As a Kannada movie follower since 2005, I have never been so excited...EVER!!
Kannada movie industry had its heyday prior to the 1980`s when the top directors and actors were the toast of the industry and also recognized across India.
I would not get into the details of that here. But somewhere from then, the movie industry took a different direction and hence the movies from Sandalwood were not in the preferred list of many in India.
There was a phase when there were even roadshows and some such mass requests by the film fraternity to the people of Karnataka to watch and promote Kannada film industry back in 2005. That is when I realized that the other movie industries were more profitable and had huge appeal than the Kannada movie industry and we as an audience needed to step up in supporting good cinemas at the least from Sandalwoood.
There were some good movies like 1 or two per year but none of those movies were being talked at nationally, let alone by other movie industries.
Then, there was a team which dreamed of bringing back the greatness of Karnataka cinema industry to rest of India and also the world. The team was led by a able director named Prashanth Neel, director of Photography - Bhuvan Gowda and music director par excellence - Ravi Basrur. The movie script was loosely based on 'El Dorado' or the lost city of gold which power hungry/greedy people want to control over to be powerful in the world. The lead in the story is Yash(Naveen Gowda) who is also known as 'Rocking Star' in the state of Karnataka
The story revolves around life of Rocky(Yash) who when a child loses his mom to illness and his mom asks him to be a powerful person before he dies. Rocky chooses the path of being a gangster by moving to Mumbai. The story takes a turn when he gets a chance to go to KGF on a assignment of killing the person who controls the gold mine.
The first half is loosely about how Rocky becomes a gangster and how he becomes an important person in underworld scene of Mumbai. Second half is more intense where the action goes to the gold mines of Kolar. Here Rocky sees the rules, restrictions and tyranny of the owners, guards and takes control of the mines in his macho ways. The mining scenes are shot in the real mining location close to Kolar and hence the shots look so natural. There is non linear screenplay tried in the movie where the story is being told by a reporter about Rocky, and also Rocky having flashes of his mother`s words` guiding him in his difficult situations.
My Review:
First half of the movie is passable at best. I believe that the first half is aimed at the mass movie goers who want to see their star/hero to do everything!! Matrix-like action, comedy, singing, dancing!! There are a few scenes worth mentioning but nothing great other than that. But the SECOND HALF!!! is a masterpiece. Each and every second, frame, dialogue, music is a symphony of the highest order. It is a edge of the seat thriller till the end.
Reception in Karnataka: From my experience, there are some movies which start off exceedingly well at the box-office and fizzes out. Then there are some more movies which play well with word of mouth publicity. KGF did well on both fronts, the blitzy beginning paired with great word of mouth publicity. The movie became an instant classic and a huge blockbuster. The movie gave the Sandalwood movie makes to dream big and have bigger canvas
Reception in Andhra: With this movie, I officially became a fan of Telugu movie going audience. They not only welcomed this movie, but also publicly appreciated and motivated others to see KGF. A big hats off to the audience. When I went to see the movie on the first day, there were a few Telugu audience as well.. That too in a cinema hall in North Bergen, New Jersey! A fun fact, till now the number of reviews in Amazon prime are more in Telugu compared to Kannada.
Trending in twitter and Prime too: I used to follow twitter, especially the hashtag #KGF since December 21 when the movie released and in the past 2 months, there has never been a day of less discussion about the movie. Even Amazon Prime Video India got a few thousands of subscribers on the back of releasing this movie in Prime, including me.
Thanks for the vision and execution to the team of KGF. Hope for many more to come.
