Adipurush: All eyes on Saif Ali Khan as Lankesh, will he spring a surprise?

Ravana, the ten-headed demon from Valmiki’s epic Ramayana, isn’t a mere antagonist in the tale. He’s a learned, informed and an equally flawed king, a devotee of Lord Shiva, who digs his own grave in a bid to avenge the injustice meted out to his sister Surpanaka. Several retellings of Ramayana have taken enough care to interpret this dimension of the epic in Telugu cinema.

Bhookailas, Sita Rama Kalyanam and Mani Ratnam’s loose adaptation of the epic Raavan have made an impressive attempt to decode Ravana’s perspective over the years. In times when there’s immense interest among audiences to explore the thin line that separates the hunter from the hunted, Om Raut’s Adipurush, going by the promos, reduces Ravana a.k.a Lankesh to a caricature again.

The makers of Adipurush, headlined by Prabhas, Kriti Sanon, Saif Ali Khan, Devadatta Nage and Sunny Singh, received a lot of criticism for the film’s teaser released last year. Beyond the shoddy effects, audiences had grouses with Om Raut’s portrayal of Ravana with an army cut, beard with a beastly creature as his vehicle. Inspired by Hollywood’s aesthetics, the reimagination of the character didn’t go well with crowds.

Impressively enough, to ensure damage control, Adipurush team has worked day and night to rework the special effects, minimise the follies associated with Lankesh’s characters in the final cut. The budget did escalate but the extensive effort in the post-production came to the fore with the two recent versions of the trailers where Lankesh’s presence was minimal and the focus is more on Ram, his relationship with Sita, Lakshman and Hanuman.

In the limited glimpses of Lankesh in the recent trailers, the makers only showcase the king as a worshipper of Lord Shiva and his avatar as a sadhu while he abducts Sita. One doesn’t get to witness his true persona, perhaps intentionally and the strategy has certainly paid off. For the same reason, the mention of Saif Ali Khan or his character was totally ignored in the promotional events, which is disappointing for an actor of his caliber.

Saif Ali Khan is among the most versatile actors in Hindi cinema and he was one of the primary reasons why Om Raut’s previous film Tanhaji made a killing at the box office. They say a film is good as its villain. Even if we reduce Adipurush as a ‘hero vs villain’ tale, isn’t the latter’s backstory equally important to showcase the protagonist’s heroics? We’ll have all the answers tomorrow.