NEW DELHI — The Bollywood director Vishal Bhardwaj has made his name by adapting Shakespeare into film, using the plays to reflect the violence and vicissitudes of modern India. “Maqbool,” an adaptation of “Macbeth,” was set in the Mumbai underworld; “Omkara” transported “Othello” to the feudal badlands of northern India. His latest effort, a loose adaptation of “Hamlet” called “Haider,” which takes place in Kashmir during the turbulent 1990s, has become the most acclaimed and contentious Bollywood movie of the year.

The film, which opened internationally on Oct. 2, drew a fierce reaction on social media from Hindu nationalists, who called for a boycott. Kashmir, a disputed territory claimed by both India and Pakistan, remains a sensitive subject on the Indian subcontinent.

One post said on Twitter: “Any movie that sympathizes with terrorists, glorifies them; insults Indian Army & justifies ethnic cleansing, goes to the bin. #BoycottHaider.” The campaign’s Facebook page includes a photo of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a conservative whose election this year has emboldened Indians who advocate a muscular, unapologetic nationalism.

Journalists in India’s national media, however, greeted the movie with rapturous praise. The columnist Mukul Kesavan, writing in The Telegraph newspaper in Kolkata, said its “great achievement is to bring Kashmir out of the closet.” The Mint newspaper called it an “immensely effective reimagination of Shakespeare.”