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Arguably, Bengal has the richest literary heritage in this country. Advantageously, many excellent films have emerged from the captivating crevices of Bangla writing .

We could safely add this ambrosial adaptation to the hall of fame.

Director Suman Mukhopadhyay’s Putulnacher Itikatha (The Puppet’s Tale released on 1 August) is a lush layered luminous look at the wages of patriarchy , the burdens of an “English” education during a time when India was under colonial rule, and it also taps into the taboo subject of female sexuality at a time when women were supposed to show only those emotions that flowed from the eyes.

Significantly the most exploited woman in Mukhopadhyay’s village Gaudia Sendidi (Ananya Chatterjee) goes blind in one eye after a neglected attack of Smallpox: patriarchal arrogance manifested in gender discrimination and decimation.

The novel, and happily its film adaptation is soaked in socio-historical ramifications, though never at the cost of a fluid storytelling.

Paatal Lok 2 & Panchayat 4(Photo Credit –YouTube)

The first half of 2025 has given us some amazing Hindi shows. From heartwarming dramas like Panchayat Season 4 to gritty thrillers like Paatal Lok Season 2 and Black Warrant, there’s something for everyone. We have handpicked the top ten Hindi series of the year so far and ranked them based on their current IMDb user ratings. For multi-season series, we have considered the average ratings of the latest season. Read on to explore their IMDb scores, brief plots, and where you can watch them online.

10. Kankhajura Release Date – May 30, 2025 Director – Chandan Arora IMDb Rating – 7.1/10 Available On – SonyLIV

Plot: The crime thriller series is an Indian adaptation of the award-winning Israeli drama Magpie. It follows the story of Ashu (Roshan Mathew), a man who is released many years after serving a prison sentence. But when he reconnects with his brother Max (Mohit Raina), his return begins...

Parambrata Chatterjee, director of the thriller web series Bhog, spoke to Subhash K Jha about the hit series and why he gravitates towards the supernatural horror space in his projects.

Your web series Bhog is one of the eeriest things I’ve seen. What brought you to this subject?

I’ve always been interested in the supernatural ever since I was a teenager. But somewhere, somehow, this interest was sort of lying dormant until about three or four years ago, when I suddenly realized that there’s a tremendous amount of curiosity and interest amongst consumers, among the watchers, among the viewers, among the readers about supernatural literature; and a lot of that is being converted into audio stories.

So it started with an interest in audio stories?

Yes, I got quite fascinated with the idea of audio stories based on such supernatural literature. And I also realized how much...

A legal thriller in Bengali, “Shotyi Bole Shotyi Kichhu Nei” (2025) by Srijit Mukherji is a modern-day adaptation of “12 Angry Men” (1957) and its Hindi remake, “Ek Ruka Hua Faisla” (1986). The title of Mukherji’s rendition is derived from a haunting line in the song “Ei Srabon” by Anupam Roy, which alludes to the deeper psychological divisions between perception and truth that the film examines. With an ensemble cast featuring Kaushik Ganguly, Parambrata Chatterjee, Kaushik Sen, Ritwick Chakraborty, and others, the film stages a riveting drama inside the claustrophobic confines of a High Court Judge’s subconscious, where twelve individuals (or rather mental projections of the Judge) must confront their own biases and prejudices while deciding the fate of a young kid accused of murder.

The subconscious mind transports the characters to various locations deeply personal to Brajeswar: his study room, the golf course he habitually goes to, a theater where...

Not a fan of the horror genre, I was taken aback by how shaken I was with the business on hand in Bhog (in Bengali on Hoichoi) largely for its central performance. Actor Anirban Bhattacharya’s jolting performance as a working-class bloke who transforms into a possessed entity, right in front of our disbelieving eyes, echoes Jack Nicholson in The Shining.

There is an unsettling normalcy to Atin’s behaviour, his environment and his near ones at the start. Admittedly, Atin lost his mother when he was young. But he was more than compensated for by a mother-figure Pushpa (Sudipa Basu), whom Atil treats with a mixture of reverence and mischief.

How is he, or we, to know that Pushpa would disappear into thin air, literally with no forwarding address?

There is a chilling finality to the eerie happenings in this sturdily ominous fear feast, based on a short story by Avik Sarkar.

Sujoy Ghosh’s Letter to Satyajit Ray (Photo Credit – Instagram/Twitter)

Indian filmmaker Sujoy Ghosh, who is well-known for directing terrific thrillers like Kahaani, Jaane Jaan, and Badla, took to his social media platform earlier today. In his X (Twitter) post, he recollected an old yet interesting incident from the year 1989 when he wrote to ‘The Apu Trilogy’ director Satyajit Ray asking for a job. He further confessed that in the letter, he wrote that he was willing to do any job provided he (Satyajit Ray) would teach me how to draw. Because he loved Ray’s illustrations and the stories he wrote and told.

Sujoy Ghosh’s First Rejection

Incredibly, Satyajit Ray was courteous and humble enough to send a reply to a stranger asking for a job. You can read the contents of the letter written by Satyajit Ray to Sujoy Ghosh here.

let me tell you a story of rejection.

