Guild Reviews
Sumo
Comedy (Tamil)
When Shiva finds an unconscious stranger on the beach, he unknowingly begins a journey that leads to Japan's sumo rings. With truth and loyalty, he helps his friend reclaim his identity and honor, showing that bonds of the heart can rise above borders and power.
Cast:
Shiva, Priya Anand, Yoshinori Tashiro, Chetan, VTV Ganesh
Director:
S. P. Hosimin
Comic talents are squandered in this comedy that needed more absurdity, less drama
Sat, April 26 2025
The first time you meet Yoshinori Tashiro in Shiva’s latest film, Sumo, he is wearing a mawashi, the outfit worn by Sumo wrestlers. Apparently, he washed up the shores of Chennai, and has the mental makeup of a 1.5-year-old child. And somehow, that means, the wrestler’s only focus is to satiate his tremendous appetite. He finds an immediate connection with Shiva (Shiva) because… well, you need a reason for the movie to move on, and they didn’t find anything else to do. Willing suspension of disbelief, anyone? After this point, we are asked to willingly suspend our disbelief on multiple occasions, and we would have done exactly that if the film didn’t abruptly shift tones in every second scene to thrust a sense of reality in the world of absurdity.
Sinners
Drama, Horror, Thriller (English)
Trying to leave their troubled lives behind, twin brothers return to their hometown to start again, only to discover that an even greater evil is waiting to welcome them back.
Cast:
Michael B. Jordan, Miles Caton, Hailee Steinfeld, Wunmi Mosaku, Jack O'Connell
Director:
Ryan Coogler
Writer:
Ryan Coogler
Ryan Coogler compares Marvel to vampires as he delivers one of the best movies of the year
Sat, April 26 2025
When Edgar Wright dropped out of directing the first Ant-Man movie for Marvel, pretty much everybody agreed that it was for the best. He ended up making the wholly original Baby Driver instead. Ditto for Ava DuVernay, who passed on directing Black Panther for the studio. They went with Ryan Coogler, who delivered a true cultural touchstone; Black Panther became the first superhero movie to earn a Best Picture nod at the Oscars and catapulted Coogler into a club normally restricted to white visionaries such as Steven Spielberg and Christopher Nolan. But it seems like Coogler always knew that the invite was conditional; while his white counterparts could go on to do whatever they wanted next, as a Black filmmaker with one blockbuster under his belt, he’d have to provide further proof of his capacity to comply — a guarantee, if you will, before he could be allowed to make something as audacious as his fifth feature, Sinners.
(Writing for OTT Play)
Ryan Coogler Summons The Cinema Gods
Tue, April 22 2025
SINNERS stars Michael B Jordan as identical Black twins Smoke and Stack, who return to their hometown in 1930s Mississippi. It’s been 7 years, and their loaded backstory — a troubled childhood with a violent father; a World War I stint and plenty of PTSD; a brief return only to have their lives upended by tragedy; an escape to big city Chicago and an entry into the Al Capone gangster universe — bleeds into this film. None of it is shown, but every moment bristles with the unresolved baggage of history. Smoke’s reunion with his estranged wife, and occult ritualist Annie. Stack’s reunion with his white ex-girlfriend Mary. The brothers using their Chicago “blood money” to buy an abandoned sawmill from a former Klansman; their ‘recruitment’ of old friends to turn the sawmill into a rocking juke joint. A fleeting argument where Stack accuses Smoke of letting Annie “again” come between the brothers.
Sun, April 20 2025
Paddington in Peru
Family, Comedy, Adventure (English)
Paddington travels to Peru to visit his beloved Aunt Lucy, who now resides at the Home for Retired Bears. With the Brown Family in tow, a thrilling adventure ensues when a mystery plunges them into an unexpected journey through the Amazon rainforest and up to the mountain peaks of Peru.
