KGF: Chapter 1

KGF: Chapter 1 is a 2018 Indian Kannada-language period action film written and directed by Prashanth Neel, and produced by Vijay Kiragandur under the banner of Hombale Films. It is the first installment in the KGF series, followed by KGF: Chapter 2. The film stars Yash, Srinidhi Shetty, Vasishta N. Simha, Ramachandra Raju, Archana Jois, Anant Nag, Achyuth Kumar, Malavika Avinash, T. S. Nagabharana and B. Suresha. Filmed on a budget of ₹80 crore (equivalent to ₹107 crore or US$13 million in 2023), it was the most expensive Kannada film at the time of its release. In the film, Rocky, a high-ranking mercenary, working for a prominent gold mafia in Bombay, seeks power and wealth in order to fulfill his mother's promise. Due to his high fame, the leaders of the gold mafia where he works hire him to assassinate Garuda, the son of the founder of Kolar Gold Fields.

The film's development began in early 2015, after Neel finished writing the screenplay. Filming began two years later, in January 2017. Most of the film is set in the Kolar Gold Fields and was filmed in locales such as Kolar, Mysore, and parts of North Karnataka. The film's production was completed in August 2018. Bhuvan Gowda handled the cinematography and Srikanth edited the film. Composer Ravi Basrur scored the film.

The Kannada version of K.G.F: Chapter 1 was released on 20 December 2018 and the dubbed versions in Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam and Hindi released the next day. The film received positive reviews from critics and dialogues from the film became famous worldwide. The film did well commercially and earned ₹250 crore (equivalent to ₹334 crore or US$40 million in 2023) in its entire theatrical run, becoming the highest-grossing Kannada film until it was surpassed by its sequel. It turned out to be a cult hit. At the 66th National Film Awards, the film won two awards for Stunt Choreography and Best Special Effects. At the 66th Filmfare Awards South, the film won two awards from five nominations, including the award for Best Film and Best Actor for Yash.

Plot

Journalist Anand Ingalagi's book El Dorado, which detailed the events at the Kolar Gold Fields (KGF) between 1951 and 2018, was banned by the Indian government, but a television news channel procures a copy and interviews him.

In 1951, Raja "Rocky" Krishnappa Bairya was born to a poor, underage girl named Shanti. On the same day, government officials, accompanied by Suryavardhan, arrived to investigate a strange yellow rock discovered by workers digging a well in southern Mysore State. Upon realizing that the rock was gold ore, Suryavardhan, a powerful don and politician of the time, killed the officials and leased the land for 99 years under the pretext of running a limestone mine called Narachi, while secretly establishing K.G.F and his crime syndicate. To manage the empire, Suryavardhan had appointed five associates: Adheera, his ruthless younger brother, who headed the security at K.G.F; Kamal, son of Suryavardhan's late associate Bhargav, who looks after gold refinery in Varca; Rajendra Desai, who oversees the transportation of gold bars coming from the refinery; Andrews, who oversees the gold smuggling in the Western Coast; and Guru Pandian, president of the incumbent DYSS party who gave political influence to Suryavardhan. Suryavardhan suffers a stroke and appoints his elder son Garuda as the future heir of K.G.F, expecting Adheera to serve as his son's aide. His associates, now eyeing the riches of K.G.F, plan to assassinate Garuda. Adheera is presumed dead after Garuda bombs his car in retaliation for Adheera's unsuccessful assassination attempt.

