Kannappa Review: Vishnu Manchu's Visually Rich Tale Of Relentless Faith Lacks Emotional Restraint

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Kannappa Movie Review And Rating: Directed by Mukesh Kumar Singh, the film stars Vishnu Manchu in a mythological epic with modern aesthetics and traditional melodrama.
Kannappa Review And Rating: Vishnu Manchu's long-awaited mythological epic finally arrives in theatres with the promise of spectacle and soul. The rehash of the popular Hindu myth breathes in a certain modernity in terms of the aesthetics and making. But as far as its soul goes, it retains a sense of melodrama of our old cinema, which retains the excesses of the theatre.
The pre-interval sequence of Vishnu Manchu's Kannappa features a cameo by one of South cinema's top superstars as a tribal lord who engages in a duel with Arjuna (played by Vishnu Manchu). For the uninitiated, Kannappa is a reincarnation of the warrior from the Mahabharata. The tribal lord, named Kirata, challenges Arjuna to shoot an arrow at a tree that's far beyond human reach, before he does. Arjuna smirks, pulls his bow, and a magical arrow gets loaded. Mind you, there are no quivers or wooden arrows here, these are magical beings. Arjuna shoots first and is shocked to see Kirata hasn't even launched his yet. After a knowing grin, Kirata finally shoots, his arrow pierces through Arjuna's mid-air and lands on the target. Arjuna is flabbergasted and realises Kirata is not what he seems.
The whole sequence and the visual effects are superbly done, an example of how far our cinema has evolved technologically. Back in the day, the same scene would've involved golden cardboard arrows moving at less than 24 frames per second. One arrow would spew fire, the opponent's would quench it with water. If one turned into a snake, the other would become its predator, an eagle. Mukesh Kumar Singh's Kannappa isn't weighed down by such age-old silliness. Here, the fight sequences and visuals look rich. However, if one were to read out the dialogues of Kannappa and any devotional film from the past one after the other, it would be hard to discern which is from 2025 and which is not.
Moving on to the story of the film: The popular myth of Kannappa is the story of Thinnan, a tribal hunter who discovers a Shiva linga in the forest and begins worshipping it in his own raw, instinctive way, offering meat, water from his mouth, and flowers picked with his feet. When he sees the linga bleeding, he plucks out his eye and places it on the deity. As the second eye begins to bleed, he prepares to offer his other eye too, using his foot to mark the spot. Before he can do it, Shiva appears and stops him, moved by his devotion. Thinnan is then blessed as Kannappa, one of Shaivism's most revered saints.
In Mukesh Kumar's version, the story gets an added plot point involving a war between Thinna (Vishnu Manchu)'s faction and Kala Mukha (Arpit Ranka). Kala is after the Vayu Lingam, which is protected by five tribes, including Thinna's. While Thinna is a staunch atheist, he walks in the path of his father, a believer. There's also a blossoming love story between Thinna and Nemali (Preity Mukundan), the princess of an all-women tribe.
While the core story of Kannappa occupies only about one-third of the film's runtime, the war and the romance take up the rest. There is a lot in Kannappa that echoes SS Rajamouli's Baahubali. The depiction of the love-hate relationship between Nemali and Thinna feels like a deliberate callback to the 2015 Telugu blockbuster. Similarly, Kala Mukha's tribe is cut from the same cloth as Baahubali's Kalakeyas, and they even sound similar. Hence, Kannappa loses out on novelty.
What works in the film's favour is its production design and technical brilliance. A lot has gone into making it look rich, and that shows. The costumes, weapons, and overall aesthetics are products of deliberate effort and detailing, qualities the script and dialogues often lack. The final act of Kannappa, where Thinna transforms into a believer, is the only stretch that truly evokes emotion. Vishnu Manchu manages to hold your attention and delivers an effective performance. With such decent performances, the film could've relied more on visuals and trimmed down the long monologues that feel like straight lifts from past iterations of the story.
It's natural to wonder about the purpose of a modern version of Kannappa, which Telugu cinema has revisited multiple times. But even for a non-believer like the writer here, Kannappa is a moving tale of sacrifice, a tale of a human overcoming himself through relentless faith. Personal beliefs notwithstanding, the story has dimensions that would resonate even with an atheist. It's also a radical tale, of a tribal hunter offering meat to Shiva and placing his foot on the lord's eye. It's a tale of tolerance and inclusion in every sense, a topical and much-needed story. I only wish Kannappa had explored these dimensions of the myth with more restraint and nuance.
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