Khakee: The Bengal Chapter arrives as a standalone sequel to its Bihar predecessor, transporting viewers back to early-2000s Kolkata. The series opens on a tense highway crash that leaves a prominent shipping magnate dead, instantly exposing the porous boundary between politics and crime. A Special Investigation Team (Sit) is assembled to take down Shankar “Bagha” Barua (Saswata Chatterjee), a gangster whose reach extends into the highest echelons of power.

In casting Parambrata Chattopadhyay as Ips Saptarshi Sinha, the show nods to Bollywood’s tradition of morally driven lawmen, while Jeet’s Ips Arjun Maitra embodies a more modern, global archetype of the flawed hero—an approach that echoes Scandinavian noir’s emphasis on internal conflict. Bagha’s henchmen, Sagor Talukdar (Ritwik Bhowmik) and Ranjit Thakur (Aadil Zafar Khan), bring burdens of loyalty and ambition that evoke the layered criminal families of parallel cinema. On the political front, Prosenjit Chatterjee...

Now streaming on Netflix is Neeraj Pandey’s Khakee: The Bengal Chapter. Directed by Debatma Mandal and Tushar Kanti Ray Khakee: The Bengal Chapteris set in the Bengal of the early 2000s, where Gangsters and Politicians reign supreme. A decorated cop’s death paves the way for a fearless Ips, Arjun Maitra (Jeet) – an unrelenting force ready to take on the chaos and restore justice. Featuring a stellar ensemble, the series unites some of Bengali cinema’s finest talent, including Jeet, Prosenjit Chatterjee, Saswata Chatterjee, and Parambrata Chatterjee bringing their powerful presence to this gripping crime saga.

Jeet talks with Subhash K Jha about being a part of this series.

Jeet is a huge name in Bengali cinema. His presence in Netflix’s Khakee: The Bengal Chapter is no small matter, especially as he gets to share screen space with another Bengali superstar, Prosenjit. “We had a great cast and ensemble.

In the second episode of “Khakee: The Bengal Chapter” (2025), a pivotal scene between the General Secretary of the Ruling Party and resident puppet master, Borun Roy (Prosenjit Chatterjee), and the newly inducted head of the Special Investigative Task Force, Arjun Maitra (Jeet), sees Roy explaining the system as a symphony, with each section contributing to the evocation or efficient running of said symphony/system.

I suppose that could be the baseline driving the creative direction of Neeraj Pandey as he shepherds a spin-off/second season of his popular 2022 series—”Khakee: The Bihar Chapter.” Like its progenitor, this “chapter” is also researched and based on true events, but it constructs an original story around those events. Writers Debatma Mandal and Samrat Chakraborty, along with Pandey, set the story majorly in 2002, with key moments flashed back to 1991 and one specific origin story to 1988.

In this iteration of Kolkata, the ruling party has...

Neeraj Pandey’s Khakee: The Bengal Chapter would have been the perfect crime thriller were it not for a couple of incongruous performance which impede the other-wise pitch-perfect crime thriller, arguably the best we have seen in ages. Khakee: The Bengal Chapter boasts of razor-sharp writing and unexpected twists and turns all through.

A coiling-recoiling raga of rage plays itself out in the combustive length and breadth of the lengthy parable on crime and violence in the ‘City Of Bhoy (fear)’, as a character describes the crime situation in Kolkata.

The series kickstarts in a stunning swirl of bloodshed and deceit when an honest cop, Saptarishi (Parambrata Chatterjee), is slayed by the goons of a gangster, Bagha (played by tonally attuned Saswat Chatterjee). The ensuing bedlam in the City keeps up the cops all night, as we, too, sleepless until the lengthy but never dull episodes are done.

Embracing the...

Khakee: The Bengal Chapter Review: Neeraj Pandey’s Cop Universe Is Raw & Real (Photo Credit – Instagram)

Khakee: The Bengal Chapter Review: Star Rating:

Cast: Jeet, Prosenjit Chatterjee, Chitrangada Singh, Ritwik Bhowmik, Aadil Zafar Khan, Parambrata Chatterjee & others

Creator: Neeraj Pandey

Director: Debatma Mandal & Tushar Kanti Ray

Streaming On: Netflix

Language: Bengali & Hindi

Runtime: 7 episodes of 50 minutes each

Khakee: The Bengal Chapter Review: Saswata Chatterjee Is Impactful In This Raw & Gritty Drama! (Photo Credit – Instagram) Khakee: The Bengal Chapter Review: What’s It About:

“Agar har corrupt politician ko sazaa milne lag jaaye to jail ke baaki qaidiyon ke liye jagah nahi bachegi, so I am going with the lesser evil here,” tells Ips Arjun Maitra, posted in Kolkata, to politician Nibedita Basak, an opposition leader in West Bengal. This is probably the strongest line in the entire 7-hour-long web series Khakee: The Bengal Chapter, summarizing the root cause of the...

Subhash K Jha Revisits Sujoy Ghosh-Vidya Balan’s 2012 thriller Kahaani in a new installment of This Day That Year.

Playing Vidya Bagchi, an Nri who lands in Kolkata heavily pregnant and immeasurably distressed by the disappearance of her husband, Vidya Balan doesn’t hit a single false note in the entire graph of her character’s fascinating journey. Kahaani is not an ordinary thrill-a-minute film about a search for a missing person; it’s a lot more. Bringing a virgin vitality to the suspense drama Kahaani actually strikes a captivatingly consonant balance between realism in art and the art of courting realism without losing the sheer entertainment quotient of the plot.