Cast:
Ben Whishaw, Hugh Bonneville, Emily Mortimer, Samuel Joslin, Madeleine Harris
Director:
Dougal Wilson
The Marmalade Obsessed Bear Returns With A Wholesome Family Story
Sat, April 26 2025
The film begins with a flashback of a small lost bear who goes missing after chasing an orange and falling into a river. But the story begins with Paddington receiving his British passport. To celebrate, he writes a letter to his aunt Lucy about how the city and the Browns have changed since the last time they met. He talks about how the kids have grown up while the parents are hoping to spend more time with each other. Despite the changes and the world growing apart, Paddington still enjoys his life in London. He soon finds out that his aunt has been in bad health from the mother reverend at the home for retired bears. Worried for her, Paddington decides to go to Peri to check on her, and the family agrees to join him. With the new passport and Mr. Brown’s new boss urging him to take risks, the family takes the risk to spend more time together before the kids start their separate lives at college. The trip isn’t as easy as they expected it to be, as after landing in Peru, they find out Aunt Lucy has gone missing.
Andor S02
Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Action & Adventure, Drama (English)
In an era filled with danger, deception and intrigue, Cassian Andor will discover the difference he can make in the struggle against the tyrannical Galactic Empire. He embarks on a path that is destined to turn him into a rebel hero.
Cast:
Diego Luna, Stellan Skarsgård, Kyle Soller, Denise Gough, Adria Arjona
Star Wars Series Fills The Gaps With More Hard Hitting Stories
Sat, April 26 2025
Andor returned for season 2 earlier this week with the bleak future for the Rebels and the Empire. The show explores the political implications of the war between the Empire and the Rebels as they struggle to take hold on the galaxy. Instead of the usual good verses evil, the series explores a more deeper look into what went down as we see the personal journey of some Rebels, different versions of Rebels as well as the proceedings of how the Empire began to take control of the senate. The season beings with one end goal in mind, aka the Battle of Yavin. Beginning 4 years before the battle, the show follows the course of actions that lead to the establishment of rebel forces on Yavin and the consequences of Empire’s growing power across the galaxy. While some Senators are seen fighting for the rights of the people, other are seen working with the Empire to save their backs. Meanwhile different wars brew across the galaxy, with rebels taking charge on different planets to fight against the Empire.
Returning Star Wars Prequel Series Is Powerful, Thrilling And More Relevant Than Ever
Thu, April 24 2025
It’s not hyperbole to call Andor the best Star Wars series. Since the franchise has shifted to web series, Tony Gilroy’s prequel saga is the richest telling from the galaxy, as it explores themes and arcs that seem far, far away but are more timely than one can imagine. Led by a fantastic ensemble cast, Andor Season 2 is a wonderful return to form for the franchise as the series hurtles towards the events of the feature film Rogue One (2016). Picking up one year later, Bix (Adria Arjona) and Cassian (Diego Luna) have long left Ferrix, but there are new battles to fight. Senator Mon Mothma (Genevieve O’Reilly) prepares for the wedding of her teenage daughter while dealing with unexpected hitches in her secret fight against the Empire. Dedra (Denise Gough) and Syril (Kyle Soller) meet his mother, while Rogue One’s Orson Krennic (Ben Mendelsohn) presents a disturbing plan to a select few. There are several plots bubbling, and each one leads us to the inevitable mission from the film.
Ne Zha 2
Animation, Fantasy, Adventure (Mandarin)
Following the Tribulation, although the souls of Ne Zha and Ao Bing were preserved, their physical bodies will soon be destroyed. Tai Yi Zhen Ren plans to use the Seven Colored Lotus to reshape their physical forms, but encounters numerous difficulties. What will become of Ne Zha and Ao Bing?
Cast:
Lu Yanting, Joseph, Han Mo, Chen Hao, Lu Qi
Director:
Yang Yu
Writer:
Yang Yu
Chinese Animated Film Brings Real 3D Back To Big Screens
Sat, April 26 2025
One of the biggest releases in animation has reached the Indian shores. The film is the second installment in its series title Ne Zha. Set in a fantasy world, it follows a spirit core and demon core that have been born into children and have to go on long tendinous journey to discover themselves. The sequel explores their story as they have already been accepted by their surrounding but still have more inner acceptable to go through. Ne Zha 2 begins with both Ne Zha and Ao Bing getting their own bodies from the gifted seven coloured lotus. However, before Ao’s body is able to take full form he is forced to use his powers to defend Chentang Pass from his father’s wrath. Ne Zha promises to bring back an elixir to revive the lotus and make a new body for him. But his demon core would not let him enter the spirit world to win the elixir in a competition. Ne Zha and Ao Bing then decide to share their bodies to win the elixir.
