Highlights:
- Shetty moves from regional hit to franchise builder with Kantara: A Legend – Chapter 1
- The original Kantara put his name on the map; the new film widens the canvas
- He writes, directs and acts- the rare triple threat Indian cinema once celebrated
- The work is rooted in folklore and ritual, not spectacle, and that still lands with audiences
- It’s a practical, working model of old-school creative vision today
Rishab Shetty’s path feels oddly familiar. Indian cinema once had figures who wrote, directed and starred in their own films, names such as Guru Dutt and Raj Kapoor. It looks like Shetty does the same work now. After the success of Kantara, he returned with the newly released Kantara: A Legend – Chapter 1, again as actor, writer and director. The result is less a throwback and more a clear line of continuity: cinema made by one person who will not cede the story.
Rishab Shetty channels the spirit of Raj Kapoor and Guru Dutt in Kantara Chapter 1 Rishab Shetty channels the spirit of Raj Kapoor and Guru Dutt in Kantara Chapter 1
Why the actor-writer-director tag matters for Shetty
Being an actor-writer-director is not a gimmick. It’s a workflow and Shetty shapes performance from the inside out. He writes scenes knowing how he will play them and shoots with that in mind. That control shows on screen: the rhythms, the silences, the beats of ritual feel intentional and not staged.
In fact, this model lets the film stay true to local language, ritual and landscape without flattening those things for a wider market. That’s how Kantara travelled beyond its region, by being particular, not generic.
How this echoes Guru Dutt and Raj Kapoor — and how it doesn’t
Raj Kapoor and Guru Dutt were auteurs who married star persona with directorial control. Shetty shares that impulse: he is present in the frame and behind it. Like them, he uses the camera to hold a mood as much as to tell a plot.
But it’s not a carbon copy. Kapoor and Dutt worked in a different studio era, with different commercial pressures. Shetty’s toolset includes regional cinema circuits, pan-India dubbing and streaming. He’s building an auteur practice inside a contemporary system and that balance is new.
Rishab Shetty channels the spirit of Raj Kapoor and Guru Dutt in Kantara Chapter 1 Rishab Shetty channels the spirit of Raj Kapoor and Guru Dutt in Kantara Chapter 1
What makes Kantara and Kantara: A Legend – Chapter 1 stand apart
The films rely on folklore, land and ritual rather than spectacle. That focus changes the film’s grammar including longer takes, a reliance on sound and movement, and communal scenes that aren’t cut for easy punchlines.
Word of mouth, not big star co-attaches, carried the first film. The new chapter keeps that same faith in story. It’s quieter filmmaking that still hits emotionally.
What comes next for Shetty
He’s proved the model works. Now the question is scale without losing control: can the same creative voice carry a wider franchise, bigger budgets, IMAX screens, streaming windows? Kantara: A Legend – Chapter 1 shows the approach is repeatable. Whether it becomes a template for others or stays a distinctive signature will depend on the films that follow.
You could say the old masters left a technical manual. Shetty is writing his own appendix in Kannada, in ritual, in performance. It’s not homage. It’s continuation.
