
King of Kotha (also marketed as KOK) is a 2023 Indian Malayalam-language action drama film directed by Abhilash Joshiy in his directorial debut and produced by Wayfarer Films and Zee Studios. The film stars an ensemble cast of Dulquer Salmaan, Shabeer Kallarakkal, Prasanna, Gokul Suresh, Aishwarya Lekshmi, Nyla Usha, Chemban Vinod Jose, Shammi Thilakan, Saran, Shanthi Krishna and Anikha Surendran. The cinematography is handled by Nimish Ravi and the film score is composed by Jakes Bejoy while the songs are composed by Jakes Bejoy and Shaan Rahman separately.
The film was announced in July 2021. Principal photography commenced in September 2022 and wrapped up in February 2023. The film was released worldwide on 24 August 2023 during the festival of Onam, where it received mixed reviews from critics.
King of Kotha was theatrically release on 24 August 2023, coinciding with Onam. The film was intended to be released in Malayalam along with the dubbed versions in Tamil, Telugu, Hindi and Kannada languages.
Plot
In 1996, CI Shahul Hassan is transferred to Kotha, where he enquires more about the town and learns that the citizens, especially teenagers, are addicted to narcotics. As Shahul investigates about the background of the narcotics, he comes across Kannan Bhai, a dreaded gangster who rules Kotha. Shahul meets Kannan Bhai in his hideout along with SI Tony Titus, where he is humiliated by Kannan. Shahul inquires about Raju from Tony as Kannan earlier mentioned the name, where Tony reveals Raju’s past.
Past: In 1986, Raju is a merciless gangster and Kannan’s best friend who rules Kotha. Tony and Kannan are a part of Raju’s gang and football team, Winners Kotha. Raju is always at loggerheads with Ranjith Bhai, who is the head of the neighbouring town Gandhigram, but Ranjith never harms Raju out of respect for Raju’s father Kotha Ravi, who was also a dreaded gangster in the past. Raju meets Tara and falls in love with her, soon giving up on many vices such as partying and women. Kannan tries to get Raju and his gang to deal with drugs, but Raju disagrees as Tara’s brother committed suicide due to drug overdose. Raju didn’t share a good relationship with his parents as his mother Malathi hates him for being a gangster and also blames his father for Raju’s upbringing. Malathi also abuses Raju’s gang members, where Kannan learns about this and provokes Malathi.
Ravi sees this and interferes in between them. Kannan tries to stab Ravi with a knife, but ends up stabbing himself. Upon knowing this, Raju gets angry and tries to beat up Ravi, who defends himself. One day, Ranjith sends photos of Tara hanging out with a Bombay-based journalist, eventually Raju breaks up with Tara and starts drinking heavily. Blinded by his greed for wealth and power, Kannan decides to partner up with Ranjith and agrees to transport drugs into Kotha. Knowing this, Raju gets enraged and confronts Kannan, who refuses to reveal anything about the drugs. Raju gets into a fight with Kannan and ends up blinding Kannan partially in the right eye. A few days later, Malathi realises that Raju may not live for long if he continues to be a drunkard where she advises him to leave Kotha and never come back. Raju leaves Kotha on the night of the FIFA World Cup Finals and later goes missing.
Present: Shahul tells Tony to enquire about Raju with the Uttar Pradesh police force, where he gets a fax from the Lucknow police station about “Raju Madrassi”, who is a retired assassin. Shahul sends a telegram to Raju, saying his sister Rithu is in danger. Kannan’s brother in law Jinu, a drug addict, is in a relationship with Rithu. As they are sitting in a restaurant having ice cream, Tony arrives with his force and takes away Jinu for being in possession of narcotics. Rithu finds out about this and cuts all ties with Jinu. After getting released, Jinu goes to Tara’s house to talk to her, but is kicked out by Ravi. The next day, Jinu tries to set Rithu on fire by dousing her in petrol, but she manages to escape as Tony arrives at the scene. As Tony chases Jinu, Jinu gets killed by Raju, who has come back to Kotha after receiving the telegram from Shahul.
Jinu’s sister Manju learns about this and decides to get Raju killed. It is also revealed that Kannan killed Ranjith Bhai in order to make Manju as his wife. That night, Kannan meets Raju at the bar and gets scared after learning that Raju has become dangerous after going to Uttar Pradesh. Manju sends men to kill Raju, who beats them up and sends them back after a fight, which Manju herself witnesses. The next day, Shahul makes an offer to Raju to kill Kannan but he declines the offer, stating that Kannan is still his friend. That night, Raju and Kannan meet up and have a few drinks in Raju’s hotel room. After leaving, Kannan sends up a contract killer Suitcase Leslie to kill Raju. The next day, Kannan and his men find a suitcase with Leslie’s remains in it. Kannan gets agitated and arrives at the market with his men, where they fight against Raju. Raju beats all of them up and kills Kannan’s right-hand man Erilan by stabbing him in his heart, thus avenging the death of his friend Rafi.
That night, Raju goes to Tara’s house to invite her for Rithu’s birthday, but Kannan arrives there and stabs Tara. As Tara is rushed to the hospital, Raju gets a call from Kannan. He rushes to a site and finds his father killed by Kannan’s men. Kannan’s mother promises to bring Kannan to Raju so Raju can kill him. As he goes to finish Kannan, it is revealed that this entire plot was planned by Kannan so that he could kill Raju. Kannan stabs Raju after which Manju arrives. Raju discloses that he has known Manju since her childhood and that Jinu was actually her son who was born after she was assaulted by her stepfather in her childhood. Manju leaves the place humiliated and Raju escapes after the police arrive at the scene. Three weeks later, Raju is missing and the townsfolk believe that he is dead due to the stab wounds sustained after Kannan’s attack.
