuality on the Bollywood screen did not stop when Bipasha turned down the roles and a whole slew of wanna be Bollywood actresses stepped up to try to fill the void. However, there is something about Bipasha Basu and although many films and new starlets have attempted, none have achieved the erotic power she did in "Jism", or even the less successful, "Gunaah".