Further Afield: Vasan Bala's The Man Who Feels No Pain (2018)

To many, they will have a pre-conceived notion in regards to Indian cinema, thinking that they are mostly full of overblown song and dance numbers. While this argument could certainly be levied at some of Indian cinema, it still has its own share of finely crafted action entertainment.

More recent efforts, such as Baahubali: The Beginning (2015), Raees (2017) and Tiger Zinda Hai (2017), all feature finely choreographed action scenes on par with most Hollywood efforts. This brings us to The Man Who Feels No Pain (2018), a vibrant and quirky action movie featuring a plethora of well designed fight scenes that should bring a smile to the face of even the most jaded viewers.

Featuring newcomer Abhimanyu Dassani as Surya, a young man born with congenital analgesia, a rare condition which causes him to feel no pain. After the death of his mother at the hands of thieves, Surya (played as a child by Sartaaj Kakkar) is brought up by his over protective father Jatin (Jimit Trivedi) and his grandfather Aajoba (Mahesh Manjrekar). Constantly being bullied at school, his only ally is his neighbour Supri (Riva Arora), who always comes to his rescue.

In order to protect himself, Surya’s grandfather begins to show him VHS tapes of violent martial arts films. In amongst these tapes is a demonstration video of a one legged karate master called Mani (Gulshan Devaiah), who takes on 100 men. This inspires the young Surya to stand up to his bullies.

Unfortunately his first attempt at standing up to a bully involves Supri’s abusive father. This action leads to Surya and his family being evicted from their apartment and having to move away, with Surya and Supri not seeing each other for over a decade. During their time apart, Surya trains himself in martial arts by watching the numerous video tapes his grandfather has given him.

We then fast forward some years, with Surya still acting like a child due to his over protective father keeping him indoors for years. When he is finally allowed to venture outside, he is quickly re-united with the now adult Supri (Radhika Madan), although they do not instantly recognise each other.

Supri is putting up posters advertising Surya’s idol, Karate Mani, but gets distracted by a gang trying to kidnap a young girl. Supri is quick to intervene, showing off her own considerable martial arts skills. Surya tries to assist, but through a misunderstanding, Supri mistakes him for being part of the gang.

Later Surya tries to track down Karate Mani, only to find his school destroyed and Mani lying on the floor unconscious. After some other misunderstandings, Surya and Supri take the injured Mani to the hospital. Surya ends up left alone after Supri’s demanding boyfriend Atul (Satyajit Ganu) drags her away.

We later find out that Mani was attacked by his twin brother Jimmy, with the two having a long standing rivalry based on the fact that their father seemingly loved Mani more than Jimmy. And that Mani slept with Jimmy’s girlfriend.

Jimmy has now made it his duty to ruin not only his brother life, but also those his brother cares for. Surya decides to help Mani stand up to his brother, leading to a number of martial arts battles.

For only his second full length feature, director Vasan Bala has taken his love of martial arts and the film of Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan and the like to craft a beautifully realised homage to the films that he grew up on.

Similar in style and tone to the likes of Kick Ass (2010) and DeadPool (2016), with its mixture of comic book stylings and overblown characters, The Man Who Feels No Pain is one of the best action comedies to come out of India in some time.

In addition to directing, Bala wrote the screenplay, making sure that the story stays on the right sight of absurd. The Man Who Feels No Pain takes place in a kind of hyper reality, with it constantly poking fun at the many clichés prevalent in action cinema.

Leading man Abhimanyu Dassani makes a spellbinding debut as Surya. He apparently trained for three months in martial arts in preparation for his role. His dedication to the part has truly paid off, with him coming across as a fully-fledged action star.

The best of his action scenes find him fighting alongside co-stars Radhika Madan and Gulshan Devaiah, where they take on an entire office floor of security guards. There is also the action packed finale, which has a hilarious nod to Jackie Chans Who Am I (1998).

In addition to the action scenes, he is equally adept at the more comedic and dramatic scenes. Especially memorable is his relationship with his grandfather, with his eccentric philosophies on life shaping Surya into the man he becomes. Both Dassani and the great Mahesh Manjrekar have terrific chemistry together and share a more interesting relationship than Surya has with his father. This is not to diminish the work of Jimit Trivedi, as he too gets his chance to shine in some laugh out loud moments.

Radhika Madan who plays Supri does well in her supporting role, getting her own fair share of the action. Like Dassani, she comes across on screen as a natural fighter.

She gets some dramatic weight to her character, with Supri having a miserable family life. This is one area that isn't played for fun, even though in some respects her father and boyfriend are played like caricatures. Still, these broadly drawn characters are totally in line with the overall tone of the film.

Gulshan Devaiah has terrific fun in the dual role of Karate Mani/Jimmy, getting to be both hero and villain. As Jimmy he is hilariously over the top as the scenery chewing bad guy, with him killing his henchmen man over the slightest fault.

As Mani, he is involved in a great deal of the films action scenes. The fact he only has one leg doesn’t slow him down, with him violently beating down numerous opponents.

Devaiah had worked with director Vasan Bala before on his first movie, Peddlers (2012) but he is far better utilised this time round.

The inventive fight choreography is one of the films main strengths. Bringing in fight choreographer Eric Jacobus proved to be a work of genius. Each fight scene is creatively choreographed, including just the right amount of humour amongst the bone crunching action. However, Jacobus knows when to switch gears in favour of the story being told, with the fights becoming more real and perilous when required, although that important fun factor remains.

The action scenes have the lively feel of 1980's Hong Kong cinema at its best. This isn't surprising considering the involvement of Jacobus. Jacobus is one of the unsung heroes of the independent action scene. Having co-founded the Stunt people, an independent stunt team based out of California, he has went on to star, choreograph and direct numerous short movies.

He finally moved on to full length features, creating the fun Contour (2006) which was made on a shoestring budget but filled to the brim with impressive fight scenes.

More recently he starred in and directed the more adventurous Death Grip (2011), which one particular scene in The Man Who Feels No Pain emulates. The scene in question has Surya envisage how a fight will play out, only for the scene to be re-played to show the audience the true outcome.

Jacobus' star seems to be on the rise, with him not only starring in the acclaimed short movie Blindsided (2016) and its sequel, but additionally carrying out mo-cap work on video game God of War (2018), getting to portray iconic lead character Kratos as well as a host of other characters. Here's hoping his hard work leads to further high profile work.

The Man Who Feels No Pain is a breath of fresh air and terrific fun. Don’t let any pre conceived notions of Indian cinema stop you from catching this as soon as possible. With it now being widely available on Netflix there is no excuse to miss it.

Rating: 4/5