However, Raju is still alive and was planning his attack on Kannan all this while, where he sends a letter to Shahul saying that he has accepted the offer that Shahul had made earlier. Raju offers the entire town of Kotha to Kannan’s henchman Peelan in exchange for killing Kannan. Peelan accepts the offer and switches sides. He goes to Kannan’s hideout to confront Kannan. Kannan brings a group of contract killers to kill Raju, but Raju kills all of them and incapacitates Kannan. Raju tells Kannan that he cannot kill him as he still considers him as a brother, where he brings in a boy to kill Kannan. It is revealed that the boy is Ranjith’s son who witnessed Kannan kill Ranjith and now wants to exact revenge. It is also revealed that Ranjit’s men helped Raju escape from the place where Kannan had stabbed him earlier. The boy kills Kannan and hands the gun over to Raju, who kills Peelan, telling that Kotha doesn’t need an heir anymore. In 1998, Raju is living with Tara and Rithu happily in Shimla and receives a call from a gangster sent by Manju to kill him, where Raju replies to try finish him if he can.
Cast
Dulquer Salmaan as Kotha Rajendran “Raju” aliases Raju Madrassi, King of Kotha
Shabeer Kallarakkal as Kannan Bhai
Prasanna as CI Shahul Hassan
Gokul Suresh as SI Tony Titus
Aishwarya Lekshmi as Tara, Raju’s girlfriend and love interest
Saran Shakthi as Jinu
Chemban Vinod Jose as Ranjith Bhai, Manju’s husband
Shammi Thilakan as Kotha Ravi, Raju and Rithu’s father
Anikha Surendran as Kotha Rithu, Raju’s sister
Nyla Usha as Manju, Ranjith’s wife-cum-widow; Kannan’s wife
Shanthi Krishna as Kotha Malathi, Raju and Rithu’s mother
Sudhi Koppa as Rafi
Senthil Krishna as Billa
TG Ravi
Rajesh Sharma
Pramod Veliyanad as Muthu
Prasant Murali
Adhri Joe
Midhun Venugopal
Madhan Mohan
Govind Pai as Ranjith’s Son
Manju Vani
Sachin Shyam
Soubin Shahir in a cameo appearance as Suitcase Leslie
Ritika Singh as a dancer (cameo appearance in the song “Kalapakkaara”)
Production
The film along with its title was announced on 28 July 2021 on the occasion of Dulquer Salmaan’s 38th birthday. Salmaan who portrays a gangster in the film stated: “King of Kotha will be having all these elements (perfectly timed clap points, catchy songs, and elevation sequences) that could satisfy the audience.” He also added that this is a dream project with his childhood friend Abhilash Joshiy, son of veteran filmmaker Joshiy, and have been waiting for the past few years to find a perfect project to collaborate. It is written by Abhilash N. Chandran, who had earlier worked on Porinju Mariam Jose (2019). In October 2022, Salmaan stated in an interview that, “It is an action gangster genre, noir film set in a fictional town. It’s interesting because I generally tend to veer away from this type of cinema quite a bit. But I found a bit of a balance. I feel like it has content, it has great writing, but it’s also a very commercial gangster drama.” On 23 June 2023 the film’s motion poster, titled “People of Kotha” was launched.
Filming and casting
The principal photography began on 27 September 2022 at Karaikudi, while additional filming occurred in Rameswaram and Ramanathapuram. Nimish Ravi joined as the film’s cinematographer. After rumours of Samantha Ruth Prabhu being approached for a role, it was reported that Aishwarya Lekshmi was signed to play Salmaan’s pair. Shabeer Kallarakkal was roped in to play the main antagonist. Actor Gokul Suresh was cast to play a pivotal role and actors Chemban Vinod Jose and Sudhi Koppa were also added to the cast. Nyla Usha and Shanthi Krishna were also cast in key roles. Zee Studios associated with Wayfarer Films for the film’s production and marked its maiden feature film production venture in Malayalam. It was reported that, a major schedule in Karaikudi was interrupted due to the rain, and the team took a brief break. Ritika Singh joined the production in early-November 2022 and shot for an item song. In December 2022, Shammi Thilakan announced his addition to the cast through his Facebook page. In January 2023, Prasanna and Saran Shakthi confirmed being cast in the film. Filming took 95 days and the Karaikudi schedule was wrapped up on 21 February 2023.
Download
Looking to download King of Kotha 2023 film in HD Mp4, Avi, Mkv, Cinema, 720p, 480p, 1080p, Blu-Ray, 3gp, Torrent magnet, watch online? See below;
CAN I DOWNLOAD?: To know if you can download this movie, please click here.
* This biography or article is a copyright of Uzomedia TV, please refer-back to our blog if you wish to copy or pin back our articles.*
* For car insurance, Home Insurance, Insurance companies, Auto insurance Public liability insurance, Cheap Insurance, Loans,liability insurance, professional indemnity insurance, small business insurance, Health and Fitness, Real Estate, Digital Marketing, Automobile and more visit our contact page.*