Ranabaali Joins The Paradise: The ‘Possession’ Formula

Ranabaali climax draws Kantara parallels

Vijay Deverakonda’s Ranabaali, directed by Rahul Sankrityan, was released in theatres yesterday (October 16th) and has received mixed responses from audiences and critics.

Ever since its release, social media has been discussing the climax of Ranabaali, in which Vijay Deverakonda gets spiritually possessed and fights the villains. Many people claim that after the massive success of Kantara in 2022, filmmakers have been copying its spiritual possession sequences instead of putting in the effort to create something unique when staging intense fight sequences.

They point out that after Kantara, Suriya’s Karuppu also featured a similar sequence. However, they feel that since Karuppu was also a spiritual film, the sequence was somewhat acceptable, which is why it received a good response from audiences.

Additionally, they point to Nivin Pauly’s Bethlehem Kudumba Unit, which also featured a similar spiritual possession sequence. However, the makers used it as a spoof, and the idea worked effectively.

Viewers claim that while both Karuppu and Bethlehem Kudumba Unit used the Kantara template without pushing it to the point of saturation, its use in Nani’s Paradise irritated audiences.

This is because Srikanth Odela went overboard with the possession sequence in The Paradise, turning the entire fight into massive troll material among netizens.

Now, when this Kantara-style fight sequence has already reached its saturation point, the makers of Ranabaali have reused the same template.

Consequently, netizens feel that filmmakers should stop relying on this Kantara-inspired fight template and start coming up with fresh ideas. They claim that Rishab Shetty executed the sequence in Kantara with great conviction and research, which is why it worked so well. In contrast, others failed because they simply did not know how to handle such intense scenes and ended up copying Kantara. Even Rishab Shetty himself could not create the same impact when he repeated the style in the sequel.