kantara telugu movie review imdb

Didn't you get the email?

By joining, you agree to the Terms and Policies and Privacy Policy and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

User 8 or more characters with a number and a lowercase letter. No spaces.

username@email

By continuing, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

Log in or sign up for Rotten Tomatoes

Trouble logging in?

By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes.

Email not verified

Let's keep in touch.

Sign up for the Rotten Tomatoes newsletter to get weekly updates on:

Upcoming Movies and TV shows
Rotten Tomatoes Podcast
Media News + More

By clicking "Sign Me Up," you are agreeing to receive occasional emails and communications from Fandango Media (Fandango, Vudu, and Rotten Tomatoes) and consenting to Fandango's Privacy Policy and Terms and Policies . Please allow 10 business days for your account to reflect your preferences.

OK, got it!

About Rotten Tomatoes®
Login/signup

Movies in theaters

Opening This Week
Top Box Office
Coming Soon to Theaters
Certified Fresh Movies

Movies at Home

Fandango at Home
Prime Video
Most Popular Streaming Movies
What to Watch New

Certified fresh picks

93% Heretic Link to Heretic
82% Emilia Pérez Link to Emilia Pérez
94% A Real Pain Link to A Real Pain

New TV Tonight

93% Silo: Season 2
87% The Day of the Jackal: Season 1
100% Say Nothing: Season 1
84% Yellowstone: Season 5
81% Cobra Kai: Season 6
-- Cross: Season 1
-- Bad Sisters: Season 2
90% St. Denis Medical: Season 1
-- The Creep Tapes: Season 1
-- It's All Country: Season 1

Kantara: A Legend

Where to watch.

Watch Kantara: A Legend with a subscription on Prime Video, Netflix.

Critics Reviews

Audience reviews, cast & crew.

Rishab Shetty

Kaadubettu Shiva

Achyuth Kumar

Devendra Suttooru

Pramod Shetty

Sapthami Gowda

Deepak Rai Panaje

Kantara Review: Insanely Entertaining, Propelled By Rishab Shetty's Blindingly Good Star Turn

Kantara review: a heady blend of history, myth, folklore, high drama and stylishly choreographed action neatly wrapped in a form firmly rooted in the cultural milieu it has sprung from..

<i>Kantara</i> Review: Insanely Entertaining, Propelled By Rishab Shetty's Blindingly Good Star Turn

Cast: Rishab Shetty, Kishore, Achyuth Kumar, Sapthami Gowda

Director: Rishab Shetty

Rating: 4 stars (out of 5)

A visually sumptuous, instantly immersive spectacle mounted with extraordinary vim and vigour, writer-director-actor Rishab Shetty's Kannada-language Kantara , now on nationwide release in Hindi and other languages, is a heady blend of history, myth, folklore, high drama and stylishly choreographed action neatly wrapped in a form firmly rooted in the cultural milieu it has sprung from.

Shetty is also the writer and lead actor of the film. As screenwriter, his output is probably just a touch shy of being perfect, but the script has enough heft and vibrancy to translate into a mass entertainer that is visceral, rousing and unwaveringly riveting.

A wide array of things makes Kantara the incredible film that it is, but the most prominent of all are the on-screen performers led admirably well by Shetty. He packs a punch that sends us reeling and continues to reverberate long after the film has run its course.

The film kicks off at scorching pace. The introduction of a divine spirit that watches over the forest and a stirring Kambala buffalo race within the first 15 minutes or so of the film set the tone. Getting accustomed to the sensory overload takes a while. However, once the two-and-a-half-hour film's design - both visual and aural - reveals itself in all its splendour, everything falls into place and draws the audience into the spellbinding Kantara (literally, mystical forest) universe.

The potent drama focuses on the fraught power dynamics, social and divine, that have forever been at play in a coastal Karnataka village where a seemingly benign feudal lord wields unlimited, unquestioned authority over the people. He decides what is good for the villagers. The latter go along.

It isn't servility that underpins the relationship between the master and his serfs. The key is loyalty. It has been built over decades of what feels like benevolence but may not be what it appears to be. Also central to the plot of Kantara is a conflict that arises from threats posed to the rights of forest dwellers over the swathes of land that have been their home for centuries.

In the lead role, Shetty brings dizzying energy to bear upon his performance as the buffalo race champion Shiva, a fiery young rebel with a cause. The young man has to contend with demons of his own mind - recurring nightmares in which he sees visions of the reigning deity in a wrathful avatar drive him to the edge of despair and a constant need to give vent to his rising ire.

