Rakta Charitra II

Ram Gopal Varma begins Raktacharitra 2 with a half-hour prologue that invites us to revisit the highlights of the first part: the foghorn voice of the sutradhar,the setting of the scene in Anandpur where blood flows freer than water,and where Pratap Ravi (Vivek Oberoi) claws his way to the top,with the help of a sharp cleaver and the support of wily politician Shivaji (Shatrughan Sinha).

The trouble with the sequel is not that it is too long and as bloody,if not more so (that’s what the film promises,and gives it to us in buckets). But that it is more of the same — increasingly dramatic set pieces,done in extended slow-motion shots,where the killing is all. What keeps us watching is Tamil star Suriya in his first appearance in a Hindi film. He plays,coincidentally,a man called Surya,Pratap’s Nemesis,who starts off by being on the side of the angels but changes over to the other side after the massacre of his family.

Like in the first part,RGV’s intention is not so much to delve into the complexities of Andhra politics,which stay firmly in the backdrop,but to create sequences where death is choreographed in varying ways. After a point,you are oblivious to the gore. But you cannot,at any point,bypass Suriya: he has eyes that speak.