‘Lokah Chapter 1: Chandra’ (2025) Movie Review - A Feature-Length Teaser For Future Films

Chandra (Kalyani Priyadarshan) is a vampire. She has been alive for centuries, but looks like a 32-year-old woman. In other words, she is in better shape than most 28-year-olds who complain about back pain. How tough can it be to go on a date with a vampire? You already know what they like to drink, so you don't need to waste time figuring out your order. Of course, what these creatures of the night prefer can't exactly be ordered at a restaurant or café. The stuff must be discreetly delivered to them. Hence, strange men often knock at Chandra's door with a bag in their hand. When Sunny (Naslen) comes across one such man, he initially thinks Chandra has invited him for, um, intimate pleasures. You see, one of his friends, Naijil (Arun Kurian), went to Chandra's house the previous night and has not returned yet. As far as Venu (Chandu Salimkumar), the second friend, and Sunny know, Naijil is still at Chandra's house having...fun. Boys. They only think of sex. Some of them are like Sunny and his friends: they crack dirty jokes but never behave like sexual predators. Then there are men like Inspector Nachiyappa (Sandy) and Murugesan (Sarath Sabha): sexist, misogynistic shitbags who consider women as objects to be tamed. Murugesan, in the name of love, harasses a girl, and Nachiyappa says he doesn't want to marry any woman from Bangalore because, to him, they are promiscuous. There are three other bad guys in Lokah Chapter 1: Chandra, who kidnap people for organ trafficking purposes. At the back of their rickshaw, you will find a poster of Gabbar (hey, the men know they are villains). One of the organ traffickers catcalls a woman and tells her to get into the vehicle. In that moment, he looks like a molester.

What all this means is that, in Lokah, the bad guys — the villains — are too recognizable. You might find them on the streets or in other public places. They could be your local cop or even your neighbor. I admit, I was extremely creeped out by Sandy's performance. Whenever Nachiyappa appeared on the screen, I wanted to take cover. Those frightful eyes and that stern face make you deeply uncomfortable. He reminds you of those distorted, ugly, multi-headed demons found in fairy tales. Nachiyappa's features seem contorted long before we see him pulling a tooth from his mouth and smiling like a hideous barbarian. This man was always destined to become a beast — and this beast meets his end at the hands of a beautiful vampire. Chandra, then, can be viewed as a symbol of female resistance. Some men cannot be changed through civilized conversations; for them, "no" doesn't mean "no." It means "yes" (when Murugesan is rejected for the umpteenth time, he threatens to throw acid on the girl's face). In such cases, violence becomes the only refuge available to women for protecting themselves. Chandra is a great idea; a noble creation. What she isn't is a well-written character — she is devoid of depth. Writers Dominic Arun (also the director) and Santhy Balachandran define Chandra through her tragic backstory, which offers little more than a glimpse into her life. This exposition unfolds in the forests of Kerala, where sunlight filters through the trees, weaving golden threads into the living canopy (cinematography by Nimish Ravi). However, apart from basic plot information, nothing of worth comes from Chandra's history.
 

Chandra has been alive for centuries. Before moving to Bangalore, she lived in Sweden, and she doesn't stay in one place for longer than 20 years. Here is a woman who has traveled a lot and must have met many people in her life. Chandra must have plenty of life experience and knowledge of various things. She, like Wolverine in James Mangold's Logan, must have also seen many friends die before her own eyes. Hints of such pain can be seen in Chandra's mostly sober, robotic expressions, but those expressions lack tangibility. They merely give Chandra a quirk—a superficial "withdrawn personality." What's more, in the name of experience, all we get are brief details of a sad romance in which Chandra fell for a guy who looked like Sunny in 1905. Was there really no romance with any other guy? What about one-night stands or casual hookups? Do vampires not have sexual appetite? Does Chandra read? What books does she like? Does she enjoy going to the movies? Does she have a favorite actor, a favorite musician, or any other favorite artist? If you were to take her in front of a map, would she point to her favorite place? Does she have a favorite place? Lokah doesn't seem very interested in the character it tries to celebrate. It, if only unintentionally, ends up exploiting her for favorable box office results and empty social media praise (the movie is being admired for placing a female superhero at its center, but unfortunately, such a thin, narrow-minded "honor" is being regarded as a major mark of cinematic success).

Yet, the first half of Lokah, though quite conventional, is genuinely enjoyable. The saucy humor, the mystery behind Chandra's identity, and the all-too-real harassment of women—and even friends celebrating a birthday party within the boundaries of their own house—infuse a lot of solid drama into the material. Post-interval, however, Lokah starts to drag. The loud background score pummels your senses, and the constant good guys vs. bad guys confrontations become repetitious. The fight sequences are earnestly shot, but the execution is simply decent. There is nothing astonishing about these scenes, and the movie, too, doesn't really leave you stunned. Most scenes blur into each other post-interval, which is why it takes a high-spirited Tovino Thomas to lift the sense of tedium. His spell has a temporary effect; Lokah sinks again when Thomas walks away from the camera's gaze. This is why even the climax feels anticlimactic and rushed. Lokah has two or three showy scene transitions, and it has a fussy writer's neatness (Sunny tries to tie his shoelace like a magician. That magician is revealed through a reel during the second post-credit scene, though his identity is easy to figure out if you pay close attention). This, however, doesn't make the movie exceptional; instead, it makes it seem more rule-bound, rigid, and conventional. Like most Marvel movies and the new Superman, Lokah is devoid of inspiration and wonder. It's as exhausting as a typical CGI-filled superhero spectacle—tiring enough to make you wonder why Chandra doesn't ask her team for a helmet and a strong bulletproof, knife-proof jacket.
 

"Wonder" and "imagination" aren't solely conjured through pretty pictures or impressive green screen work. These elements, when present, leave you in awe — they shine a light on cavernous corners of your mind. A filmmaker can display their creative artistry through the realm of fantasy (see David Lowery's The Green Knight), or they can create a drama that feels as imaginative, as rich, as visually striking as a fantasy (watch Panah Panahi's Hit the Road or Rob Tregenza's criminally underseen Gavagai, whose images are so elegant, so enchanting, so magnificently simple yet hypnotic that they take the beautifully realized drama to breathtaking heights). In Lokah, Arun merely follows in the footsteps of Marvel/DC. Despite some good ideas, his Lokah remains largely formulaic because he doesn't break free from the rigid template to expand his ideas into something truly remarkable, memorable, or weighty. Lokah, alas, is nothing more than a thin idea for a film that's still searching for its characters, its meaning. Like the faces that appear as cameos on screen, everything in Lokah is just a tease. The movie feels like a feature-length teaser for sequels that have yet to arrive, even be filmed. Coming from an industry known for making subtle yet dense, deceptively simple yet exhilarating films (of course, they have their share of terrible ones), Lokah reminded me of what happened to Hollywood in the 1970s. Amidst an exciting proliferation of daring, artistic voices, a childish fantasy completely changed the tide. Just when people—most of all critics—thought they would see more audacious films along the lines of Last Tango in Paris, George Lucas arrived with Star Wars and turned Hollywood toward visual obscenity. I fear Lokah's success could have a similar impact on Malayalam cinema. An industry known for making complex, sensitive films might end up being known for producing fantasies aimed at overgrown kids.

Final Score- [4.5/10]
Reviewed by - Vikas Yadav
Follow @vikasonorous on Twitter
Publisher at Midgard Times