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Vikrant Rona is a 2022 Indian Kannada-language action-adventure thriller film written and directed by Anup Bhandari,[10] and produced by Jack Manjunath of Shalini Arts with Alankar Pandian as co-producer.[11] It stars Sudeepa as the titular character alongside Nirup Bhandari, Neetha Ashok, and Jacqueline Fernandez.[12] The story revolves around a remote village in the middle of a tropical rainforest which starts witnessing a series of unexplainable events which are attributed to the supernatural.

Vikrant Rona
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Anup Bhandari
Written by	Anup Bhandari
Produced by	Shalini Manjunath Jack Manjunath Alankar Pandian
Starring	Sudeepa Nirup Bhandari Neetha Ashok Jacqueline Fernandez
Cinematography	William David[1]
Edited by	Ashik Kusugolli
Music by	B. Ajaneesh Loknath
Production companies	Kichcha Creations Shalini Arts Invenio Origin
Distributed by	Zee Studios
Release date	28 July 2022 (2022-07-28)
Running time	147 minutes[2]
Country	India
Language	Kannada
Budget	₹95 crore[3]
Box office	est. ₹158.5−210 crore[lower-alpha 1]

Vikrant Rona was released theatrically on 28 July 2022. The film received mixed to negative reviews from critics.[13][14]

Plot

In the village of Kamarottu, which is situated in Karnataka, Janardhan Gambira is a short-tempered landlord who lives with his wife Santha "Shaku" and his brother Eknath. Janardhan's friend's son, Vishwanath Ballal, arrives at the village with his wife and two children, Aparna "Panna" and Mohanchandra "Munna". Vishwanath tells Janardhan that Panna is engaged to Rakesh and that he wants to arrange the marriage in their ancestral Kamarottu house, but Janardhan refuses, as the house is haunted by the brahmarakshasa. This is due to his son, Sanjeev "Sanju", having stolen jewels from the village's temple, 28 years ago. At night, Sanju arrives at the village, from London where he meets Panna, who along with him, finds the beheaded corpse of a cop named Suresh Krishna, in the house well. After this incident, Inspector Vikrant Rona arrives at the village to investigate, where an attempt is made to kill him, but Vikrant manages to escape. Upon taking charge, Vikrant reaches the Kamarottu house, where after inspecting the well, he finds the dead cop's purse with a ₹1 note in it. Vikrant heads to the forest to find the culprit, where another attempt is made to kill him, but he manages to defeat the attackers, who escape.

Vikrant tries to capture them, but finds a child hanging at a tree, and a watch, belonging to Suresh Krishna. After inspecting the corpse, Vikrant finds a parchment, which has: Gara Gara Gara Gaggara Jarba, Pira Nalkuri Netthara Parba written on it and weird make-up on the face of the corpse. Vikrant learns that 14 children were also killed in the same manner and are linked to the local school in the village, which is being run by P.E. teacher, Lawrence Pinto. Fascinated by the recent turn of events, Panna decides to investigate the murders as well. This leads to her finding an old lady in the haunted ancestral house and Suresh Krishna's head in a box. Panna inquires about the old lady named Deivaa, where she finds out that she is Nittoni's mother. Nittoni was the caretaker of the village's temple, who was framed by Janardhan and Vishwanath, for stealing the temple jewelry (which was done by Sanju), due to which Nittoni, along with his wife and children: Madhava, Raghava and his younger daughter were presumably killed by the villagers, leaving Deivaa insane. Vikrant learns that the place where the child was hung, is actually headed by a smuggler, Moose Kunni. He brings him in for interrogation, but to no avail.

