An animated character of Prabhas from ‘Bujji aur Bhairava’ | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
The year is 2896 AD, and the setting is the futuristic, albeit dystopian, city of Kashi. Bhairav is a bounty hunter and BU-JZI is the AI pilot of a cargo ship. The two face setbacks on their journey and an unlikely partnership blossoms, setting the stage for adventure. Two episodes of the animation series, streaming on Amazon Prime Video B&B: Bujji and Bhairava Director Nag Ashwin’s great science fiction Telugu film has a prologue Kalki 2898 ADIt is scheduled to release worldwide on June 27. The film, which stars Prabhas, Deepika Padukone, Amitabh Bachchan and Kamal Haasan, has been shot for over four years.
While we usually see spin-off animation series that attempt to make money off of a successful film, as is the case with Indian animation series Bahubali Films, Team Kalki has presented a series as a prologue. The two episodes, each a little over 14 minutes long, establish the world KalkiThe disparity between the rich and the poor is evident; currency is measured in units, and real food has nearly disappeared. In one scene, a character sees a can of pineapples and comments that there is finally real food.
The events take place in 2896, two years before the film. Bhairava (voiced by Prabhas) is shown as a neighbourhood hero who is frustrated and disappointed and desperately hopes to do something big. Biu-Jezzi or Bujji (voiced by Keerthy Suresh) hopes to get promoted after her 100th mission and enter the privileged place ‘The Complex’. The introduction of Bhairava and Bujji and how they form an unlikely alliance is narrated with a good dose of humour. B&B This is far from a serious, weird science fiction animation.
The highlight of the series is veteran actor Brahmanandam’s animated character; his interactions with Bhairava are fun to watch. The episodes are also full of pop culture references – from recent movies to Jati Ratnalu From Chiranjeevi’s iconic dialogues to references to old tunes as well as Brahmanandam’s hilarious repartee from previous blockbuster films.
Underneath this humour, the animated series by Nag Ashwin with Green Gold Animation takes the audience through the dystopian city, its vast scrapyard and the possibilities of building robotic machines from scratch. A few days ago, amid nearly 20,000 fans at Ramoji Film City in Hyderabad, production house Vaijayanti Films unveiled the custom-made car Bujji. In this prologue, we get an idea of how Bhairava would have designed the car driven by Bujji and get a glimpse of some other characters, including the one played by Pashupati.
The series will have two more episodes, which will be streamed after the theatrical release of the film Kalki 2898 AD
(‘B&B: Bujji & Bhairava’ is streaming on Amazon Prime Video in Telugu, Hindi and Spanish)
