Few films dare to trace mythology back to its bleeding roots — fewer still manage to honour its raw, untamed force without softening it for modern sensibilities. Kantara Chapter 1, Rishab Shetty’s audacious prequel to his 2022 phenomenon, is not a tale spun from nostalgia or spectacle. It is a cinematic excavation — of land, of lore, of lineage. The narrative emerges as a cultural relic set ablaze with divine unrest.
Where most prequels struggle under the burden of expectation, Chapter 1 feels instinctive, as though this world had always existed, half-buried in the soil, waiting for a filmmaker brave enough to unearth it without flinching. Shetty once again takes command both in front of and behind the camera, and what he delivers is not just vision, but conviction. His performance is blistering, stripped of vanity, full of ritualistic urgency, and his direction exhibits a storyteller not just interpreting folklore, but surrendering to it.
This time, the film achieves something rare: a tone that feels both elemental and elevated. Cinematographer Arvind Kashyap frames the forest not as backdrop, but as witness, alive with secrets, shadows, and ancestral weight. The film’s palette is rich without excess, earthy yet ethereal. Ajaneesh Loknath’s music builds on the rhythmic spine of the original, but here it is more primal, less melodic, more incantatory. It serves not to decorate scenes but to deepen them.
Narratively, the film does stretch itself, not all subplots land with clarity, and certain stretches test patience rather than reward it. Yet even in these moments, there is atmosphere; there is immersion. The second half, in particular, rewards the viewer with sequences that are arresting in both emotional and spiritual scale. When Shetty enters trance, that now-signature invocation of divine embodiment, the film pierces through its own form and becomes something closer to liturgy.
Supporting performances are uniformly strong. Rukmini Vasanth is a revelation, bringing gravity without melodrama. Gulshan Devaiah, though brief in presence, leaves a smoky imprint, precise and memorable.
Kantara Chapter 1 is an expansion. Wilder. Denser. More devout. It doesn’t seek to explain the divine, only to make you feel its nearness, and that may be its most powerful achievement.
IWMBuzz rates it 4 out of 5 stars.
