We’ve grown accustomed to leaving theatres empty; not satisfied, but hollowed out. Hindi cinema has mastered the art of elegant betrayal: promising spectacle, delivering exhaustion. Then something breaks through.

First came Baahubali, KGF, then Pushpa. Films that didn’t just entertain, they violated our complacency. We left not sated, but starving, desperate to return. They reminded us cinema could be a drug, not a distraction.

And then came Kantara.

The Skepticism Was Predictable

Why should Hindi audiences raised on remakes, sequel fatigue, and algorithmic mediocrity, care about an obscure regional film? This wasn’t even what we condescendingly call “South Indian cinema.” This was something stranger, smaller. A story rooted in folklore so niche, so geographically specific, it felt like cinematic archaeology.

I went in guarded. I came out transformed.

There was anger: a hot, clarifying rage at what Hindi cinema has reduced us to. And there was joy,the kind that comes from witnessing craft so pure it feels like rebellion. Kantara didn’t just entertain me. It made me wait. It made me willing to mark my calendar a year in advance for whatever comes next. When was the last time a film earned that kind of devotion from you?

An Excavation, Not Entertainment

Here’s the truth: Kantara is not a film. Films are what we consume on Friday nights, what we scroll past on streaming platforms, industrial products designed to extract two hours of attention and move on.

Kantara is something else entirely. It’s an excavation, a journey into the buried architecture of storytelling that Hindi cinema has forgotten exists. It’s a reminder that cinema is a kaleidoscope, and we’ve been staring at the same four colours for decades.

I’ve been in this industry for over thirty years. I’ve seen the machinery, the compromises, the shortcuts, the inevitable surrender to mediocrity. Which makes Kantara incomprehensible. Nearly 600 craftsmen. Over two years of work. And for what? A film that refuses spectacle, that chooses restraint, that makes simplicity look like courage. The result is something so quietly, devastatingly powerful that it leaves you with only one question: When does the next chapter arrive?

The Theatre Becomes Temple

Forget the plot. Forget the cast. Forget your preconceptions about regional cinema, about folklore, about what stories are “worth” your time. Just book your tickets.

Watch what happens when cinema stops trying to impress you and starts trying to possess you. Watch an audience: cynical, exhausted, seen-it-all begin to clap, to whistle, to surrender completely every time Rishab Shetty appears on screen, every time the Daiva manifests, every time Panjurli commands the frame.

I haven’t felt this energy in a theatre since the Amitabh Bachchan era. That’s not nostalgia talking. That’s the recognition of something rare: a film that turns viewers into believers.

If 600 people can spend two years creating something this understated yet this overwhelming, what does that say about everything else we’ve been accepting? Kantara doesn’t just entertain, it accuses. It stands as evidence that the poverty of Hindi cinema isn’t a resource problem. It’s an imagination problem. A courage problem. A craft problem.

The film exists as proof that another kind of cinema is possible. One that doesn’t insult your intelligence or abuse your emotions. One that remembers that stories can be sacred.

So, here’s my promise : If you see Kantara and leave unchanged, cinema might not be for you anymore. But if you see it and feel that hunger return that old, irrational need to sit in the dark with strangers and believe in something, then welcome back. Cinema has been waiting for you to remember why you fell in love with it in the first place.

About The Author

Ashish Kaul

Dr. Ashish Kaul