While roaming in the forest, Panna and Munna find a devil-like figure, with a finger wound, keeping his hands near a fire. She complains to Vikrant about this, but finds a similar finger wound on his hand, which makes her believe that Vikrant is the devil and might be connected to Nittoni's family. When they reach his house, they see him dressed in a costume with weird make-up on his face, similar to the corpse of the child that was hung. Vikrant arrives at Moose Kunni's factory and thrashes the workers, along with hanging and killing Moose Kunni. Vikrant meets Sanju and Panna, who ask him about being the devil and his appearance at his home, where Vikrant tells that he made himself appear as the devil in order to flush out the real devil.Later, Vikrant reveals a bigger fact about Sanju leaving everyone shocked. At night, another attempt is made to kill Vikrant which fails again. Vikrant deduces that Eknath and Moose Kunni (who was actually killed by Eknath) are the mastermind behind Suresh Krishna's murder (based on the clue mentioned by the latter, on the ₹1 note), as they were involved in smuggling. With the help of Panna, Vikrant learns that the dead children's parents are actually the classmates of Madhava and Raghava. They also find out that one dead body was not found at the time of Nittoni family's death and deduce that Madhava is still alive and may be responsible for the killings. After meeting Lawrence Pinto, Vikrant deduces that Lawrence Pinto is actually Madhava looking at the Shiva tattoo on his chest.

In the Kamarottu house, Madhava abducts Panna and Munna, and brings them to the temple. Vikrant reaches the temple, where after searching the belongings of Madhava's, it is revealed that Vikrant is actually connected to Madhava and for the very reason, has suffered personal loss of losing his wife Renu and daughter Geethanjali "Guddi" in the hands of Madhava, who is on a mission to exact vengeance on the people directly/indirectly responsible for ill-treating his family, because of their caste. Madhava knocks out Vikrant and takes him to an underground tunnel, where Panna and Munna are about to be hung. However, upon gaining consciousness, Vikrant also deduces that Raghava is alive. When he arrives, it is revealed that, to everybody's astonishment, that Raghava is actually Sanju. Raghava has been masquerading as Sanju, after he caught and killed the real Sanju, for stealing the jewelry of the temple, when the villagers killed their parents and sister. An enraged Vikrant fights with both Raghava and Madhava, which leads to Madhava and Deivaa getting killed. Raghava fights with Vikrant, with Vikrant gaining the upper hand. He kills and throws Raghava into a waterfall, thus avenging his personal loss. Panna and Munna are reunited with Vishwanath, where Vikrant keeps Sanju's death as a secret from Sakhu, on Janardhan's request. Vikrant leaves the village, hoping for another mission.

Cast

• Sudeepa as Inspector Vikrant Rona[15][16]
• Nirup Bhandari as Raghava/Sanjeev "Sanju" Gambhira[17]
• Neetha Ashok as Aparna Ballal aka Panna[18]
• Jacqueline Fernandez as Racquel D'Coasta / Gadang Rakkamma[19]
• Ravishankar Gowda[20] as Vishwanath Ballal
• Madhusudan Rao[21] as Janardhan Gambhira
• V. Priya as Shantha "Shaku" Gambhira
• Vasuki Vaibhav[21] as Baalakrishna "Baalu"
• Siddu Moolimani as Mohanchandra "Munna" Ballal[22]
• Ramm Bogadi as Mahabala
• Chitkala Biradar[22] as Baby Ballal
• Samhitha as Geethanjali "Guddi" Rona, Vikrant Rona's daughter
• Ramesh Kukkuvalli as Eknath Gambhira
• Vajradheer Jain as Madhava / Lawrence Pinto
• Dushyant Rai as Moose Kunni
• Karthik Rao Kordale as Fakruddin aka Pakru
• Ranjan Shetty as Rudramani Bhavikatte
• Vishwanatha KC as Manche Gowda
• Yogish Shetty as Nittoni, Madhava and Raghava's father
• Achinthya Puranik as Young Sanju
• Anup Bhandari as Old Photographer (cameo)
• Milana Nagaraj as Renu Rona, Vikrant's wife (cameo)

Production

Development

Sudeepa and Anup Bhandari were to collaborate for a project titled Billa Ranga Baasha; however, the film was put on hold as Sudeepa heard another script from Anup Bandari.[23] Sudeepa decided to produce the film with newcomers playing the lead roles but decided that he himself will star in the film after listening to the script.[24] Vikrant Rona is produced by Manjunath Gowda’s Shalini Arts. Alankar Pandian of Invenio Origin joined the film as a co-producer.[25]

Filming

Primary photoshoot began on 1 March 2020, and filming started on 2 March at Hyderabad under the title Phantom.[26] Actor Sudeepa began filming Kotigobba 3 and Phantom simultaneously. The producers originally planned to cast Sudeep's nephew Sanchith Sanjeev, but went with Nirup Bhandari instead.[27] When the team preparing for second schedule COVID-19 pandemic hits badly and the works stopped. On 13 June, the crew announced they would resume shooting in July.[28]

