cs_rahul_prasad

In 2001, a young boy, dressed like his favourite superhero, jumps off a building to test his superpowers. He ends up breaking his leg. His mother (Sudharani), who accompanies him to read superhero comic books, convinces him that not all heroes wear capes. They sometimes emerge out of nowhere to help the needy. Giving an example of her cop husband (Achyut Kumar), she tells the young boy that his father, who delivers justice to the needy, is no less than any superhero. The young boy with dreamy eyes grows up to be police officer Vedanth Prabhakar (Sriimurali), a gold medalist, aspiring to be a torch-bearer of justice for the public. But, the reality at police stations makes him have a change of heart overnight. Upon his father's advice to wear a mask and stay out of trouble, a superhero is born - Bagheera, a vigilante who reaches right time at the right place to fight the evil.

With Bagheera, the Kannada film industry finally gets its much-deserved very own superhero. He is extremely powerful, quick as a cat, jumps around like a ninja, and always mostly manages to escape villains' bullets while making sure his gunshots never misses the target. His mannerisms are, for obvious reasons, inspired by Hollywood superheroes, and have been adapted well to cater to the Kannada audience. He dons a mask, wields unique and modified weapons and rides a super bike.

Penned by Prashanth Neel of KGF and Salaar fame, Bagheera's story is narrated through 8 different chapters. The first chapter is a bit boring and predictable, but the second chapter, where he transforms into the superhero character, picks up pace. Of the eight chapters, the second one truly stands out. The rest follows a commercial film template that ultimately results in a final showdown between the hero and the villain. Besides taking inspiration from Hollywood superheroes, the film also has shades of our very own KGF, where people wait for a Messiah to save them.

Sriimurali shines as Vedanth and Bagheera. He looks the part and delivers yet another career-best performance. True to his Roaring Star monicker, Sriimurali roars in the film. His efforts shine bright in each and every scene. He excels in action sequences and manages to leave his trademark with each and every scene. But, besides him other characters and their character traits both become very predictable as the story progresses. Rukmini Vasanth plays his girlfriend, who is also a doctor, who he can conveniently come to, to get treated every time he is injured after a fight. Her role is limited to playing a 'good , supporting girlfriend'. On a serious note, commercial film writers should definitely steer clear of writing 'slapping the lead actress scene' without justification, while also portraying the hero as flag-bearer of women empowerment. Rangayana Raghu, Prakash Rai, Avinash, and Pramod Shetty add their touches to the template roles. Baddie Rana, played by Ramachandra Raju, looks fierce and is aptly placed as a tough anti-hero to the superhero.

Dr. Suri aptly follows a commercial film template with a value superhero addition, and takes the audience on an immersive journey. He has extracted the best of the best from Sriimurali. Ajaneesh Loknath's BGM elevates scenes and the songs flow well with the film.

Bagheera offers a good theatrical experience and now is a good time to roll a red-carpet to our very own homegrown superhero, Bagheera.

Nikki aka Nikhat Kothari (Abigail Pande) is the arrogant, big boss at a national news channel network. When she arrives to work, everyone makes sure to steer clear out of her way, except for Ashu aka Ashutosh Chavda (Rishab Chadha). He is the new employee and ensures to bring her coffee first thing in the morning but she barely notices him. It is only when he starts giving her some interesting story ideas and contacts, that she begins to take note. Nikki doesn't think twice before passing off some of his ideas as her own and this begins a heated rivalry between the two and they are constantly at loggerheads. So much so that their boss puts them on a show together to capitalise on their banter.

And when they both give in a story idea on a scam happening at the marriage registrar office, he suggests they do it together pretending to be a couple that wants to get married. But inadvertently they both end up registering their marriage for real.

'Divorce ke liye kuch bhi karega' is propped up as a rom-com series and is mostly a light-hearted watch. However with a predictable storyline, there is only so far it can go. There are no sub plots or interesting side characters, which are crucial to a comedy. The series mostly rests on Ashu and Nikki's banter and chemistry, which are a hit and miss.

For most part, the seven episode run relies on the 'nok-jhok' between the lead couple but the romance doesn't really bloom for the longest time and there is no real tension except that Nikki is engaged to be married to her boyfriend. While Niki and Ashu's one-upmanship is entertaining to a point, some episodes feel like a stretch. However, stepping away from the deluge of crime and violent shows, this one can be watched with the whole family.

Both Abigail Pande and Rishab Chadha are sincere and bring in a fresh energy to otherwise tepid show. Overall, 'Divorce ke liye Kuch Bhi karega' is a light-hearted, one-time watch.

The film follows a father, Seok Woo (Yoo Gong), a busy father with a hectic career, running around South Korea, taking care of job-related errands. Focused on his job, he divorced his wife, and maintains an unhealthy relationship with his young daughter, Soo An (Kim Soo An). While prepping for a two-hour train ride to Busan from Seoul on his daughter's birthday, Soo Ann pleads her father to go. Little do they know that a zombie outbreak is happening in the city. While boarding the train, an infected passenger gets on board, spreading the virus, forcing passengers to either work together or die, pitting a high school baseball team to even elderly women to collaborate to survive the train ride in a lengthy life-or-death situation.

Without having to worry about a cure or the origin of the infection, Train to Busan is filled with intense action scenes without any shaky cam and harrowing moments of suspense. The action in the film is brutal. With no guns to finish off the zombies quickly, the characters resort to using baseball bats and duct tape around their arms, resulting in blood, gore, but most of all, believable fighting from the characters. The thing about the action in this film is that the choreography is not that fancy compared to movies such as The Raid or Jason Bourne. Since the characters are all civilians, none of them are trained to take out zombies, giving the audience sloppy, yet realistic actions, building on to the tension that the people on the train are going to have a hard time surviving.

This brings me to the film's suspense. Train to Busan's suspense element is it's selling point. The suspense is constant and exhausting, added in with a couple of unpredictable scares (not jump scares). I remember being on the edge of my seat for the entire time, wondering if the main characters would get through the next train car safely. Although Train to Busan is no horror film, the amount of anxiety it brings to the audience puts a lot of mainstream horror flicks to shame.

Ultimately, Train to Busan is a great zombie flick. Despite the fact that I feel like some of the scenes were too dragged out for the sake of action, the majority of the film maintained to have elements of scary zombies, suspense, lovable/hateable characters, and a simplistic plot which kept the movie from getting complicated or too predictable. I especially love the director's choice to incorporate some humor to break up the tension, resulting in a perfect mix of action, horror, and comedy, something Hollywood action/horror films seem to miss these days. Train to Busan serves as one of the prime examples of why we should go out of our way to see films from other countries that execute the story and the director's vision much better than the conventional Hollywood way.