From the moment Vidya lands in Kolkata the colour, vibrancy, bustle and jostle that are peculiar to Kolkata, assail our senses. It’s a claustrophobic yet liberating world of intrigue and deception. A pungent flavour of anxiety...

Khakee: The Bengal Chapter had it’s epic trailer unveiled at a spectacular launch event in the vibrant city of Kolkata today. This latest installment in the acclaimed Khakee franchise is a layered story of politics, inter-gang rivalry and the police system. Premiering on March 20, only on Netflix, it promises to captivate viewers with its explosive blend of relentless action, intricate drama, and unexpected twists. Produced by Friday Storytellers, the series is spearheaded by the visionary creator Neeraj Pandey, with directors Debatma Mandal and Tushar Kanti Ray’s unique storytelling prowess.

Khakee: The Bengal Chapter is poised to redefine cop dramas, drawing viewers into a world where a brave police officer defends a fragile justice system against those in power. In the early 2000s, when gangsters and politicians commanded unchallenged authority, Ips Arjun Maitra emerged as a catalyst for change. Fearless and unwavering, this upright officer was determined to carve...

Actor-turned-director Parambrata Chatterjee’s thirteenth directorial venture is not an easy watch. It is verbose (so either you are fluent in Bengali or a fast reader), deeply tragic, and unabashedly resilient in its quest for the essence of life within the marital domain. Parambrata Chatterjee builds on the mounting tension to a nerve-wracking degree. There are no pockets of relief in the storytelling, no smile breaks, no humorous interludes. Throbbing with tension and forebodings of impending mortality Ei Raat Tomar Amar is a relentlessly grim tale of a marriage being rocked by piercing questioning on its fiftieth anniversary.

What is the genesis of this Bergmanesque marital drama?

For me, a lot of the emotion was organic because I always wanted to see my parents grow old together. Together or otherwise, I mean, no one can predict the future. So, I lost my… my father died when he was barely 50 and...

Netflix India unveiled the anticipated trailer for “Khakee: The Bengal Chapter” at a star-studded event in Kolkata on Wednesday, ahead of its March 20 premiere.

Produced by Friday Storytellers and created by industry veteran Neeraj Pandey, the crime drama is co-directed by Debatma Mandal and Tushar Kanti Ray. Following the success of “Khakee: The Bihar Chapter,” which unraveled the murky nexus of power, politics, and police in India’s hinterlands, Netflix is set to explore new stories under the same banner.

The new series, set against the backdrop of early 2000s West Bengal, centers on Indian Police Service (Ips) cop Arjun Maitra, a principled officer who emerges as a catalyst for change during a period when gangsters and politicians wielded unchallenged authority. His determination to forge a path toward justice within a treacherous landscape of political machinations and gang warfare forms the narrative backbone of the show.

“Khakee: The Bengal Chapter...

Subhash K Jha takes a look back at Anushka Sharma-Prerna Arora’s PariPari is not an easy film to watch. While it duly declares that no animal was harmed during shooting, animals, including a pet dog and a parrot come to horribly harmful deaths in a plot that impales its characters to Satanism and challenges all the traditional tropes of the horror genre.

There are no creaking doors and shrieking banshees in Pari. The atmosphere is deceptively placid. Director Prosit Roy and his estimable cinematographer Jishnu Bhattcharjee shoot the macabre proceedings in the fading light of a terrifying twilight. Seldom have I seen a film’s look and appearance so commensurate with its mood, theme, and treatment.

This is not the Kolkata of Durga pujas and Howrah Bridge. Not even the bright tram-travel romantic city of Onir’s Kuch Bheege Alfaaz. Not a glimpse of the iconic landmarks...

Shashi (Abir Chatterjee), a young doctor who has returned to his village upon graduating from the Calcutta Medical School, goes through a deep existential crisis, caught between his wish to help the people he’s known for most of his life and a sense of helplessness; he has, simply said, to unlearn local prejudice and superstition, and the way the problems are dealt with in the village. He is trying to change things for the better and introduce minor reforms, but things don’t go smoothly. To top it all off, Shashi’s father, an unemotional man who is getting richer by the day as a usurer, doesn’t understand that the profession of a medical expert comes with empathy and certain moral codes that collide with the village laws of conduct. Tending to a female patient is one of them, even if she is bedridden due to smallpox. Her...

The Mehta Boys

Starring Boman Irani and Avinash Tiwari

Directed by Boman Irani

I was amused and exasperated to wake up to see a review claiming that a ‘brilliant’ Avinash Tiwari ‘outshines’ Boman Irani in The Mehta Boys (now streaming on Amazon Prime Video).

Firstly, this is quite untrue, and secondly, this is not a kabaddi match. But a delicately poised father-son mellow drama, where any effort by the two principal actors to outshine each other would have landed the film flat on its face.

Irani and Tiwari, as father and son Shiv and Amay playing a hostile pair on screen, are fulsomely aligned as actors, so much so that I wondered how much they must have worked towards achieving this level of compatibility on screen.

Boman Irani’s first stab at direction stabs you in the heart. The father-son conflict is as old as Ramesh Sippy’s Shakti and...

