The Guardian reviews Bahubali

Topless men fight bulls, couples kiss amid orchids, hundreds of flogged extras erect a tower and there's a 45 minute battle - SS Rajamouli's two-part epic brilliantly ticks off the blockbuster wish-list, and innovates with it

Mike McCahill

Sunday 12 July 2015 09.50 BSTLast modified on Sunday 12 July 201509.51 BST

The most expensive Indian movie ever made turns out to have spent a fair bit on getting one man to the top of a cliff and then leaving him hanging. SS Rajamouli's Baahubali - a Telugu production, dubbed into Tamil and releasing in two parts (Baahubali: The Conclusion follows next year) - reportedly set its producers back around $40 million: pocket change by Hollywood standards, a sign of how the movie world's other half live. Yet for once with these lavish items, the budget isn't the whole story: the impressive results only set one to wondering why the American studios don't insist on getting more for their money.

The eponymous hero ("The One with Strong Arms") embodies several legends for the price of one. Plucked from a river, the infant Baahubali could be Moses; shifting a stone shrine several hundred feet, his teenage self is as hefty as Hercules; swinging from vines so as to climb the waterfall his village sits under, he's as romantic a figure as Tarzan.

The film, like its hero, keeps flexing its muscles; Rajamouli clearly asked "What can't we do with this cash?" You want to see a man wrestling a bull with his bare hands? You got it. Two lovers fleeing an avalanche on a rock? Check. A hero swatting 10,000 arrows using his sword alone? Why not.

New frontiers unfold before our eyes: one moment we're witnessing mildly risqu canoodling in a forest of orchids, the next prowling the streets of a fortified city where hundreds of flogged and flogging extras have been charged with erecting a towering golden statue. (Again with the Moses comparisons.) The final 45 minutes roam a vast battlefield that, with its human shields and Boadicea-style murder chariots, makes Helms Deep resemble a punch-up in a chip shop. At each turn, the money's right there on screen, yet what's most striking is how these resources have been marshalled - to enhance, rather than clutter up, the narrative throughline.

In this, Baahubali demonstrates the pleasing, straight-ahead simplicity of certain videogames: whenever our hero accomplishes a task, some new challenge presents itself. Upon scaling that waterfall, the adult Baahubali (the genial, moustachioed Prabhas) finds he's strayed into a civil war; only with a glimpse of warrior princess Avanthika (Tamannaah Bhatia) does he sense which side to pick. Their slyly feminist pairing makes some headway, yet that last-act battle forms part of an extended flashback that reveals the full extent of the dynastic tangle they've charged into. (The decision to split one epic into two films here makes narrative and economic sense: this mess will require some cleaning up.)

Throughout, Rajamouli strikes a near-perfect balance between physicality and poetics. That waterfall becomes both mirror and measure of personal growth; one lingering slo-mo shot of a warrior's chainmail in motion would stir a Zhang Yimou or Wong Kar-wai into renewed action. It's merely cute when Baahubali plunges into a lake to paint the hand the dozing Avanthika has let slip into the waters, yet the action has a lovely pay-off: this impromptu tattoo is seen to complete one on the hero's bicep during a later embrace. Unlike the committee scripting of, say, The Scorpion King, a lot of Baahubali appears to have been written in the stars.

And that's finally the film's appeal: it's a throwback, the kind of peppy serial that would have graced the multiplex in the days before product-placement, billion-dollar PR campaigns and obligation 3D, when the sole components required for a blockbuster were a hero, a villain, a few fights, a few songs, and a happy ending. Rajamouli defers on the latter for now, but his skilful choreography of these elements shucks off any cynicism one might carry into Screen 1: wide-eyed and wondrous, his film could be a blockbuster reboot, or the first blockbuster ever made, a reinvigoration of archetypes that is always entertaining, and often thrilling, to behold. Roll on 2016.

I write about the Chinese movie industry and its links to Hollywood.

Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.

Last weekend the South Indian film Baahubali: The Beginning, opened to record-shattering numbers, clearing $22 million in its domestic debut and nearly $34 million in its first five days of international release.

Aside from the distinction of being called the most expensive Indian movie ever made, what is it that's drawing audiences to the film?

There are several good reasons moviegoers are flocking to theaters for Baahubali, and why you should too if the film is playing near you. Let's start with the most important element:

1. S.S. Rajamouli

Writer-director S.S. Rajamouli has established himself as one of India's most reliable hitmakers, a rare talent who combines technical prowess with a unique storytelling flair, visual panache with real emotional depth. Both humble in personal demeanor and fiercely passionate in his artistic ambitions, Rajamouli is the kind of pure filmmaker that Hollywood used to embrace before the modern era of franchise films. Of Baahubali he has said, "This world of larger-than-life characters, larger-than-life emotions, larger-than-life environments, I have been living for as long as I can remember."

2. Crowd-Pleasing Epic Scale

Although the $40 million that Baahubali's producers spent on the 2-part blockbuster was modest by American standards, in India, with its low talent fees, crew wages and construction costs, that sort of amount can go a long way, and every bit of the budget shows up on the screen.

The film's massive shooting schedule and enormous labor pool bring to mind the audacious productions of director David Lean, who famously spent nearly 18 months in punishing conditions shooting his masterpiece Lawrence of Arabia.

Incredibly, Baahubali actually doubled that film's schedule. Here are a few facts and figures to describe the scale of the Indian production:

• 1 full year of preproduction
• 25 artists who created 15,000 storyboard sketches
• 380 shooting days over 3 years
• 2,000 stuntmen
• Thousands of costumes, weapons and props

Baahubali: the Beginning concludes with a heart-pumping 45 minute battle sequence and a cliffhanger ending that is sure to bring audiences flooding back for more when Baahubali: the Conclusion rolls out in 2016.

3. A Visual Feast

Baahubali was filmed in such exotic and spectacular locations as the Rock Gardens in Kurnool and the Athirappilly Falls in Thrissur district of Kerala, and on massive sets constructed at Ramoji Film City in Hyderabad. Cinematographer K.K. Senthil Kumar and his crew took full advantage of these rich locations, with superb camera and lighting work.

With this, his tenth film, Rajamouli has clearly mastered the technical aspects of visual storytelling. As Mike McCahill put it in his review for The Guardian:

"Throughout, Rajamouli strikes a near-perfect balance between physicality and poetics. That waterfall becomes both mirror and measure of personal growth; one lingering slo-mo shot of a warrior's chainmail in motion would stir a Zhang Yimou or Wong Kar-wai into renewed action."

Take a look at the film's trailer for a glimpse at its visual grandeur.

4. Simple, Powerful Storytelling

Baahubali is steeped in Indian, and particularly Telugu, mythology, but its straight-ahead narrative and universal themes make it accessible for any moviegoer. In interviews Rajamouli has credited classic Indian myths like the Mahabharata and the Ramayana as inspiration for Baahubali, but one can also find references in the film to the biblical stories of Moses and the Greek legend of Hercules.

The story revolves around two brothers " Baahubali (translated as "the one with strong arms") and Bhallaladeva " played by Telugu movie stars Prabhas Raju and Rana Daggubati, and their battle for control of a rich, ancient kingdom. The female leads are played by Tamannaah and Anushka Shetty. The narrative blends tender romance with jaw-dropping action,and even at 2 hours and 39 minutes, the pacing feels brisk. The movie was made in the Telugu and Tamil languages, and dubbed into Hindi and Malayalam. It has performed extremely well in all four language territories, and its prospects in the international market look very bright.