Lava Kusa: The Warrior Twins Hindi Movie
If you are grieving the lack of Indian animation content meant for adult audiences your plight is going to continue for some more time. Lava Kusa: The Warrior Twins is definitely not your respite. Having said that, if you have a kid you want to take out for a movie this would prove to be a decent film.
The story is about twin brothers Lava and Kusha. They are born in the jungle to Sita after Lord Ram deserts her and leaves her alone in the thick forest. They grow up in rishi Valmiki's ashram and are entrusted with the responsibility of guarding the jungle by the sage. They are not aware that Ram is their father. Drama follows when they discover that Lord Ram had left his wife somewhere in the jungles.
Lava Kusa is better than many other animation flicks that we have seen in recent times. For one, this is a complete feature and not a combination of few unconnected stories.
There are few problems though. The story is linear and a part of the epic Ramayan. Hence there is hardly much work required on screenplay. Nevertheless the director goes about introducing anecdotes which do not help the screenplay in anyway. Also the 2D animation is nowhere near the present day favorite 3D. Also in its own scale, the animation could looks dated and from the 90s - somewhat on the same plan as our childhood favorite Jungle Book! Though the makers have claimed that this is the most expensive 2D animation Indian movie so far it may not be compared anywhere close to western animation.
On plus points, even this not so great animation is way better than some other work we have been seeing in Indian animation movies. The compositing has been done well and different layers look well synchronized. There is a whole lot of detailing to each character also. That's interesting to see as most of the animator crew is Filipinos and not Indians.
About the storyline, while the second half catches up on the pace there are enough moments to keep a child engaged. Though the songs could have been done away with, they certainly do work with the children audience - as lessons are better memorized if it's done in a rhythm! In fact children should love this film enough to sing the songs from it till much later.
Overall, this movie is for kids and parents who want their kids to get some idea on Indian mythology. Good Dusshera watch!
OTHER REVIEWS