Actor-turned-director Parambrata Chatterjee’s thirteenth directorial venture is not an easy watch. It is verbose (so either you are fluent in Bengali or a fast reader), deeply tragic, and unabashedly resilient in its quest for the essence of life within the marital domain.

When we first meet Amar Gupta (Anjan Dutta), he is seen taking his ailing wife Joyita (Aparna Sen) home after a session of chemotherapy with his sullen son Joy (Parambrata Chatterjee) and Joy’s wife. To say the tension in the car is palpable would be an understatement.

Parambrata Chatterjee builds on the mounting tension to a nerve-wracking degree. There are no pockets of relief in the storytelling, no smile breaks, and no humorous interludes. Throbbing with tension and forebodings of impending mortality, Ei Raat Tomar Amar is a relentlessly grim tale of a marriage being rocked by piercing questioning on its fiftieth anniversary.

Amar and Joyita...

Indian auteur Suman Mukhopadhyay’s “The Puppet’s Tale” (Putulnacher Itikatha), a period drama centering on a young doctor’s struggle between modern medicine and traditional beliefs in 1930s Bengal, premieres in International Film Festival Rotterdam’s Big Screen Competition on Feb. 6. The film, adapted from Manik Bandyopadhyay’s celebrated 1936 novel, explores how progress and tradition clash through the eyes of an idealistic physician returning to his roots.

“We are witnessing ideological deadlocks across society, with conflicting worldviews pulling us in different directions,” Mukhopadhyay told Variety. “The novel’s central conflict – the doctor’s dilemma in navigating these opposing forces – feels even more urgent when mortality itself looms over the characters.”

The story follows Shashi, a newly graduated doctor whose return to his village becomes a crucible for larger social tensions. “Despite significant progress, we continue to grapple with entrenched value systems and rigid traditions,” Mukhopadhyay explained. “The film explores...

After the success of Sacred Games and Mirzapur, the Hindi region of the Ott space was filled with all kinds of episodic crime dramas. Off the top of my head, we got Delhi Crime, Hasmukh, Your Honor, Undekhi, Flesh, Aashram, A Simple Murder, Dark 7 White, and more. Paatal Lok managed to stand out, but since it was backed by an insanely talented star cast and a team of brilliant directors and writers, its success didn’t come off as a surprise. But the crime drama show that floored me was Mithya. Sure, it had stellar actors like Huma Qureshi and Parambrata Chatterjee in it and was being helmed by Rohan Sippy. However, everything depended on a newcomer, Avantika Dassani, and boy did she deliver in spades. The writing of her character was absolutely diabolical, and the cold way in which she went about the misty mountains of Darjeeling executing...

Actor turned director-producer Parambrata Chatterjee is riding high with an impressive body of work and juggling between projects with equal enthusiasm. This year the prolific actor-filmmaker Parambrata Chatterjee will be keeping busy throughout the year with a number of movies in his kitty and become one busy actor in 2024, shooting for several films, web series for different Ott platforms and directing and producing movies at the same time.

The multi talented actor was juggling between shoots and packed schedules hopping from one city to another in 2023 and we thought the actor will seem a little free in 2024, as he was working back to back schedules for his various projects in 2023 But the multi talented actor Parambrata Chatterjee has a busy year ahead and is living every actor’s dream.

Parambrata currently has some interesting line up of films in his kitty and year 2024, will be the busiest year for Parambrata...

Mumbai, Nov 7 (Ians) Actor Vipin Sharma, who has made his debut as a writer with crime-detective series ‘Pi Meena’, called it the most surreal experience of his life.

The actor is known for his performances in ‘Taare Zameen Par’, ‘Paan Singh Tomar’, ‘Guns & Gulaabs’, and ‘Sirf Ek Bandaa Kaafi Hai’.

Talking about his dual role in the series, Vipin said: “Working on Pi Meena has been one of the most surreal experiences of my life. There was no virus in sight while we were writing it. I constantly thought about the Spanish flu and other pandemics and thought all that was never going to happen to us. It was so far in the past.”

“And then by the time we were around the last episode the virus struck and what I thought was fiction started to become an ugly, horrific reality. The shoot began during the second wave. I had just returned from Indonesia,...

Mumbai, Nov 7 (Ians) Actor Vipin Sharma, who has made his debut as a writer with crime-detective series ‘Pi Meena’, called it the most surreal experience of his life.

The actor is known for his performances in ‘Taare Zameen Par’, ‘Paan Singh Tomar’, ‘Guns & Gulaabs’, and ‘Sirf Ek Bandaa Kaafi Hai’.

Talking about his dual role in the series, Vipin said: “Working on Pi Meena has been one of the most surreal experiences of my life. There was no virus in sight while we were writing it. I constantly thought about the Spanish flu and other pandemics and thought all that was never going to happen to us. It was so far in the past.”

“And then by the time we were around the last episode the virus struck and what I thought was fiction started to become an ugly, horrific reality. The shoot began during the second wave. I had just returned from Indonesia,...

P.I. Meena, a mystery thriller directed by Debaloy Bhattacharya, is currently streaming on Amazon Prime. Cradling a story in the nooks and crannies of Kolkata, the series revolves around a young private investigator, Meenakshi Iyer, who has been trying to unravel the reasons behind a murder. In trying to dig up the truth, she faces many perils, making her stand at crossroads where she has to decide whether to continue with the investigation or not. Why was Meena so keen on finding out the murderers? Will she decide to continue with her investigations? Will she finally succeed? There are many questions that pop up, and these can only be resolved if we stick around till the 8th and final episode of P.I. Meena. The amazing acting skills of Tanya Maniktala, Parambrata Chatterjee, Jisshu Sengupta, and others add a new flavor to P.I. Meena. Let us take a deep look...