Rocky arrives in Bombay as a ten-year-old on a quest for wealth and power as desired by his dying mother, and begins to work for Shetty, a gold smuggler and Andrews' underboss, who competes against a Dubai-based underworld don Inayat Khalil. Years later, he rises in ranks and oversees the arrival of gold bars to the Bombay coast. Andrews notices Rocky's influence has begun to rival Shetty's own, and offers Rocky complete control of the Bombay underworld in return for assassinating Garuda. Rocky accepts the offer and heads to Bangalore, where Suryavardhan's statue is built at the DYSS party office to lure Garuda out of K.G.F. Desai, Andrews, Kamal, and Andrews' secretary Daya covertly smuggle in a pistol for Rocky, but the attempt is foiled when they are spotted by Garuda's bodyguards. Garuda reveals he had replaced his father's statue with his own. Rocky, witnessing the authority and power that Garuda commands and seeing no other option to murder him, decides to journey to K.G.F. The workers in K.G.F, who are forcibly kidnapped from nearby villages, are subjected to inhumane conditions and treated as slaves. Rocky allows himself to be kidnapped and enters K.G.F with other slaves. Rocky stealthily accesses the map of the mine in the maintenance room during a roll call and narrowly escapes death after a fellow slave sacrifices himself to save the lives of his wife and unborn child. Andrews, Kamal and Desai are misinformed about the incident and assume Rocky is killed.

Although apathetic at first, he is moved by the cold-blooded murder of a mother and son by a guard. Rocky engages in a fight with an entire unit of twenty-three guards, killing each one of them to save a blind slave. With this act, Rocky emerges as a messiah in the slaves' eyes. He orders them to burn the guards' corpses to let Andrews and his men know he is still alive via their informants, Kulkarni and Garuda's younger brother Virat. Garuda prepares to leave his residence to investigate the fire and missing guards. To avert this, Virat smothers Suryavardhan to death, in order to sidetrack Garuda, who rushes back home. Rocky heads unsuspected through a tunnel from the mines to Garuda's mansion, following the map in the maintenance room.

Shaken by the recent bad turn of events, Garuda orders Maa Kaali's ritual, to be rescheduled from the following week to the next day. Garuda plans to kill his father's allies as soon as the ritual, where he has decided to behead three assassins (sent earlier to kill him) as offerings to the goddess, is completed. The next day, while preparations for the ritual are being made, Vanaram, the head of security, discovers one of the assassins dead inside his prison cell, and realizes someone has entered the mansion. As Garuda beheads two assassins, Rocky, who hid himself as the third assassin, emerges and beheads Garuda. The ecstatic slaves accept Rocky as their leader.

Ingalagi concludes that Rocky intentionally chose K.G.F as the location to assassinate Garuda, thereby inspiring an army of slaves to help him seize control. He indicates, however, that this is just the beginning. The news of Garuda's murder reaches Inayat Khalil and Ramika Sen, the to-be prime minister of India. Adheera, who is revealed to be alive, hears the news of Garuda's death and plans to resurface. All others at the K.G.F including Desai, Kamal, Andrews, Daya, Khalil and Shetty, were overjoyed by hearing the news. As Vanaram orders his men to attack Rocky and his army, a gunshot is heard.

Cast

Production

Pre-production

Following the success of Mr. and Mrs. Ramachari (2014), Yash signed for four projects as of March 2015, including one with director Prashanth Neel (of Ugramm fame). The project, KGF, about an ambitious man and his life in the 1970s, was considered to be one of the most expensive films in Kannada cinema. Hombale Films, the production house led by Vijay Kiragandur, bankrolled the project, and one of its production executive Karthik Gowda, stated that "KGF, which is set in the 70s, took over one and a half years of pre-production, because they wanted to ensure they got every single detail right, be it the matchboxes, telephone, or the clothes people wore." The film's director, Prashanth Neel, stated that the film would be launched in April 2016, and the shooting would begin in May 2016. Ravi Basrur, who earlier scored music for the director's Ugramm, was hired for the project, while Bhuvan Gowda handled the cinematography.

In an interview with The Times of India, Prashanth Neel stated that he planned to split the film in two parts, as the narration of the story is in a non-linear format. The decision to split the film into two parts also had to do with its commercial prospects. He further added “The scale of the project is huge and we had a scope for a beginning, an interval, and an end for both parts, so it made sense for us to release it as two parts”. As for the decision to make it a multilingual release, he says that it was because the film is based on a unique idea and has a universal theme. About the rumours of doing KGF as a "Tamil version, with Suriya being roped in, but failing to do so", he stated that it was meant to be a Kannada film.

In December 2020, during the making of its second installment, Prasanth Neel denied rumours of a third installment in the KGF franchise, claiming that the story would conclude in its second part.