Mahavtar Narasimha

(full length animation movie, available in 5 languages on Netflix)

Mahavtar Narasimha, One of the most talked about movie of the year, fourth highest grossing movie, a full length animation movie, which gave run for money, to multi starrer movies with top stars like Coolie, War2, Chhavva and  Kubera and till date standing as the highest grosser of 2025 in terms of rate of return of over Rs. 350 cr on an investment of Rs. 45 crores.

Its Director all the way : Kudos to the debutant director AshwinmKumar to think of a full length animation movie covering two Avatars of Lord Vishnu that of Narsimha and Varaha and introducing the Hindu mythology to the movie goers specially youngsters and children the way they like the most.  

We all are familiar with stories of Hiranksha, Hiranyakashup, Holika and Bhakt Prahlada.    Presenting the known story in an interesting a racy manner, with fabulous set designs, character caricatures and translating them into animation characters and bring out each scene in a gigantic but a natural way is not an easy task and Director and his VFX team have come out fabulous in that.

Coming of age of Indian Animation movies : till now in India animation is restricted to small, amateurish cartoon characters, mostly catering to children and short movies.     In contrast to that Mahavatar Narasimha is a full length 130 minutes animation movie.    It’s a top quality, rich, colourful, attractive and very impactful movie.   All that coming at a Rs. 45 crore budget is unbelievable considering that most of the Rs. 500 crores plus budget movies are earmarking over Rs. 100 crores for VFX and still coming out horrible stuff like War2.   Right from first frame it’s a visual splendour the entry of Varaha avatar and last 20 minutes elaborate action scenes are spell bound.    

What Bahubali has done to PAN India big budget movies and cross over movies, Narasimha will do it to Indian animation movies and more mythological subjects being presented in this format in an attractive and glossy fashion at lesser budgets.   It is always a risk to take established actors for mythological subject, barring NTR top stars in all languages struggle to shake off their image and get into the skin of the mythological roles.   We all have seen what a disaster Adipurush turned out to be though it has bankable star in Prabhas, Saif and Kriti.   The half animation and half normal movie tanked immediately after the release of teaser itself.   There were many scenes where audience will be awestruck at the way the scenes was conceived, designed and executed to perfection.

Decent music :  Besides VFX and direction, the other significant contribution has come from music director Sam SC, back ground score is very good, couple of songs and devotional recitation is pleasing.   But being mythological movie I would have expected more recitation and few more devotional songs and bhajans from Prahlada character.    Movie goers, specially Telugu and Tamil from my generation have memories of AVM’s Bhakt Prahlada (starring legendary SVR, Anjali and Baby Roja Ramani) and its haunting melodies.

Trend setter: Good or bad, the movie producers are known to follow the trends, more of course the later.   But I have no doubt that the stupendous success of Mahavatar Narasimha  will set a trend for other to follow and come out with more and more mythological themes so that our children and youngster can stay in touch with our mythology.    The producers (who made Kantara – the super successful Kannada movie), have already announced other Avatars of Lord Vishnu viz., Parasuram, Krishna, Ram and Kalki in that order.  

It’s a movie not to be missed by any class of movie goers of any age.   Strongly recommended for elders to show to their children so that they develop some interest in Hindu mythology and the great learnings from it.

S. Prabhakar

20.9.2025