Karkash… Dark, Cruel, Offensive and still funny!

I recently watched Nepali feature movie ‘Karkash‘ with some friends and was well worth a few hours of time. G21 productions venture ‘Karkash’ is a musical dark humour about a band in Thamel who were preparing for a music challenge. The movie flows with their ups and downs during the preparation and finally reach a happy ending.

After a good publicity and positive response from the promotional matters, Karkash was released all over Nepal on 14th June.

Synopsis: The movie is all about the ups and downs of members of a poor musical band (Karkash), 2 Guitarist (Sandesh & Pravat), a Drummer (Andy) and a Vocalist. They practice in a congested room. Those band members have different character, Andy is sexually attracted, Sandesh seems drunkard where Pravat is honest. They have a dream to win a band challenge and wish to live easy life.

The band also performs in a restaurant but one day the restaurant owner get new band in the restaurant without even saying them. For this very reason there happens a conflict and band members were beaten. They somehow managed to escape. Meanwhile, the vocalist becomes unhappy with other 3 Band members so he quits, and the band lacks vocalist. Other 3 members try hard to hunt new vocalist and after some time they get new band member, Ivan. Ivan turns out to be a booze lover, drug addict and a playboy. After his arrival in the band as a vocalist, they start practice again but it does not goes smoothly because of the character of the new man. They face many unexpected problems. Bitter, Unexpected and Cruel events occurs day by day. The movie shows different problems of a city, it touches many aspect of a society. Struggle of a music band, Status of music video director, illegal smuggle of drugs in the city operated from abroad, Corrupt Policeman, different social conditions etc. are the things Karkash portrays. Here, I don’t want to kill the excitement of the movie by revealing more plot.

The strongest point of Karkash is it’s cast and their performances. Their role in the movie is strong and well plotted. Singer turned actor Satya Raj Aacharya is successful enough to show his acting talent. There is no question to raise in the performance of Dayahang Rai. His well known humorous character makes everybody laugh. His dialogues in Darjeeling Style are awesome अन्त! मलाई तिम्रो त्यै वास्ना मनपर्छ ! ;). Remon Das Shrestha’s Newari tone is good but it sometimes feel little artificial in his dialogues. With this debut movie, popular media personality Suraj Singh Thakuri portrays good emotions and acting skills. His dialogue deliveries are natural and convincing although His carefree nature gives many problems to the band members ;).

The music in the movie do not match with the title (Karkash means not pleasant to the ears) as its pleasing and stays in the mind of the people. Background music during the movie are melodious and suits the story perfectly. OST of the movie ‘Taremam‘ by Karma Band is not present in the movie, I wish they could have managed it in somewhere as the song is awesome. I am impressed with its lyrics.

Cinematography also looks good. Close Camera Shots also looks nice. The editing of the movie is also good. First half seems slow. Second part of the movie is smoother than the First part. The ending was the unique. During the movie, viewers may feel too much advertisement of ‘Tuborg’ beer, may be a good publicity stunt :p. With the ‘A’ grade from censor board, some dialogues are converted to beep.

Director and Script writer Asif Shah’s works looks great. Simple story of a poor music band is enough to show different positive and negative aspects of a city. He is successful enough with this debut movie but movie content may fail to live up to the expectation of viewers as they expect much more. Anyway, I can expect better to come from this new director.

A Good Time Pass – 3.5/5.

If you want to see the steady progress of Kollywood movie industry! I recommend you too watch Karkash! This may or may not be able to meet your expectation but this will give you a chance to comment and your valuable words may help it to grow up!