In K M Chaitanya’s Aa Dinagalu (2007), actor Atul Kulkarni, playing gangster Agni Sreedhar, says man is the biggest weapon in the underworld. “The rest are just properties,” he adds. The yesteryear Kannada crime drama, based on the real incidents from a big chapter of the Bengaluru underworld, stood out for its understated storytelling.

In Balaramana Dinagalu, which has the skeleton of a sequel to Aa Dinagalu, weapons are seen in the first scene. As the film progresses, we encounter an arsenal of knives, razors, machetes, and guns — each an extension of the gangsters’ identities and an indispensable tool in their quest to remain feared and lethal. Chaitanya attempts to make the movie a mix of reality and entertaining tropes.

The director has roped in the same cast, who played the dreaded gangster trio of Kotwal Ramachandra (essayed by Sharath Lohitashwa), Jayaraj (Ashish Vidyarthi), and Agni Sreedhar (Atul) in Aa Dinagalu. That’s what makes one instantly curious about Balaramana Dinagalu. The only difference in the latest movie from the previous one is the fictionalised names of the real dons. Jayaraj becomes Jayaram, Sreedhar is Shashidhar, and Muthappa Rai is called Monnappa Rai (played by Ramesh Indira).

Even if these characters are the big draw in the movie, the plot revolves around the journey of Balarama, a character with a small yet significant presence in Aa Dinagalu. Vinod Prabhakar’s portrayal of the titular role is the film’s biggest takeaway. He makes us feel for the character, and is quite impressive in the final portions of the movie, where Balarama struggles to break free from the underworld’s trap.

Balaramana Dinagalu is impressive when it reflects the psychology of a gangster. Jayaram is shown helping the needy while Balarama urges young boys to focus on education. It’s as if these men who commit heinous acts, have a heart as well. Shashidhar is often called “intellectual gangster”, as the film reflects how the underworld fears well-read men in the field. Politicians and policemen, the supposedly the protectors of people being part of the crime nexus, strengthen the movie’s world-building.

The film falters in its inability to rise above the plot’s predictability. Balarama’s journey is no different from the often-seen life of an innocent man from a small town who becomes a gangster owing to uncontrollable circumstances. I wish the film had delved a bit more into Balaram’s personality. Why does he not resist becoming a gangster? What dreams did he have when he moved to Bengaluru from a small town?

“My hands speak louder than my words,” says Balarama. This signals that he is someone who settles conflicts with fists rather than conversations. Despite this detail, Balaram’s entry into the underworld feels too sudden. The predictability strips the sheen away from the well-shot action sequences, as the result of every fight is known beforehand.

Chaitanya is careful not to glorify the act of violence. He wants to portray the negative effects of violence on the children in a family, as the movie ends with a hard-hitting frame. It’s impressive that the actor-director duo has delivered a non-hero-worshipping gangster saga.

That said, the movie could have benefited from a couple of gripping episodes. While it’s important not to romanticise the life of a gangster, there is no harm in delivering moments of peak tension, the biggest plus of the genre. 

The assassination of Jayaram, the impact of Kotwal’s elimination on the underworld, or the Sakleshpura incident involving Monnappa Rai, had the potential to offer edge-of-the-seat, high-stakes portions, but they are rushed. The love story is simple, but it lacks emotional intensity between the lead couple. Santhosh Narayanan’s dance numbers are forgettable (despite it being his forte) while his montage melodies are beautiful.

Balaramana Dinagalu adopts a restrained, almost clinical approach to the gangster genre. While that keeps it from glorifying violence, it also leaves the narrative feeling a touch too neat and emotionally muted.

Balaramana Dinagalu is currently running in theatres

Published – June 28, 2026 07:58 pm IST

Perhaps there’s a certain irony in a story about a fireworks factory mostly keeping away from explosive drama. Yoshitoshi Shinomiya‘s lowkey feature directorial debut A New Dawn is at the very least visually captivating, comprised of lush and rather hypnotic production design. The story is small scale focusing on a trio of friends who try to save a fireworks factory in their hometown, but the imagery feels expansive and lush. A New Dawn begins with a beautiful and vaguely familiar display of this beauty: the flowing, painterly imagery of its opening sequence recalls Shinomiya’s work on the flashback sequence in Makoto Shinkai‘s your name., immediately showing that the film’s visuals might transcend its small town drama.

A background artist himself on films by Makoto Shinkai as well as the similarly resplendent Pompo: The Cinéphile, it makes sense that this history would be felt in the background works of A New Dawn. They’re dense with detail, rich with almost luminous color and illustrative texture. Shinomiya, who also wrote and storyboarded the film, veers away from the photorealism associated with someone like Shinkai through some impressionist touches – like the splotches of green paint which represent treelines – which sometimes turns into outright abstraction like when a character begins to run through the space. Sometimes there are swaying, morphing textures in the background as splotches of paint subtly shift around. On a more intimate level, the cluttered and characterful interior spaces tell a story too. This is a long-winded way of saying A New Dawn looks really, really good.

It’s not just in the tableaux of its countryside habitats and ramshackle living spaces carved out of abandoned warehouses, but there’s a sense of invention permeating through A New Dawn‘s various experiments with visual languages of animation. The most prominent is an incredibly charming stop motion animated sequence using a cardboard diorama and real human hands invading the shot in a creative reflection of a drunken character’s perspective. Even though it broadly still looks “anime” through its character design, there are also smaller details which work to set A New Dawn apart from its contemporaries, touches like its occasional lineless artwork or the way rain is defined through smudged black brushstrokes.

It’s in the screenwriting where A New Dawn begins to feel more run of the mill. Its story about the constant chasing of the majesty of a fabled firework “Shuhari” feels both familiar in its premise but also a little bit alienating in its structure. The importance of the firework itself never feels clear – the moment its mystery is unravelled hardly feels like a revelation as a result, something amplified by how the writing often obfuscates what anyone is talking about. The whole story feels a little distancing, and despite the allure of the background art and design of the spaces the characters inhabit, the people themselves feel constantly at arms length.

It almost pulls things back with its climax – the detonation of the “Shuhari” goes a long way in justifying the circular conversations about its nature and origins – a painted streak of light launches into the sky before turning into something otherworldly, suddenly tripling down on the film’s captivating exaggerations.