In 1999, Puri acted in a Kannada film "A.K. 47" as a strict police officer who tries to keep the city safe from the underworld—it became a huge commercial hit. Puri's acting in the film is memorable. He rendered his own voice for the Kannada dialogues. In the same year, he starred in the successful British comedy-drama film "East is East", where he played a first-generation Pakistani immigrant in Northern England, struggling to come to terms with his far more westernised children.