It is more like a 6.5. It's a good, raw, rustic period action adventure film. Ofcourse Dhanush's performance is great as usual and one of the main attractions of the film. Cinematography is nice. BGM is nice. Action is nice. Locations are nice. Technically the film stands strong. The portrayal of British is appropriately evil and surprisingly, the white actors do a great job. The performances are all solid. But the plot itself causes an emotional disconnect. Overall, it is a well made film. I don't mind the depiction of casteism in post-colonial India but I can't get behind this narrative of Indian "upper-caste" kings enslaving the tribals/"lower-caste" people and not allowing them to enter the temples built by them before British. Actually, before British, there were Mughals/Is.lamic invaders.

Easa basically compares the brutality of British colonialism to being enslaved by Hindu kings and questions who will actually get the independence from the British if they joined the independence movement. The word caste comes from Portuguese. British race scientist Herbert Hope Risley is notable for the formal application of the caste system to the entire Hindu population of British India in the 1901 census, of which he was in charge. As an exponent of scientific racism, he used anthropometric data to divide Indians into seven races. The villagers oppressed by "upper-caste" Indians win when they are able to enter the temple after Miller kills one nasty, sadist "upper-caste" Indian who couldn't bear the villagers stepping inside the temple. In the epilogue, we are led to believe that the "upper-caste" rulers along with the pie.ce of sh.it sycophant who managed to escape want to take revenge against Captain Miller for the king's death. I don't want to see more sadist brown sepoys, casteist rulers against tribals during peak colonial India. In movies like these, there should not be any Indian villains. The only villains should be the British like in RRR. At least this movie is much better than Shamshera. I loved Captain Miller kil.ling all the British men. Imagine a movie set during Na.zi Germany where some Je.ws are conspiring with the Na.zis and then we get a franchise about Je.ws vs Je.ws.

Dhanush's performance might be the highlight, but the story being told in chapters seems unnecessary. GV Prakash made an effort, but some plot points didn't connect well. Certain characters lacked significance, making most scenes predictable. The film tries to recreate moments from Asuran, but they don't evoke the same emotional impact. The screenplay becomes tedious midway through, leaving me without anticipation for the second part. It's not a must-see, but if you have time, you can give it a shot, just don't have high expectations. I feel that Priya Armughhalam's character development fell short, hopefully, the director will make up for it in future episodes.