Fight or Flight
Action, Comedy, Thriller (English)
A mercenary takes on the job of tracking down a target on a plane but must protect her when they're surrounded by people trying to kill both of them.
Cast:
Josh Hartnett, Katee Sackhoff, Marko Zaror, Julian Kostov, Charithra Chandran
Director:
James Madigan
Writer:
Brooks McLaren
Josh Hartnett brings the ‘josh’ in glorified Ajay Devgn actioner
Sat, April 26 2025
The thing about movies that are easy to pitch is that they’re also highly unoriginal. You could imagine the writers of Fight or Flight strolling into an executive’s office and giving them an animated breakdown of the story, describing it as ‘Speed meets Bullet Train’, and promptly being given a green light. Directed by James Madigan and starring Josh Hartnett, Fight or Flight borrows liberally from B-movies past, struggling and failing to come up with something novel. It isn’t a long movie, but it doesn’t feel as short as its 90-minute run-time might suggest either. Hartnett plays Lucas Reyes, a mercenary who is hiding out in Bangkok after a job gone wrong. He is awoken from a liquor-induced slumber one morning by his ex, who operates some sort of shady organisation dedicated to world peace or something. Lucas is instructed to hightail it to the airport and board a flight bound for San Francisco. Aboard the flight is a mysterious, high-value target known only as ‘The Ghost’. Needless to say, Lucas isn’t the only person after them.
Sarangapani Jathakam
Comedy, Drama, Romance (Telugu)
Sarangapani, who believes in horoscopes, promises a turbulent journey. Does his palm foretell his future? Is he going to realize some challenging truths in life on his own?
Cast:
Priyadarshi Pullikonda, Roopa Koduvayur, Vennela Kishore, Naresh, Tanikella Bharani
Director:
Mohana Krishna Indraganti
Mohanakrishna Indraganti’s film is laughter therapy
Fri, April 25 2025
Oscar Wilde’s semi-comic tale Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime, published in 1891, follows an aristocrat’s absurd efforts to commit a murder before marrying his fiancée — purely because a palm reader foretells it as his destiny. Writer-director Mohanakrishna Indraganti reimagines this premise within the framework of a contemporary Telugu household, weaving in sharp social commentary, reflections on the film industry and social media culture, while also tipping his hat to the comedic sensibilities of Telugu and Tamil cinema greats like Jandhyala and ‘Crazy’ Mohan. It may sound like a lot to pack in — but Sarangapani Jathakam is a surprisingly smooth blend of social satire and screwball comedy, anchored by an excellent cast, particularly Priyadarshi Pulikonda and Vennela Kishore.
Until Dawn
Horror (English)
One year after her sister Melanie mysteriously disappeared, Clover and her friends head into the remote valley where she vanished in search of answers. Exploring an abandoned visitor center, they find themselves stalked by a masked killer and horrifically murdered one by one…only to wake up and find themselves back at the beginning of the same evening.
Cast:
Ella Rubin, Michael Cimino, Odessa A'zion, Ji-young Yoo, Belmont Cameli
Director:
David F. Sandberg
Writer:
Gary Dauberman
Tedious oscillation between life and death
Fri, April 25 2025
A year after her sister Melanie goes missing under mysterious circumstances, Clover (Ella Rubin) and her friends decide to trace her journey. This leads them to an abandoned house in Glore valley, where an hourglass sand timer decides their fate. As the clock starts ticking, each one is haunted and slaughtered by a masked killer. However, as time passes, they are resurrected and made to relive the evening that seals their death. They are horrified to discover that they will be killed over and over again until they find a way to survive the night and escape this death loop.
Khauf
Drama, Mystery (Hindi)
A young woman's hostel room in Delhi hides a history of violence. Haunted by her past, she battles inexplicable forces within the room's confines and beyond.
