Ramayana – Ready to fly into global reckoning

By Pickle  November 8, 2026

Share:

By Saibal Chatterjee

The story is centred on Rama but it is Ravana who holds sway over Ramayana – Rise of a Legend, which is the first of two proposed parts of a sprawling and spectacular screen adaptation of a mythological epic that defines India culturally and spiritually.

Using state-of-the-art VFX, the makers of the mammoth movie do everything in their power – the resources available to them are enormous to the point of being limitless – to ensure that the execution matches their ambition. Does it? Yes, it does – and then some.

Ramayana – Rise of a Legend is a film that gives full rein to the imagination of the writers as it repurposes a familiar story for modern times. Its mind-blowing magnitude places it in a league entirely its own.

The musical score by Hans Zimmer (working in an Indian film for the first time) and the ever-reliable A.R. Rahman serves to enhance the soundtrack.    

While staying firmly rooted in the ancient ethos and traditions from which the characters and their impulses spring, the film brings to the screen a hoary tale in a manner that does not look either outdated or unduly derivative. 

The makers do a great job of aligning the production with its global distribution ambitions. While one may debate the efficacy of the overly straightforward and somewhat reductive rendition of the story, the technology that is pressed into the service of a film that tells a rooted tale with an eye on the world is of the highest order.

The look and texture of Ramayana – Rise of a Legend, imparted to it by DNEG, which is a producer of the film along with Namit Malhotra’s Prime Focus Studios and star-actor Yash’s Monster Mind Creations, elevate the viewing experience to a level that is unprecedented in the annals of Indian cinema, whether you watch out in 3D or IMAX.

The film is marked by striking technical finesse on one hand and remarkable visual pizzazz on the other as an impressively wide spectrum of storytelling and visual elements are put together with unwavering cohesion.

The work of the cinematographers Pankaj Kumar and Mahesh Limaye is seamlessly intertwined with the CGI-heavy frames that the film assembles in pursuit of perfection. The VFX is consistently top-notch with all the flying elephants, trees turning into monsters, galloping rhinos and shape-shifting monsters displaying the rigour that has gone into conceiving and reimagining these creatures for the screen.

The creative prowess on show reaches its zenith in Jatayu, the vulture that lays down its life in trying to prevent Ravana from abducting Sita. The film has many such creatures that capture the imagination. If Ramayana – Rise of a Legend is intended to be India’s answer to The Odyssey, it comes pretty close to its avowed goal.

The film has on board powerful commercial entities. While Sony Pictures Entertainment is in charge of international distribution, one of India’s premier film production companies, Dharma Productions, is handling the North Indian distribution of the film.   

Indeed, Ramayana – Rise of a Legend lacks nothing as it aims to put Indian commercial cinema on the world map in a way that no film has ever done before.

The cast has two of India’s biggest movie stars – Ranbir Kapoor and Yash – playing Rama and Ravana respectively. The former conveys the serenity and steeliness of a royal warrior who swears by his filial duties and commitment to his people – the inhabitants of Ayodhya.

It is Yash who ups the film’s ante with a power-packed performance that projects Ravana as a composite of super-evil inclinations, powers granted to him by Brahma the Creator and Shiva the Destroyer, and a great range and depth of knowledge.

He represents an adversary who is no ordinary mortal. The battle that Rama faces as he prepares to rescue his consort, Sita, from the Kingdom of Lanka where Ravana holds her captive after abducting her is bound to heighten the anticipation of western audiences that might not know how it is all going to end.

All Indians are familiar with Valmiki’s Ramayana. Director and co-scriptwriter Nitesh Tiwari (who has collaborated with Shridhar Raghavan on the screenplay) make it a point to keep the narrative as simple and straightforward as possible.

That creative approach has clearly been dictated by the need not to make it difficult for the global market to warm up to its innate allure as an epic tale about duty, devotion and righteousness severely tested by the pride, arrogance and the craze for power of a man who is near-invincible.

Ramayana – Rise of a Legend is peopled by a multiplicity of characters played by a host of well-known names from the Indian cinema firmament, including Sunny Deol as Hanuman, Rakul Preet Singh as Ravan’s sister Shurpanakha, Kajal Agarwal as Ravana’s consort Mandodari and Lara Dutta as Rama’s stepmother Kaikeyi.

The actor who stamps her presence in every scene that she is in is Sai Pallavi, whose casting as Sita was greeted with a degree of scepticism. She is as luminous in royal finery as she is in the garb of a spartanly attired woman who follows her husband into exile in a forest.

Sai Pallavi demonstrates why she is regarded as one of the most effortlessly competent actresses of her generation. She ensures that her presence is registered in no uncertain terms in a film that is woven essentially two powerful male characters.

Part 2 is in the offing. If Part 1 is anything to go by, there is no reason why the world not be waiting for more with bated breath.