Kantara: Chapter 1 Review: Rishab Shetty Delivers a Visual Epic Where Flaws Don’t Matter

Origins Of The Saga

Kantara Chapter 1 rewinds the clock by thousands of years and asks us to listen to origin stories. At the center is a king who scorns Eshwara's Ganas. He rules by cruelty and disbelief until Guliga ensnares him and a dark force consumes him. His child survives, marked by the memory of ruin. Rajashekhara emerges trying to patch a civilization torn by fear and superstition.

His son grows up in the shadow of legacy and becomes Kulashekhara a monarch who drinks to fill the void left by history. Parallel to royal rot runs the tale of a tribal child raised under sacred protection. That child becomes Berme a man forged by ritual and rebellion. The film lets these parallel arcs pulse against each other like two drums until they find synchronous beat.

A World Built On Grit And Wonder

The technical work on this film feels like the fruit of obsessive ingenuity. Arvind S Kashyap's cinematography renders plains and temples with a painter's patience. The camera lingers on ritual flames and on faces that hold stories. There is a texture to the images that makes the world breathe.

Visual effects and CGI are used with an economy that fools you into thinking they belong to a larger budget. Animals move through frames with believable ferocity and a brahmarakshas appears with a presence that chills without cheapening. Practical effects and stunt choreography keep the film tethered to reality even as it leans into myth.

Attention to Detail

Shetty does not simply aim for flash. He layers sound design and music so that the film s drumbeats act like a second narrator. The score arrives at precise moments and lifts scenes without pushing them into melodrama. Editing sometimes takes breathers that let sequences simmer instead of snap, which helps when the stakes demand an emotional burn.

When the camera pulls back to reveal throngs or closes in on a single face the film finds the right tilt between epic and human. Above all the world building works because Shetty remembers that myth must be inhabited by people not just by ideas. Costumes, makeup and the tiniest ritual details feel researched and real and that care shows.

Performances That Anchor The Myth

Rukmini Vasanth s Kanakavathi is a revelation. The role could have existed merely as ornament but here it becomes a fulcrum. Rukmini balances tenderness and steel with quiet force. She refuses to perform girlishness as shorthand for depth. Instead she constructs a woman who is patient and potent.

Her small gestures cannot be overstated. They reveal a character who chooses weight over volume. Gulshan Devaiah has mischief in his eyes and bitter grace in his timing as Kulashekhara. He slips into Kannada with a natural ease and makes the indulgent monarch funny and frightening in equal measure.

The supporting cast deserves credit too. The actors bring an authenticity that keeps the film grounded. Extras are not mere backdrops but part of a living community with rhythms and grievances.

The stunt ensemble and the animal handlers add a layer of real world danger that makes conflicts feel perilous. Every department works in unison to build a film where performance meets place.

The Rishab Shetty Show

Yet even with a strong ensemble this remains at heart Rishab Shetty's vessel. Berme is strenuous and soulful. Shetty moves through choreography as if he has spent a lifetime learning how the body tells a legend. When possession takes him there is a freighted physicality that never feels posed.

He inhabits the role with a mix of fury and fragility. Watching him is to watch a ritual take shape. He proves once again that a performer can command an epic without losing intimacy. That balance is rare and it is thrilling when it appears.

Where The Film Stumbles

No film this vast is without fault. The first half takes its time establishing textures and characters and at points it wanders. Scenes that linger on local colour and on playful banter sometimes undercut the sense of mounting peril. The humour that lightens early scenes often multiplies until the tonal switch to darkness feels sudden.

There are moments when Shetty s appetite for detail tips into indulgence and a tighter script would have increased suspense. Some emotional beats would have landed stronger if pared down. Runtime feels generous in places where brevity would have made the stakes sharper.

Yet these issues feel like small fractures on an otherwise monolithic work. The heart of the story comes through. Even when pacing falters the drama retains its charge. If the film had been leaner in places it would have been closer to a fully controlled masterpiece.

As it stands it is a towering achievement with human errors that are forgivable because the film gives back so much more.

A Cinema Experience You Must Feel

Kantara Chapter 1 demands the auditorium. The film benefits from scale because much of its magic lives in sound and in image immersion. IMAX or a large screen intensifies the drums the wind and the roar of crowds.

Rituals become communal and the film s quieter moments bloom with consequence. To watch this on a small device is to miss how the film locates the body inside a larger ritual life. A theatre gives you the shared breathing space where laughter and shock land with a communal charge.

Despite its flaws the film is an act of cinematic courage. Shetty marshals a crew of technicians and extras to create a world that looks both mythic and immediate. The production feels enormous yet intimate. What remains most impressive is the sense that every choice was made with care.

That care extends to the insistence on tradition and to the willingness to question tradition. The film will not please everyone. Some will call it overblown others will call it audacious. Both views can coexist.