Bidipta Chakraborty and Rudranil Ghosh and (below) cinematographer Soumik Halder and director Birsa Dasgupta with Prince the Alsatian. photographs: Anil Grover

It may seem youthful indulgence, but it’s all about the passion too. No, we’re not leading you to the storyline of this Sunday’s telefilm, titled as briefly as K (Karan Johar and Rakesh Roshan must be chewing their nails for missing on this one), or to the neurotic characters played by the lead pair, Bidipta Chakraborty and Rudranil Ghosh.

To clarify the second point first, K is the code name of Rudranil who plays a topnotch contract killer hired to bump off an actress in her mid-30s who could have been a star when she was younger but for a mishap in her recent past. K has this strange habit of chronicling the incidents and episodes of his life on a rickety typewriter and has a ‘confidant’ in Billy, his Alsatian (a lovely specimen of ‘human canine’ named Prince in real life). The use of an animal in such a pivotal role; a ‘first’.

Bidipta has a frightening past, suffers from delirium, is erratic, alcoholic and heavy smoker, yet “awfully sensuous and lovable”, as Birsa describes her character. “She has a son born not out of love but greed, seven years of age, myopic....” The boy is played by Megh Majumdar, son of singer-actor Shilajit, who debuts as an actor with K.

Then, the first point: the youthful indulgence and passion we were struck by was Birsa Dasgupta’s. Son of well-known director Raja Dasgupta and grandson of the veteran filmmaker Harisadhan Dasgupta, Birsa comes with more than an unusual first name. To our knowledge, he’s the first third-generation filmmaker in Tollywood. Going into a complex treatment (story: Birsa Dasgupta and Anshuman Chakraborty), using cinema equipment rather than television, setting up stylised visual sequences (camera: Soumik Halder), going heavily over-budget, and stylistically getting into the skin of a Tarantino or Polanski — the final product will show it all. And observing the making of this highly stylised telefilm, one can safely say that Bidipta’s performance will go down as one of the most stunning seen on television here. In fact, the title ought to have been Ms K.

The film shows how the Calcutta killing industry operates and whether Tollywood is also controlled by the underworld. And Birsa, full of passion, “guarantees it will be the first of its kind” in Bengali television.

“So, is it a whodunit? Is it a saga of weird and wonderful passion? Or is there a serious twist in the tale?” Birsa asks energetically. Then, letting out a short breath and an answer to his own question: “I’m not telling.”