A blazing reimagination of a home-grown world of myth
Out of this chaos crouches Chandra (Kalyani Priyadarshan), her gaze burning with unyielding determination. Behind her, the inferno roars, turning her into a figure of both warrior and avenger. Around her, soldiers in tactical combat gear move like shadows, rifles raised, but she carves through them with almost supernatural power. By the time she secures her objective and receives a summons from the higher being Moothon through an intermediary, we already know she is not like the rest of us.
Lokah’s most arresting passage comes with the unveiling of Chandra’s real identity, staged like a dark fairytale. In this sequence, familiar folklore is invoked but twisted in a way that feels daring and unexpected. The reveal carries a sense of wonder, lifted by Jakes Bejoy’s incredible score, which swells into something grand and mythical, even if his score feels more conventional in many other stretches. It is a turning point that leaves you grinning at the sheer boldness of the imagination behind it.
The antagonist, too, is drawn with equal impact. Sandy, drawing on the menace that marked his role in the Vijay-starrer Leo, throws himself into a performance of pure wickedness. He struts through the part with arrogance, wielding misogyny like a weapon, until the story tilts and crowns him as the true adversary. From then on, he embraces the excess, playing the cruelty with relish.
Cameos slip into the film like little gifts, best unwrapped in the theatre rather than revealed in advance. One in the second half is staged with incredibly comic flair, reuniting a beloved on-screen pair and sparking curiosity about how the saga might expand. It is fan service in the best sense, and holding it back from the promotions makes it land all the more effectively.
For all its visual bravado, Lokah is not without shortcomings. The supposed mission that draws Chandra to Bengaluru is introduced with weight but then abandoned almost immediately, replaced by an organ trafficking subplot that feels far too ordinary for a film that opens with visions of fire, myth and apocalypse. In its latter portions, the film leans more on the mechanics of franchise-building than on telling a fully coherent story. The climactic stretch, after so much build-up, arrives in a rush, giving the impression that the narrative has been set aside to clear space for future instalments. What lingers is the sense of a work-in-progress, a world introduced but not yet realised in full.
Even so, the experience is unforgettable. The flaws of the second half do not erase the achievement of creating a fantasy world that feels genuinely new to Malayalam cinema. For years, we have known that our folklore held endless potential, and it is exhilarating to see it finally tapped on such a grand scale. Lokah is not perfect, but it is bold, and it is exactly the kind of theatrical experience worth celebrating.
The film proves that our stories can burn in fire and neon just as convincingly as they can unfold in realism. If it connects with audiences, it could lay the foundation for something Malayalam cinema has never attempted before, a home-grown mythic universe in the spirit of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, drawn from the legends we grew up with. Legends, after all, do carry an element of truth, and perhaps this is only the beginning.
Director: Arun Dominic
Cast: Kalyani Priyadarshan, Naslen, Chandu Salimkumar, Arun Kurian, Sandy
RATINGS : 4/5
