I was just watching it(again) on television. It's been shown a few times now. I was just thinking, it's such a shame. It could have been such a good film, if it was made on a bigger budget, with a better director and a better script. The story is actually good and a very original Indian sci fi, about an ancient artifact(Rudraksh; a multidimensional hologram in the form of a phallus) that, with hidden demonic powers, awakens the Rakshas(demon) in Bhuria(Sunil Shetty), who sets about to resurrect the age of demons, only he needs to find a god-man, Varun,(Sanjay Dutt) his antithesis, to obtain it's full powers. Bhuria cannot touch the Rudkrash, only a true, pure, god man can touch it.
A parasychologist/scientist Gayatri(Bipasha Basu) is investigating supernatural powers and her main subject is Varun, a highly spiritual man who has a range of psychic powers and the ability to absorb the disease of another person, thus healing them of it. When Gayatri puts Varun in touch with a scizhophrenic, who rambles a demonic Mantra that Bhuria infected him with him in the past(it is a spiritual virus) Varun absorbs his condition, and meets Bhuria in the subjective mental realm, a realm beyond space and time. Bhuria tries to entice Varun, but Varun resists him and returns to objective reality.
Gayatri and her team of scientists investigate the Mantra on their computers, and then accidentally find that when the sound is played to a rat, it brings about a genetic mutation in it's DNA, causing it to mutate into a different species. When one of the assistants, Susie, look at the rat, she becomes hyponotized by it, and is lured to Bhuraa's HQ, where Bhuria turns her into a demon. When she returns, she immediately attacks Gayatri and Varuna comes to her rescue, and Susie kills herself; this was all suppose to be a test to measure Varun's powers.
Varun sets about to discover the secret of this Mantra by visiting his father(Kabir Bedi) a hermetic in the Himalayas, where he learns it is a demon Mantra, from the scriptures of demons. There, he is attacked by Bhuria, who enters in the form of whirlwind and murders his father. When Gayatri reviews the recording on her handeld camera and slows it down, she sees Bhuria's real form.
Varuna, seething for revenge, tries to learn who Bhuria is though psychic means, and obtains clues in meditation. His search leads him to Sri Lanka, where he learns his backstory. It all culminates at a television studio, where Bhuria is broadcasting his demon Mantra to the entire world, causing mass riots all around the world, as people begin to mutate into demons and become consumed with hatred; the age of demons is coming.
There Varun faces off with Bhuria, but Bhuria is too powerful for him, and entraps him in a deadly electromagnetic field, that is sucking the life-energy out of him, and Varun begins to die. As Varun's soul passes through the void between life and death, his father's soul communicates through his subconscious mind and tells him to imbibe the demon Mantra, as it is the only way he can survive and Varuna does and then obtains the Rudkrash. Then follows a climatic fight scene between the powerful demon Varuna and the lesser powerful demon Bhuria.
I will not reveal the ending(it would be improper) The reason I have described the entire plot, is to illustrate just how original and fantastic the story was and it highlights how unfortunate that this film was made as it was.
I think Mani Shanker should be commended for the effort to make a film that combines, technology, science, mythology and ancient Indian metaphysics. That is how Indian sci-fi should be, we have so much material in our mythology, that we have no need to seek inspiration from the West.
The film touches on with some very thought provoking subjects such as quantum physics. I particularly liked the explanation put forward for psychic phenomena, describing reality as an internet, a null-space, called the quantum domain, where everything is interconnected. Just as a file can be accessed and manipulated in cyberspace from anywhere in the world; we can, through our minds, access and manipulate anything and anyone in the universe. In the words of the film, rob a bank; read anothers mind or enter their mind and play with them.
It is hard to take this seriously though, when the film is full of really tacky and unintentionally funny CGI and wirework. Mani Shankar goes all out in filling the film with computer graphics and computer generated worlds, apparently he did these all by himself on his workstation - and it shows. The graphics work is extremely amateur, yet well-intentioned. Mani Shankar, tries his best, and you can see he has put in a great a deal of detail, that you would otherwise see in Hollywood films. Unfortunately, he lacks their budget to render good quality CGI. Alot of the CG stuff in the film is on par with a computer game! Sometimes, though rarely, there are some good graphics.
By far, the worst looking scenes are the composites of live action with CG. It looks as if the actors are standing in front of computer projected backgrounds. To make problems worse, the lighting is so bright on the actor, that they stand out like cut-outs!
This film could have really done with a digital intermediate, but I don't think Mani Shankar could afford it. The film is not just cheap in graphics, it's cheap in everything; the sets look fake(especially the cave) the camera work(especially the lighting) is awful; the editing is choppy; even the costumes and make-up are shoddy.
It's a very b-grade film in everyway, like a poor mans X men, only made worse with a really bad screenplay, annoying songs, terrible acting. It's a shame, that such an original and fantastic story was made like this. This film needs to be remade, with a better director, better script and on a much bigger budget. The story has so much potential, but clearly was not meant to be made on a shoestring budget.
PS If you are going to read the review, please rate it as well. It takes only a fraction of a second.