The first week of November is a visual delight for the audience, as the digital platforms are offering a myriad of exciting titles, which will leave the viewers ecstatic. From the extended version of Shah Rukh Khan starrer ‘Jawan’, to Sushmita Sen’s ‘Aarya 3’, to the Indian reboot of the fun-filled nostalgic game ‘Takeshi’s Castle’, here is a list of six titles on various Ott platforms that have caught the attention of Ians this week.

‘Jawan’:

Shah Rukh Khan-starrer action packed pan-India film ‘Jawan’ will be streaming now with its extended version. The movie has enthralled audiences across the globe with its gripping plot, brilliantly choreographed action sequences, “masaledaar” (hard-hitting) dialogues and enticing acting prowess.

The flick stars Srk in a dual role, alongside Nayanthara, Vijay Sethupathi, Deepika Padukone (billed as a special appearance), Priyamani and Sanya Malhotra. It is a Red Chillies Entertainment presentation, directed by Atlee, Produced...

The first week of November is a visual delight for the audience, as the digital platforms are offering a myriad of exciting titles, which will leave the viewers ecstatic. From the extended version of Shah Rukh Khan starrer ‘Jawan’, to Sushmita Sen’s ‘Aarya 3’, to the Indian reboot of the fun-filled nostalgic game ‘Takeshi’s Castle’, here is a list of six titles on various Ott platforms that have caught the attention of Ians this week.

‘Jawan’:

Shah Rukh Khan-starrer action packed pan-India film ‘Jawan’ will be streaming now with its extended version. The movie has enthralled audiences across the globe with its gripping plot, brilliantly choreographed action sequences, “masaledaar” (hard-hitting) dialogues and enticing acting prowess.

The flick stars Srk in a dual role, alongside Nayanthara, Vijay Sethupathi, Deepika Padukone (billed as a special appearance), Priyamani and Sanya Malhotra. It is a Red Chillies Entertainment presentation, directed by Atlee, Produced...

The upcoming series ‘P.I Meena’ has unveiled its trailer and it boasts of a dark, and intriguing, narrative, showing itself to be hardcore and intense detective drama. Following a murder made to look like an accident, actress Tanya Maniktala’s character of Meena, a private investigator, ends up encountering something far more dangerous.

Meena is a private investigator and while a brilliant detective as alluded to by the trailer, the cases that she has been handling have been rather menial for her, or at least not satisfactory to her at all.

One day, Meena ends up encountering a case, which may just become for her the case of a lifetime.

The synopsis of the series states: “A young private investigator is the eyewitness of a road accident. A young man is hit by a speeding truck. Happens all the time. Or, does it?

“An existential link to her troubled past...

The upcoming series ‘P.I Meena’ has unveiled its trailer and it boasts of a dark, and intriguing, narrative, showing itself to be hardcore and intense detective drama. Following a murder made to look like an accident, actress Tanya Maniktala’s character of Meena, a private investigator, ends up encountering something far more dangerous.

Meena is a private investigator and while a brilliant detective as alluded to by the trailer, the cases that she has been handling have been rather menial for her, or at least not satisfactory to her at all.

One day, Meena ends up encountering a case, which may just become for her the case of a lifetime.

The synopsis of the series states: “A young private investigator is the eyewitness of a road accident. A young man is hit by a speeding truck. Happens all the time. Or, does it?

“An existential link to her troubled past...

Director Debaloy Bhattacharya, who is all set for the release of his crime-detective series ‘P.I. Meena’, starring Tanya Maniktala in the lead, shared his fascination towards the genre, adding that it is a Herculean task to translate the pages of a script to the screens for the audience.

Debaloy is known for his directorial works like ‘Dracula Sir’, ‘Biday Byomkesh’, ‘Roga Howar Sohoj Upay’, ‘Montu Pilot’, ‘ Indubala Bhaater Hotel’, and ‘Dupur Thakurpo’ among others.

Talking about ‘P.I. Meena’, he said: “I have always been overtly drawn to, and enticed by investigative thrillers. With ‘P.I. Meena’ being my first Hindi project, I couldn’t have hoped for a better way to mark my foray into the space.”

“While it is the director’s job to bring a story to life, it is a Herculean task to translate the pages of a script to the screens of the audience. I am grateful...

Director Debaloy Bhattacharya, who is all set for the release of his crime-detective series ‘P.I. Meena’, starring Tanya Maniktala in the lead, shared his fascination towards the genre, adding that it is a Herculean task to translate the pages of a script to the screens for the audience.

Debaloy is known for his directorial works like ‘Dracula Sir’, ‘Biday Byomkesh’, ‘Roga Howar Sohoj Upay’, ‘Montu Pilot’, ‘ Indubala Bhaater Hotel’, and ‘Dupur Thakurpo’ among others.

Talking about ‘P.I. Meena’, he said: “I have always been overtly drawn to, and enticed by investigative thrillers. With ‘P.I. Meena’ being my first Hindi project, I couldn’t have hoped for a better way to mark my foray into the space.”