Cast:
Monika Panwar, Rajat Kapoor, Geetanjali Kulkarni, Abhishek Chauhan, Shilpa Shukla
Director:
Surya Balakrishnan
Writer:
Smita Singh
Brings to Life the Terror of Male Violence – Physical, Verbal and Emotional
Tue, April 22 2025
Smita Singh’s Khauf is deeply suspicious of the world around it. In the eight-episode miniseries, spanning five and a half hours, there are only a handful of moments when the bystanders come out looking good (or at least civilised). Nearly all men (boyfriends, colleagues, bus passengers, older relatives, autorickshaw drivers, landlords, streetside louts) vary from being insufferable, creepy and abusive to serial killers; there’s no white knight in this bleak, decaying world. I wouldn’t be surprised if Singh’s show is labelled misandrist or ‘men-hating’ by rungs on social media – like they did with Arati Kadav’s Mrs. Will Singh’s show achieve the ‘virality’ that Kadav’s film did? We’ll find out. But, for Singh’s sake, I do hope it earns some notoriety, because it will mean the show will have pierced through the veneer of smug Indian men, touching a nerve somewhere.
Mon, April 21 2025
(Writing for M9 News)
Big Goals, Mediocre Results
Sat, April 19 2025
Leaving her hometown, Gwalior, Madhu seeks a fresh start in Delhi, unaware that her hostel room harbours a sinister presence, alarming the other residents. They urge her to leave before it’s too late. While the warden brings in a shaman (doctor), Madhu pursues her assailant. She confronts him while the hostel women ally with the doctor. Madhu’s rage escalates as she unleashes vengeance. Monika Panwar effectively steps into the shoes of a small-town woman in a vulnerable phase in her life, struggling to find her way in a misogynistic world. Rajat Kapoor, in an unusually creepy role, generates adequate fear and tension through his portrayal of Hakim.
Puratawn
Family, Drama (Bengali)
In Puratawn, Ritika and Rajeev visit her ancestral house in Konnagar (in West Bengal’s Hooghly district) to attend her mother's 80th birthday celebration, only to discover her mother's deteriorating mental state, forcing Ritika to confront this difficult reality and its permanence.
Cast:
Sharmila Tagore, Rituparna Sengupta, Indraneil Sengupta, Ekavali Khanna, Subhrajit Dutta
Director:
Suman Ghosh
Writer:
Suman Ghosh
(Writing for The Common Man Speaks)
Sharmila Tagore provides an acting masterclass in this meditative drama
Sun, April 20 2025
Memory loss or issues with memory is an unusual problem. More than the person suffering from the same, it affects those around him or her. This is the base of writer and director Suman Ghosh’s Bengali film Puratawn (English title: The Ancient). The movie revolves around Ritika (Ritupatna Sengupta), a woman working in the corporate sector in a high position. Her marriage with Rajeev (Indraneil Sengupta), a passionate photographer, is going through turbulence. She, along with Rajeev, visits her ancestral home in a small town in West Bengal where her mother Mrs Sen (Sharmila Tagore) lives, to celebrate the latter’s 80th birthday in a grand manner. But there is also another reason for Ritika’s visit. She and Rajeev wish to reveal to her that their marriage is going nowhere. However, after arriving at the ancestral house, Ritika is pained to know that her mother is facing memory issues. Now, she is more hesitant to tell her about her troubled marriage as she doesn’t know how she would take it.
(Writing for Views and Reviews)
A tender portrait of the comforting perpetuity of memory
Sat, April 12 2025
Writer-director Suman Ghosh situates Puratawn (The Ancient) in a sprawling ancestral abode inhabited by a widowed matriarch and her housemaid. Many stories, some fading, others perennial, and many of them going all the way back to the 1970s and beyond, resides in this mansion and in the mind of its principal occupant. The physical location as well as the wizened lady’s psyche are sites where mere words and gestures do not convey as much immediate meaning as forgotten objects and indelible remembrances do. It is human to hold on to secrets, to create mysteries, and to conjure up conundrums in the course of the humdrum of existence — the protagonist of Puratawn does all that as she looks for ways to resist obliteration of what she holds dear.
The Stolen Girl
Drama, Mystery (English)
A mother-of-two has her world turned upside down when she agrees to let her nine-year-old daughter have a sleepover at her new best friend's house.
Cast:
Denise Gough, Ambika Mod, Holliday Grainger, Jim Sturgess, Bronagh Waugh
A pulpy but forgettable thriller.
