A character introduction video of Srijit Mukherji’s much anticipated film Killbill Society was dropped on social media channels on Saturday, sending virtual ripples of excitement among Bengali film audiences and diehard Srijit fans alike.
Expected to be a spin-off from Mukherji’s Hemlock Society, the video introduces the central protagonist played by Parambrata Chattopadhyay. Named Mrityunjoy Kar instead of Ananda (joy in English) Kar, as he was called in the earlier film, the play with words in the name is typical of Mukherji’s style and a symbolic indicator of Parambrata’s role in Killbill Society. The less-than-one-minute sequence of shots attempts to build a world that appears illusory and surreal. Parambrata’s character reveal comes as a bit of a shock. For a part of the video, he resembles his character in Hemlock Society, but towards the end he appears with a shaven head and wearing gold-rimmed spectacles, with a face that looks unusually bloated, blank and devoid of emotions. Images of a rope tied into a noose, razor blades, or bottles of poison and sleeping pills, added to Parambrata’s monologue which has distinct ominous undertones, suggest that he is now a professional agent of death. It ends with a cold-blooded murder of a woman who is shot in the forehead at close range by Mrityunjoy with a pistol. The assassin’s nonchalance after the crime, accompanied by the strains of the popular Anupam Roy number from Hemlock Society, Ekhon onek raat, which is perhaps deliberately sung in a sad, jarring, tuneless manner, is enough to give you goosebumps.
Bringing together the unbeatable combination of Parambrata, Anupam and Srijit once again after a hiatus of 13 years, Killbill Society promises to offer unlimited thrills and excitement to viewers, along with some vintage Srijit stuff like a compelling narrative full of unconventional situations, clever dialogues, delicious turns of phrases, and perhaps also a twist in the tail.
With its story, screenplay and dialogues also written by Srijit Mukherji and starring Koushani Mukherjee, Biswanath Basu and Anindya Chatterjee in other pivotal roles, Killbill Society has an April 11 release date.