“While it is the director’s job to bring a story to life, it is a Herculean task to translate the pages of a script to the screens of the audience. I am grateful...

Director Nikkhil Advani has recalled the shooting experience for the second season of ‘Mumbai Diaries’. The directordescribed it as a dangerous thing. “We had quite a shooting experience this season, it was surely a dangerous thing. The production design of the set had scaffolding everywhere, and one of the particular scenes involved Konkona being trapped in a room flooded in water. To ensure that she had something to hold onto, we literally strapped her to the scaffolding kept in the room,” he said.

Nikkhiladded: “And while we were inside the room, shooting and filling it up with water, we didn’t realise the amount of pressure it was exerting on the walls. We had to jump out of the set as the walls were beginning to give away. All in all, it was all cool and full of adventure, surely making it a fun shooting experience too.”

Created and Directed...

Director Nikkhil Advani has recalled the shooting experience for the second season of ‘Mumbai Diaries’. The directordescribed it as a dangerous thing. “We had quite a shooting experience this season, it was surely a dangerous thing. The production design of the set had scaffolding everywhere, and one of the particular scenes involved Konkona being trapped in a room flooded in water. To ensure that she had something to hold onto, we literally strapped her to the scaffolding kept in the room,” he said.

Nikkhiladded: “And while we were inside the room, shooting and filling it up with water, we didn’t realise the amount of pressure it was exerting on the walls. We had to jump out of the set as the walls were beginning to give away. All in all, it was all cool and full of adventure, surely making it a fun shooting experience too.”

Created and Directed...

Actor Mohit Raina, who is currently receiving a lot of positive response to his recently second season of the streaming show ‘Mumbai Diaries’, has shared his ordeal when he was stuck in the Mumbai rains of July 26, 2005.

The second season of the show showcases the struggles faced by the medical fraternity in the fictional Bombay General Hospital as the city suffers a deluge.

Talking about the same, Mohit said, “I had gone to Chembur to a college for a relative who had come to Mumbai for admission. While returning from Chembur, I got stuck at Mumbai’s Carter Road area as heavy rains lashed the city”.

He further mentioned, “As the water started swelling up, I took refuge from the rains in a cafe and was stuck there for 3 days.”

When his ‘Mumbai Diaries’ co-actor Shreya Dhanwanthary interjected in a jest asking, “Why didn’t you swim back?”

Mohit replied laughingly,...

Actor Mohit Raina, who is currently receiving a lot of positive response to his recently second season of the streaming show ‘Mumbai Diaries’, has shared his ordeal when he was stuck in the Mumbai rains of July 26, 2005.

The second season of the show showcases the struggles faced by the medical fraternity in the fictional Bombay General Hospital as the city suffers a deluge.

Talking about the same, Mohit said, “I had gone to Chembur to a college for a relative who had come to Mumbai for admission. While returning from Chembur, I got stuck at Mumbai’s Carter Road area as heavy rains lashed the city”.

He further mentioned, “As the water started swelling up, I took refuge from the rains in a cafe and was stuck there for 3 days.”

When his ‘Mumbai Diaries’ co-actor Shreya Dhanwanthary interjected in a jest asking, “Why didn’t you swim back?”

Mohit replied laughingly,...

Mumbai Diaries Season 2 (Prime Video)

Starring Konkona Sen Sharma, Mohit Raina, Tina Desai, Shreya Dhanwanthary, Satyajeet Dubey, Natasha Bharadwaj, Mrunmayee Deshpande, Prakash Belawadi, Parambrata Chattopadhyay, Riddhi Dogra

Directed by Nikhil Advani

Overlooking the rather strange lacuna in the timeline whereby the second season moves from the terror attack of 26/11/2008 to the monsoonal deluge of 26/7/2005, Mumbai Diaries part 2 is a more intricately sketched portrayal of a city under siege than part 1 which suffered from under-developed characters and over-informed plot developments.

By now we know who’s who at the Bombay General Hospital. They need no introduction, and their function within the disembodied domain of injury and trauma is clearly aligned to the crisis on hand. There is more of Konkona Sen Sharma’s Chitra Das this time than Mohit Raina’s Dr Kaushik Oberoi, the head of trauma who seems pretty traumatized himself.

There are tons of trauma to be negotiated...

Bengali-language focused streamer Hoichoi has unveiled a 24-strong slate on the occasion of its sixth anniversary of operations.

The platform has seen a 40% surge in direct subscriptions and a 60% rise in individual watch time per subscriber compared to 2022, Hoichoi said. The streamer’s monthly active users have doubled, it said. Apart from India and Bangladesh, its footprint is across Southeast Asia, the Middle East, U.S. and U.K. and international subscriber revenues have increased by 40%. The average engagement time per active user is 59 minutes.

The streamer is introducing a new segment Best of Bengal and a new addition to its World Classics strand, which will feature literary adaptations from Bengal and the rest of the world, respectively.

Hoichoi recently established a partnership with Mukesh Ambani’s Jio Cinema for its Hindi-dubbed content. One of the key strategic initiatives for the year ahead will involve exploring opportunities to

make content...