Sun, April 20 2025
A mom allows her nine-year-old daughter her first-ever sleepover at the home of her new friend in school. When she lands up the next afternoon to pick her up, her world falls apart when she discovers that her daughter has vanished, with no trace of the family that supposedly lived there. That is the rather intriguing premise of The Stolen Girl, a pulpy, if often incongruous thriller, that relies a lot on convenience and contrivance, but is engaging while it lasts. Playing out on Jio Hotstar over five pacy episodes, The Stolen Girl is akin to a page turner, a trifle sensationalist if you may, tracing how the seemingly perfect lives of Elisa Blix (Denise Gough), a high-flying stewardess, and her lawyer husband Fred (Jim Sturgess) come to a standstill when their nine-year-old daughter Lucia is kidnapped. The police are pressed into action, even as red herrings — a ransom note, Fred’s brief affair, Elisa’s predilection to document every aspect of her life on social media — are strewn all through the narrative. It is good fun while it lasts, but The Stolen Girl — Eva Husson directs an adaptation by Catherine Moulton of the 2020 Alex Dahl-written novel Playdate — sacrifices its potential to become yet another series that doesn’t know what to do with its material after the initial episodes.
Naangal
Drama, Family (Tamil)
It's the 1990s, in a sleepy hillside town in Southern India there is a cavernous mansion surrounded by plantations, inside three preadolescent brothers live with their German shepherd. They buy the groceries, lug water up the slopes in plastic cans, get each other ready for school and lend a hand to workers on the estate. The boys may practically run the house, but the lord of this forsaken domain is their father, a ruthless martinet whose mere sight frightens them to the core.
Cast:
Mithun V, Rithik M, Nithin D, Abdul Rafe, Prarthana Srikaanth
Director:
Avinash Prakash
Writer:
Avinash Prakash
(Writing for The Federal)
A haunting memoir of Tamil brothers, steeped in childhood trauma
Sat, April 19 2025
In Avinash Prakash’s Tamil feature film Naangal which premiered at the International Film Festival Rotterdam this week, time is stretched by a limited set of events as if perched on a non-stop Ferris wheel. They are the same moments with their ups and downs, same life-altering triggers that repeat in a cyclical fashion. Three preadolescent siblings — Karthik (Mithun V, eldest, 13 years old), Dhruv (Rithik Mohan) and Gautam (Nithin D) — live somewhere near Lovedale in the hills of Tamil Nadu with their father (Abdul Rafe as Rajkumar) who owns plantations, a house too huge for four individuals and is the Chairman and Principal of their modest school.
Dispassionate Yet Profoundly Moving Film Hits Home With Phenomenal Force
Sat, April 19 2025
Epic in length - it has a runtime of nearly four and a half hours - but squarely focused on the minutiae of the life of three boys and their excessively stern father, Naangal (This Is Us) is an exceptional piece of cinema. Calling it a piece of anything would be somewhat incongruous - it is far larger than that. Naangal - the Tamil film is part of the Asian Cinema Competition at the ongoing 15th Bengaluru International Film Festival - is a striking and sweeping collage of innumerable shards of memory, mostly unsettling, collated and rendered in the form stunning images underwired by a fantastic background score and strung together with impressive skill and imagination. Written, directed, shot and edited by Avinash Prakash, Naangal has the look of a work helmed by a seasoned director. But it is a debut film. A deeply personal essay, its length is bound to be commented on. What is important is that the time that Naangal takes to tell a story that spans about a decade seems completely justified. Growing up is never easy particularly when home isn’t what it is meant to be - sweet home.
A heart-rending memoir of childhood trauma and coming to terms with it
Sat, April 19 2025
Cwtch, which means embracing someone to offer a sense of warmth, is a famous Welsh word some of us might be familiar with. An inter-title before Naangal commences introduces us to another one word — Hiraeth — which means homesickness for a home one cannot return to or one that never existed. Very rarely can an entire film’s plot, conflict and resolution be summed up in a word, and director Avinash Prakash establishes precisely that in the first frame of his film, which also doubles as his biographical. With Naangal, Avinash puts us in the middle of three brothers’ traumatic yet transformative upbringing in a dysfunctional family. Rajkumar (Abdul Rafe) is a man whose once-affluent family is now bankrupt. After parting ways with his wife and some financial setbacks, he has become the chairman of a run-down school. With no place to assert dominance, he takes it out on his three children — Karthik (Mithun V), Dhruv (Rithik Mohan) and Gautam (Nithin D) — who stay with him and are forced to endure his physical and emotional torture. What happens when their resilience gets tested forms the rest of Naangal.