‘Narappa’ movie review: A faithful, frame-to-frame remake of ‘Asuran’

Venkatesh, Priyamani and Karthik Rathnam show their mettle in the Telugu film ‘Narappa’ that stays unwaveringly faithful to the source material

To talk about the most obvious aspects of Narappa, now streaming on Amazon Prime Video, it’s a faithful and nearly a frame-to-frame remake of the Tamil film Asuran (2019). With its story inspired by Poomani’s Tamil novel Vekkai (heat), Asuran was adapted to the screen by director Vetri Maaran, and influenced by the Kilvenmani massacre in Tamil Nadu in the late 1960s. Director Sreekanth Addala and actor Venkatesh Daggubati take up the poignant and personal story of the protagonist’s fight for dignity and keep it as close as possible to the original material. If you’ve watched Asuran, you can recall each scene, down to the dialogues and even the similar placement and movement of the actors on screen. Narappa works better if you haven’t watched Asuran (also streaming on the same platform) or can look past these similarities. The story can ring true in the context of caste and class conflicts in any part of India. A flashback in Narappa harks back to a time when the lower caste wearing footwear was frowned upon and triggered humiliating punishments. Times might have changed in Ramasagaram village in Anantapur; Narappa (Venkatesh) can now buy a pair of new footwear for his son without thinking twice, but the caste and social divide continues. The upper class has now put up an electric fence and eyes a three-acre land owned by Narappa’s family.