October 2, 2025
by Carla Hay
“Kantara — A Legend: Chapter 1”
Directed by Rishab Shetty
Kannada with subtitles
Culture Representation: Taking place in India in the 3rd or 4th century, the action film “Kantara — A Legend: Chapter 1” (a prequel to the 2022 movie “Kantara”) features an all-Asian cast of characters representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: An underdog hero battles and a king and a prince who are evil.
Culture Audience: “Kantara — A Legend: Chapter 1” will appeal mainly to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners, the 2022 “Kantara” movie and bombastic action films that are more style than substance.
Although “Kantara — A Legend: Chapter 1” has plenty of visual spectacles (some dazzling and some tacky), this action prequel has a messy narrative and hollow characters. The bombastic scenes are pretentious distractions in a long-winded slog of a movie. It’s never a good sign when a movie spends its first 10 minutes on a voiceover narration and montages that are basically an exposition dump.
Written and directed, by Rishab Shetty, “Kantara — A Legend: Chapter 1” is a prequel to 2022’s “Kantara,” also written and directed by Shetty. He also stars in both movies, which incorporate elements of folklore about Bhuta Kola, a traditional form of worship mainly found in India’s Karnataka region. Shetty stared in “Kantara,” where he had two roles as an actor: the main hero Shiva (a Kambala athlete from Kaadubettu, India) and Shiva’s father.
In “Kantara — A Legend: Chapter 1” (which takes place during the 3rd or 4th century), Shetty stars as the hero Berme, who battles against an evil King Rajashekara (played by Jayaram) and King Rajashekara’s wicked son Prince Kulashekara (played by Gulshan Devaiah) over control of the city of Bangra. Berme also falls in love with King Rajashekara’s daughter Princess Kanakavathi (played by Rukmini Vasanth), who is Bangra’s only hope for good royalty.
The battle scenes are epic and the group dance scenes are elaborate, but the dialogue is substandard, and the acting performances are mediocre-to-terrible. This bloated movie (which has sloppy editing) doesn’t give enough reasons to be emotionally invested in the shallow characters. Some of the visual effects are impressive, while other visual effects look too fake, especially those pertaining to animals. “Kantara — A Legend: Chapter 1” is entirely too long (168 minutes) for a movie that has such a weak screenplay and not much to offer but repetitive action scenes and a predictable and underwhelming ending.
Prathyangira Cinemas released “Kantara — A Legend: Chapter 1” in select U.S. cinemas on October 2, 2025, the same day that the movie was released in India.