His impulsive response to provocations put him on a collision course with the powers that be and his own mother, Kamala (Manasi Sudhir). She frets in vain over his compulsive hunting of wild boars - an act that is linked to the unsettling dreams that repeatedly interrupt his sleep - and violent confrontations with the landlord's henchmen.

The actor-director creates an electrifying larger-than-life figure whose volatile ways shape the frisson that pulses through the film. The young man, perpetually on a short fuse, is foresworn to protecting the village from forces out to rob the indigenous population of access to their ancestral land. Friction between him and government officials erupts because the latter are loath to accept that the forest belongs to the villagers.

Kantara , a film of phenomenal sweep and power, delivers a blindingly brilliant climax and a build-up to it that send the film soaring to the sort heights that only truly great commercial films have ever attained. The cinematography by Arvind S. Kashyap and the musical score by B. Ajneesh Loknath are magnificent. They work in tandem to create an impactful, out of the ordinary movie experience.

As tensions peak in the village and the forest's demigod (ritualistically celebrated in the annual Bhoota Kola ceremony) lurks in the background and is always ready to strike, the nature and dimension of Shiva's fight become clear.

Shiva's biggest foe is an upright deputy forest range officer Muralidhar (Kishore) who will stop at nothing to ensure that the government's writ runs. The landlord Devendra Suttur (Achyuth Kumar), Shiva's master and benefactor, makes common cause with the feisty young man. But are the powerful arbiter's intentions above board?

The opening moments of Kantara provide some broad historical clues. In quick succession, the script details the context of the present conflict. In 1847, the King, at the bidding of the Panjurli (boar) demigod, hands over a large expanses of land to the tribal denizens of the forest and is in return assured of decades of peace and prosperity.

Many generations later, the King's successor, driven by greed and drunk on power, wants all the land to be restored to the royal family. The deity, infuriated at the violation of the long-standing covenant, metes out instantaneous punishment to the offender. In 1990, the year in which Kantara is set, a government officer arrives in the village with a brief to wrest control of the forest land under his charge.

Legends and myths prevalent in the area and beliefs flowing out the forest dwellers' collective memory constitute the narrative crux of the story. The film is marked by a deep sense of the unique ethos of the people it is about.

Shiva, a Bhoota Kola ritual performer, represents a hoary custom but has passed on the mantle to a cousin because he was witness to the disappearance of his father while he was in the guise of the demigod. The loss still haunts Shiva and spurs him on to fight for the protection of his cultural/spiritual moorings.

Shiva is a virile defender of his people and their animistic philosophy, but he isn't the conventional, insuperable Alpha male that films such as KGF, RRR and Pushpa have brought back to the Indian cinema mainstream and made a box-office killing in the bargain. Kantara resists the temptation and is none the worse for it.

The climactic good-versus-evil confrontation - it isn't an ordinary hero-vanquishes-villain construct, catapults Kantara to an exalted plane. It offsets the one drawback that dilutes the film's a bit. Such is Shiva's halo that the characters around him - his friends and his girlfriend Leela (Sapthami Gowda) - are not quite as vivid as the other technical and narrative elements of the film.

In the light of the sustained overall finesse, anything in this film that is less than totally unblemished will count only as a minor false stroke on an otherwise impeccably realised canvas. Kantara , propelled by Rishab Shetty's blindingly good star turn and impressive directorial skills, is an insanely entertaining film. An absolute must watch.

Cast Rishab Shetty, Kishore, Achyuth Kumar, Sapthami Gowda
Director Rishab Shetty

Entertainment I Read Latest News on NDTV Entertainment. Click NDTV Entertainment For The Latest In, bollywood , regional , hollywood , tv , web series , photos , videos and More.

Notifications
Web Stories
TV Schedule
मध्य प्रदेश

తెలుగు

Kantara Review: Lavishly Shot Folklore Story

Movie: Kantara Rating: 3/5 Banner: Hombale Films Cast: Rishab Shetty, Kishore, Achyuth Kumar, Sapthami Gowda and others Music: Ajaneesh Loknath Director of Photography: Arvind S. Kashyap Editor: K. M. Prakash, Pratheek Shetty Producer: Vijay Kiragandur Written and directed by: Rishab Shetty Release Date: Oct 15, 2022

After setting the box office on fire in Karnataka, the latest Kannada hit ‘Kantara’ got dubbed into Telugu and hit the screens today.

Let’s find out what the hype is all about.

Story: A king in the 1800s gave his forest land to the local tribe's people. In the 1970s, one of the king’s successors tried to claim the lands as his. When he moves to court to claim the land, he dies on the steps of the court.

In 1990, a forest officer Murali (Kishore) lays restrictions on the forest dwellers saying the government land cannot be touched. The local youth Shiva (Rishab Shetty) challenges Murali.