Then on 16 July 2020, they resumed their work amid pandemic at Annapurna Studios, Hyderabad, by constructing huge dense forest set.[29] Most of the filming done in Annapurna Studios and Ramoji Film City Hyderabad. Other shoots were done in Malshej Ghat, Mahabaleshwar[30] and Kerala.[31] This was the first Kannada movie to use the advanced real-time 3D creation tool Unreal Engine.[32]

Casting

Jacqueline Fernandez was roped in to play a prominent role along with a song appearance,[33] while Anup Bhandari’s brother Nirup Bhandari and other actors and actresses like Neetha Ashok, Ravishankar Gowda, Madhusudhan Rao and Vasuki Vaibhav appear in other pivotal roles.[21][18][17]

Music

Music director B. Ajaneesh Loknath composed the songs and background music for the movie and its his first collaboration with actor Sudeepa.[34] The music rights of the film are owned by Lahari Music and T-Series.

Release

Theatrical

The film was released worldwide on 28 July 2022 with 3D version in more than 3000 screens.[35] Earlier the film was scheduled to release on 19 August 2021.[36] However, it was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic to 24 February 2022, and later to 28 July 2022.[37][35] In addition to the original Kannada, the film was dubbed and released in Tamil, Hindi, Telugu, and Malayalam and other languages.[38] The film released in 3000 screens including 450 in Karnataka.[39] The film was released in 87 screens in Kolkata.[40]

The film was initially planned to be made on a budget of ₹15 crore,[41] however, the budget was increased to ₹75 crore due to the scale of the film with including promotional budget .[3] The Telugu version was released in 370 screens in the first week and continued to be screened in 320 theatres in the second week.[42]

Distribution

The Hindi version of the film is distributed by Salman Khan Films[43] and PVR Pictures all over North India. The Middle East region rights have been bought by One Twenty 8 Media.[44] The Kerala distribution rights of the film are acquired by Dulquer Salmaan's Wayfarer Films.[45] The Tamil Nadu distribution rights of the film was acquired by Zee Studios while the Andhra Pradesh and Telangana distribution rights were acquired by Cosmos Entertainment.[46]

Home media

The satellite and digital rights of the Kannada version have been purchased by Zee Kannada and ZEE5, respectively. It was officially announced by Zee Kannada head Raghavendra Hunsur in his channel's show, Zee Kutumba Awards in 2021.[47] The film digitally streamed on ZEE5 on 2 September 2022.[48]The Telugu version were acquired by Disney+ Hotstar

Reception

Critical Reception

Vikrant Rona received negative reviews from critics.[14] Shubhra Gupta of The Indian Express rated the film 1.5 out of 5 stars and wrote "The convoluted plot and stilted dialogues of this Kiccha Sudeep-starrer mar the experience".[49] A critic for Bollywood Hungama rated the film 1.5 out of 5 stars and wrote "VIKRANT RONA fails to impress due to the poor script, direction and length".[50] Bharathi Pradhan of Lehren rated the film 1.5 out of 5 stars and wrote "Vikrant will even sing you a lullaby. Whether in Kannada or Hindi, you’ll go zzzzz".[51] Saibal Chatterjee of NDTV rated the film 2 out of 5 stars and wrote "Vikrant Rona isn't interested in specificities. It seeks to overwhelm with the scale of its ambition. It falls well short of greatness but never stops trying".[52] Nandini Ramnath of Scroll.in rated the film 2 out of 5 stars and wrote "Focused on creating a visually evocative setting and showcasing leading man Sudeep’s cool moves, Vikrant Rona is happy to miss the wood for the trees".[53] Deepa Gahlot of Rediff rated the film 2 out of 5 stars and wrote "The plot keeps getting weirder by the minute, and scenes leapfrog round with no control. The end result is bafflement and boredom".[54] Rohit Bhatnagar of The Free Press Journal rated the film 2 out of 5 stars and wrote "The film has an interesting premise, but it’s weaker on the screenplay front and does not hold your attention for long".[55] Sowmya Rajendran of The News Minute rated the film 2.5 out of 5 stars and wrote "Vikrant Rona has been marketed as an “action adventure fantasy” film — but strangely, it doesn’t fall into any of the three genres".[56] A critic for The Hans India rated the film 2 out of 5 stars and wrote "Except for the lavish sets and proceedings, the film fell low on emotions. In trying to emulate his predecessors, Anup Bhandari failed to recreate the emotions which impacted him badly".[57] Soundarya Athimuthu of The Quint rated the film 2.5 out of 5 stars and wrote "Vikrant Rona tries to be smart with its detailing in the plot".[58]