Mumbai, Sep 29 (Ians) The trailer of the upcoming second season of the medical drama streaming series ‘Mumbai Diaries’ was unveiled on Friday. The second season begins months after the events of season one as the staff at Bombay General Hospital has to confront a new set of challenges brought about by a day of torrential rain.

The trailer shows the events following the heavy deluge caused by incessant rains in the maximum city of Mumbai and how the medical infrastructure at Bombay General Hospital – a government hospital deals with it in the face of limited resources.

The staff at Bombay General Hospital once again needs to put aside their personal issues; some of which threaten to destroy them, their relationships and their very futures, to help a city survive. They will have to come to terms with past demons and present circumstances to try and stay afloat and do what they do best – save lives.

The trailer of the upcoming second season of the medical drama streaming series ‘Mumbai Diaries’ was unveiled on Friday. The second season begins months after the events of season one as the staff at Bombay General Hospital has to confront a new set of challenges brought about by a day of torrential rain.

The trailer shows the events following the heavy deluge caused by incessant rains in the maximum city of Mumbai and how the medical infrastructure at Bombay General Hospital – a government hospital deals with it in the face of limited resources.

The staff at Bombay General Hospital once again needs to put aside their personal issues; some of which threaten to destroy them, their relationships and their very futures, to help a city survive. They will have to come to terms with past demons and present circumstances to try and stay afloat and do what they do best – save lives.

Sujoy Ghosh’s Netflix original film “Jaane Jaan,” headlined by Bollywood royalty Kareena Kapoor Khan, has become the number one non-English film globally for the streamer. With 8.1 million views, the Hindi-language film is also in the Top 10 in 52 countries.

“Jaane Jaan” is the Indian adaptation of Japanese author Higashino Keigo’s bestselling 2005 novel “The Devotion of Suspect X.” It follows a single mother and her daughter who commit a crime and a neighbor who helps them cover it up amidst a police investigation. The cast also includes Jaideep Ahlawat (“Paatal Lok”) and Vijay Varma (“Dahaad”).

“I am so excited and thrilled to hear that the film has reached number 1 globally in the non-English section and is currently trending in 52 countries,” Kapoor Khan told Variety. “My Ott [streaming] debut with Netflix and working on a film like ‘Jaane Jaan’ has been so rewarding. The reactions, messages from fans and audiences around the...

The public’s interest in both crime and drama isn’t confined to any one border or culture. Nowhere is that more evident than on Netflix. Thanks to its impressively deep roster of global titles, Netflix is home to an equally impressive list of crime drama series from the U.S., U.K., and beyond.

It’s such an impressive list, in fact, that it can be pretty daunting to anyone who is just looking for a decent show to stream past the first couple of clicks and scrollthroughs. To help those intrepid crime drama watchers out, we’ve compiled a list of some of the hidden gems you can find on Netflix.

Read on to discover the 11 titles – three of which hail from the U.S., three from the U.K., two from India, two from South Korea, and one from Finland. We told you this was a global operation!

Parambrata Chattopadhyay is the latest actor to play Oscar-winning Indian master Satyajit Ray’s detective Prodosh Chandra Mitter Aka Feluda in streamer ZEE5 Global’s series “Shabash Feluda.”

Feluda first appeared in the Ray family’s Bengali-language magazine Sandesh in 1965. Ray directed two Feluda films, “The Golden Fortress” (1974) and “The Elephant God” (1978), where the Bengali detective was played by his frequent collaborator Soumitra Chatterjee. Feluda has subsequently been played by a range of Indian actors, including Shashi Kapoor, Abir Chatterjee, Tota Roy Chowdhury, Indraneil Sengupta and Bangladesh’s Ahmed Rubel.

The detective is part of the fabric of growing up in West Bengal and Bangladesh, akin to what Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot or Miss Marple used to be for several generations in the west.

Chattopadhyay first interpreted the detective in 2017 for series “Feluda” for Bangladesh’s Bioscopelive which he directed and also played Feluda. “It was a very radical interpretation...

Ott platforms have not just changed the rules of the entertainment market, they have given, literally, a second life to Bollywood stars who had faded away from the public eye for quite some time. Of late, a number of senior actors, who had virtually retired from the industry or had limited theatrical releases, are now being reinvented and getting a hugely positive response to their work, courtesy of streaming platforms.

Here’s a list of nine actors who are back in the reckoning in their second innings because of Ott:

Harman Baweja

The actor made his debut with the 2008 release “Love Story 2050”, directed by his father Harry Baweja, and charmed the audience with his dancing skills (and little else!), but he was dismissed by all as the poor man’s Hrithik Roshan.

Hansal Mehta’s streaming series “Scoop”, which sees a no-longer-chocolate-boy Harman back in action as Joint Commissioner...

South Asian focused streamer ZEE5 has unveiled a 111-strong 2023 slate on the occasion of its fifth anniversary.

The lineup is across the Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Bangla, Punjabi and Marathi languages. The content is from top producers including Dharma Productions, Salman Khan Films, Oscar winner Guneet Monga’s Sikhya Entertainment, Bhanushali Studios, The Viral Fever, Applause Entertainment, Rose Audio Visuals, Vikas Bahl, Vivek Agnihotri, Nagraj Manjule and Sudhir Mishra.

A-list performers in the shows and films include Manoj Bajpayee, Pankaj Tripathi, Huma Qureshi, Arya, Parambrata Chatterjee, Vijay Sethupathi, Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Radhika Apte.