Shiva is also a loyal henchman to the local feudal lord Devendra (Achyuth Kumar). Wrongly assuming that Murali tries to usurp their community from the forests, Shiva goes against him. Shiva’s father was a Kola ritual performer, in their forests and his cousin Guruva practices the same.

When Guruva was killed brutally, Shiva gets to know reality. The rest of the drama is about vengeance.

Artistes’ Performances: Kannada actor Rishab Shetty suits well to the character of a 90’s rustic youngster. His brilliant performance comes out in the penultimate sequences. His acting is simply superb in the last 25 minutes.

Kishore as forest officer does excellently. Achyuth Kumar as the feudal lord gives a terrific performance. Sapthami Gowda as the female lead is okay.

Technical Excellence: The film has technical brilliance. The cinematography is top-notch. Set in a deep forest, the filming of Kolam sequences and the buffalo race are mesmerizing.

Music director Ajaneesh’s background score and the cameraman’s brilliant shots have created a terrific mood. They steal the show. The film has a slow pace.

Highlights: Climax sequences Cinematography and background music Rishab’s final performance

Drawback: Middle portion Cliched jokes

Analysis To get a grip on the latest Kannada blockbuster “Kantara”, we also need to know the customs, folk culture, and the land of Dakshina Karnataka (Mangalore area). The western ghat region of Karnataka is home to deep forests and unique culture. Bhoota Kola is a ritual, where a man performs with all the colorful makeup and finally delivers a speech. People believe that the speech is God's word. This myth or legend exists in this region. Some families follow the customs.

The hero of “Kantara” belongs to the Bhoota Kola family. The film begins with a King’s story in 1847 and then cuts to 1970 when the hero’s father performs Kolam and mysteriously disappears into forests. In 1990, when the story is set, the hero is haunted by dreams. He sees god coming in Varaha roopam. It is his guilt as he hunts pigs in the forest.

So, there is a hero, whose father was Bhoota Kola, and one who sees God in dreams. And the hero is working for a feudal lord, who acts as their protector. Then the main conflict is about the encroachment of the forests and lands. Director Rishab Shetty has added elements of myth, folklore, and local traditions to tell the story. We need to take all these into account to understand this film.

Simply, the film is a regular masala film of a brother taking revenge on the feudal lord who kills his cousin. There are clichéd sequences. The love story between the hero and heroine is dull. It lacks any novelty. The villain is in plain sight. The villain’s (played by Achyuth Kumar of ‘KGF’) role is also quite clichéd.

The comedy scenes and drinking sequences are quite boring as well. But despite these issues, many elements have made the film unique and immersive.

Much of the film delves into the hero’s hunting habits, his romantic episodes, his camaraderie with local friends, and their village issues. But when the hero’s cousin gets killed, the film takes an entirely different route and it turns into a thrilling ride. The final 20 minutes of this film provide a riveting experience. Acting, taking, music, and sound design have synced well in this episode. Thus, ‘Kantara’ becomes a riveting film.

‘Kantara’ means deep forest. For Telugu audiences, the middle portions and some comedy sequences don’t work but the film’s strength lies in the climax episode and technical aspects. On a whole this film takes the audience into a different world with its amazing background and sound effects. This is for those who want to experience an out of the box experience.

Bottom line: A different experience

For exciting updates on national affairs and up-to-date news click here on India Brains

New App Alert: All OTT Apps & Release Dates Under One App

Appudo Ippudo Eppudo Review: Outdated And Cliched
Amaran Review: An Emotional Tale
KA Review: Crime Story Wrapped In Mystery

Tags: Kantara Kantara Movie Review Kantara Review Kantara Rating Kantara Telugu Movie Rating Kantara Movie Rating

IMAGES

Kantara Telugu Movie Review
Kantara review. Kantara Telugu movie review, story, rating
Kantara Movie Review And Rating
Kantara (Telugu) (2022)
Kantara Movie Review
Kantara review. Kantara Telugu movie review, story, rating

VIDEO

KANTARA 2 BUDGET ❓🥵
Kantara movie 2 #kantara #telugu #shorts #viralvideo
Kantara a legend chapter-1 First look Troll || Kantara first look || Rishab shetty
Kantara movie full Hindi dubbed ! Kantara telugu full movie 🎬 ! #movie #kantara
Kantara Movie Review : காந்தாரா தான் அடுத்த KGF-ஆ? தமிழ் ரசிகர்களுக்கு பிடிக்குமா?
kantara full movie in Telugu|kantara full movie explained in telugu|kantara movie review|kantara