Renuka Vyavahare of The Times of India gave the film 3 out of 5 and wrote "Vikrant Rona could evolve into a decent mystery series ahead packed with more dark adventures if the makers get rid of the unnecessary fluff. With so much potential, we wish this mysterious fantasy had risen to the occasion sooner."[59] Shrishti Negi of News18 gave the film’s rating 3 out of 5 and wrote "Overall, Vikrant Rona is a treat for hardcore Kiccha Sudeep fans who have been waiting for this film with bated breath. The film releases in theatres today."[60] Subham Kulkarni of Koimoi gave the film 2.5 out of 5 stars and wrote "Vikrant Rona is indeed a unique film but with lot of things that can kill the impact. Maybe call this one a stepping stone to a comic book inspired universe that will be amazing someday."[61]

Box Office

The film grossed ₹35 crores on the first day [62][63][64][65] with domestic net collections of around ₹19.60 crores.[66] The Hindi version collected ₹1 crore nett on the first day which was reported to be higher than the Hindi dubbed versions of Vikram, 777 Charlie, Beast and Valimai.[67][68] The Telugu version grossed ₹2 crores on the opening day.[69] On the second day, the Hindi version collected ₹75 lakhs in northern belt which was reported to be more than the second day collection of Vikram in North India.[70] The film was reported to have collected ₹55–₹60 crores in two days from all its versions.[71][72] The three-day worldwide collection was estimated to be around ₹80– ₹85 crores.[73][74] The film was reported to have collected ₹20 to ₹25 crores on second day and ₹23 to ₹25 crores on third day.[75] The film collected ₹25 crores on the fourth day.[76] The Indian Express reported the four-day weekend collection to be ₹ 95 crores[77] and The Telegraph reported it to be ₹96 crores [78] while Times of India estimated it to be around ₹ 105 crores.[79] According to News 18, the film grossed ₹110 crores in four days [80] whereas Hindustan Times estimated it to be around ₹115–₹120 crores.[81] The Hindi version was reported to have collected ₹5.96 crores in first four days.[82] By the end of fifth day, the worldwide gross was estimated to be around ₹110 crores [83] to ₹134 crores.[84] The Telugu Version was reported to have grossed ₹10 crores in six days.[85] The film was reported to have grossed ₹5.5–6 crore on the seventh day.[86][87] Though few sources reported that the film grossed ₹158.5 crores in seven days,[4] other sources reported that the film crossed the ₹150 crore mark in 8 days.[88][89] The film grossed ₹3 crore on day 10 [90] and ₹3.5 crore on day 11.[91][92] The total 11 day collection of the Hindi version was reported to be around ₹9.7 crores.[93] However, The Indian Express reported that the 11 day worldwide gross of the film from all five versions to be ₹86 crore [94] based on a report by consultancy firm Ormax Media which had considered collections till July end but published in mid-August.[95] The film collected ₹1 crore each on Day 12 [96] and Day 13. [97] The film was reported to have grossed ₹200 crores at the end of two weeks [5][6][98][7][99][100] thereby becoming the third Kannada film to reach that milestone after K.G.F: Chapter 1 and K.G.F: Chapter 2. At the end of 16 days, it was reported that the film collected ₹14 crores nett from the Hindi version and ₹7.5 crores nett from the Telugu version.[101] Zee News and WION reported that the film had grossed ₹210 crores at the end of 27 days.[8][9]

Sequel

In an interview with News 18, Sudeepa had asserted a possibility of a sequel to Vikrant Rona.[102]

Notes

References

External links

• Vikrant Rona at IMDb
• Vikrant Rona at Bollywood Hungama

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