Titles revealed so far include films and series including Manoj Bajpayee’s “Sirf Ek Bandaa Kaafi Hai”; Nawazuddin Siddiqui’s “Haddi” and “Love is Blind,” Pankaj Tripathi’s “Kadak Singh”; Huma Qureshi’s “Tarla”; Sunny Deol’s “Gadar 2”; Vetrimaaran and Vijay Sethupathi’s “Viduthalai – Part 1”; Arya’s “Kathar Basha Endra Muthuramalingam”; Nagraj Manjule...

Actress Swastika Mukherjee, who was recently seen in the streaming movie ‘Qala’, has alleged that she received threatening emails from the co-producer Sandeep Sarkar of upcoming Bengali film ‘Shibpur’ and his associates.

She was allegedly informed that her pictures have been morphed and these images will be shared on pornography websites. Shocked at such a turn of events, the actress has filed a complaint with regards to sexual harassment at Golf Green Police Station in Kolkata.

The actress has also reportedly reached out to the Eastern India Motion Pictures Association, along with the scanned copies of these threat mails. While clarifying the nature of her association with the producer, the actor mentioned that she had never met the producer while shooting for ‘Shibpur’.

As per media reports, while the co-producer’s legal representative has denied his involvement in any such act they have also said that the actress took the...

Actor Ritwik Bhowmik shared that he feels like he has been “promoted” in his acting career while talking about his character in the series ‘Jehanabad – Of Love & War’. Ritwik appeared as a celebrity guest on ‘The Kapil Sharma Show’ along with Harshita Gaur, Parambrata Chatterjee, and Sudhir Mishra to promote his web series.

During the conversation with the host, he talked about his experience of playing a professor in the series as opposed to a student which he has always been seen playing otherwise.

Ritwik, who is known for his works in ‘Bandish Bandits’, ‘The Whistleblower’, ‘Modern Love Mumbai’, among others, said: “I definitely think it is a promotion for me. Also, by watching the audience’s reaction, I think it’s good progress from a student to a professor with respect to my characters. I am honestly enjoying this. It’s always exciting for actors to play...

Mumbai, Feb 21 (Ians) Actor Ritwik Bhowmik, who has received a lot of positive response for his recently released streaming show ‘Jehanabad – Of Love & War’, has said that he doesn’t put too much of himself in the parts that he plays for the screen.

Furnishing the reason behind the same, the actor said that he is still too young to let his political or value system imbue into a character so, he goes by the word of the director or a writer as he trusts their judgement better given their grip on the overall narrative.

The actor told Ians, “I as a young actor come with a very limited set of life experiences to put into a character. For me, the extent of me putting myself into a character is my height, my voice, my colour – basically the instrument of my body”.

He further mentioned that the characters...

Singapore-based film marketing and distribution firm Continental Entertainment Pte. Ltd. (Cepl), which holds global distribution rights for Bangladeshi auteur Mostofa Sarwar Farooki’s “Saturday Afternoon,” will release the film in the U.S. and Canada through Reliance Entertainment.

The Bengali-and-English-language film takes its cue from the brutal terrorist attack on the Holey Artisan Bakery in Dhaka in 2016, which took place on a quiet Saturday afternoon and left more than 20 people dead. It had considerable festival play, winning awards at Fukuoka, Moscow and Vesoul.

The film was initially banned and had finally been cleared for release in January after a four year struggle with the Bangladesh Film Censor Board. However Bangladesh’s Ministry of Information and Broadcasting appears to have taken a U turn and the situation remains fluid. Consequently, the film will open in the U.S. and Canada on March 10 before its Bangladesh release. It will also be released...

Bangladeshi auteur Mostofa Sarwar Farooki’s “Saturday Afternoon” has finally been cleared for release after a four year struggle with the Bangladesh Film Censor Board.

The Bengali-and-English-language film takes its cue from the brutal terrorist attack on the Holey Artisan Bakery in Dhaka in 2016, which took place on a quiet Saturday afternoon and left more than 20 people dead. It had considerable festival play, winning awards at Fukuoka, Moscow and Vesoul.

However, the Bangladesh Film Censor Board banned the film. “The board did not sanction permission for the movie’s exhibition, both at home or abroad, as it would disrupt internal security and also tarnish the country’s global image,” the censor board’s then vice chairman Nizamul Kabir had told Afp.

Farooki began a long campaign to get the film cleared for release. Meanwhile, he also made his next film, “No Land’s Man.” The efforts intensified when it emerged that Hansal Mehta’s “Faraaz,...

The (sub)genre that has been carrying Japanese cinema to the international stage for years, was one of the main components of the explosion of Korean cinema during the last decades, and has given some of the most iconic Hong Kong titles, is not other than the serial killer movie. In this list, we tried to include some of the most memorable titles that include the particular type of murderers in their scripts, in a list, that as you can see, is filled with masterpieces, not only from the aforementioned countries, but also from India, China, Iran, Indonesia and the Philippines.

Without further ado, here are 35 Great Asian Serial Killer Moviers, in alphabetical order.

1. Baishe Srabon

For those who associate Bengali cinema just with Satyajit Ray, it should be a must-watch. A captivating neo-noir crime thriller that combines formulaic genre elements with subtleties for nerdy bookworms. We have two cops,...