Bahubali: The Beginning

Bahubali: The Beginning (2015)

Runtime: 158 minutes

Directed by: S.S. Rajamouli

Starring: Prabhas, Rana Daggubati, Anuska Shetty, Tamannaah Bhatia, Sathyaraj

From: Arka Mediaworks

Yeah, this is sure from the director of RRR.

The reason why there was no movie review from me yesterday: Saturday I ate something which didn’t agree with me so it was not conducive to watching any motion pictures. Thankfully I felt much better yesterday so now things are back to normal. Earlier in the year I stated that there should be more films from India watched by me; what fertile ground, what a vast history of film that I haven’t even scratched the surface of. Most of what little I’ve watched I’ve at least enjoyed… and at times loved, whether it be RRR (what a glorious theatrical experience that was) or something from the past like the wild Sholay and the more grounded Nayakan. As a few mutuals on Letterboxd have Indian films as their bread & butter, that is another good reason there to expand my knowledge and further explore a world that at least to my Western eyes is amazingly bizarre & astoundingly over the top.

That is definitely the case here when I saw this (the Tamil language version) on Netflix-which has a LOT of cinema from the country. This is not as glorious as RRR-then again, what is? This still made me smile & laugh quite a bit. The titular character is shown from infancy, where his mother saves him from being murdered by SOB’s; another tribe takes him in… this is set in the far-past, you see. As a young adult, he goes on an epic journey where he helps another tribe rescue their Queen from a third party, who of course are a bunch of A-holes. Also of course, it’s more complicated than that.

Yet another non-surprise that this had gleefully insane moments, almost right from the very beginning. Our hero can lift up a huge stone carving and move it to a waterfall-long story; that is shown in the poster currently in use for the movie on Letterboxd-climb mountains, & do much more. There’s even a fight between man and bull where the man wins w/ just his bare hands (yes, the absurdity is comparable to Rajamouli’s latest movie). By the way, during that scene on the bottom of the screen was “CGI” as a way of noting that an actual bull wasn’t put in peril here. To be honest, that CG was one of many examples where it didn’t look so hot!

Instead of noting that as a demerit which ruins in the picture, I’ll note that it’s part of the wacky charm, yet something else I can squeal at w/ delight. While there’s no EPIC BROMANCE like in RRR, there’s still a traditional romance (even if it involves “making a warrior woman more feminine to be appealing”, which I know not everyone will like), many lush exotic locales, a family feud, fire, several catchy tunes in the grand musical numbers, a guy I call “Indian Sid Haig” and yep, OOT action beats where many dudes get wrecked. The hero in fact is someone who might as well be part of The Avengers, he is so superpowered. Many preposterous things happen, usually in slow motion.

There is in fact a conclusion-appropriately titled “The Conclusion”-which I’ll watch one day. It may be months in the future but that will eventually happen.