The Indian film industry has not explored the superhero genre as much as Hollywood. Some Hindi-language projects like “Krrish” and “Ra.One” have tried their luck in this genre, but despite their commercial success, they have not quite broken the barrier for the genre to thrive. More recently, “Minnal Murali,” a Malayalam-language film, introduced a superhero with a story more grounded in the local culture. Four years later, writer-director Dominic Arun brings another such project through his “Lokah Chapter One: Chandra,” introducing Kalyani Priyadarshan as vampiric Chandra. It blends elements of fantasy and folklore along with some vampire horror ones in its action spectacle. Still, it leaves Chandra as a sufficiently enigmatic character for a potential follow-up project to explore further.
Spoilers Ahead
Lokah Chapter 1: Chandra (2025) Plot Summary & Movie Synopsis:
“Lokah Chapter 1: Chandra” centres around Chandra, an age-old vampire’s struggle to survive in a modern, morally bankrupt world, as she unwittingly gets into a battle against an organ trafficking scandal, with ties to the government employees.
What happens in Lokah Chapter 1: Chandra?
Dominic Arun’s fantasy superhero movie, “Lokah Chapter 1: Chandra,” follows Chandra (Kalyani Priyadarshan), originally named Neeli, who moves to an Indian city as part of her transitory life. She is a centuries-old, immortal vampire who has been on the run since her childhood, growing up in the wilderness. Back then, she was just a young girl, living with her parents and a community raising itself in the middle of the woods. Some things brought a local king to the place of their community, where he killed Neeli’s parents. As it was happening, two guards blocked her attempts at helping them in any shape or form. That’s the first time people got a glimpse of her enormous strength.
Even at her young age, Neeli pushed two grown men behind without much effort. She then proceeded to a battle with the king’s cronies, eventually getting stabbed in the chest. People assumed that she had died like her parents, but she woke up without a trace of any of her wounds. She ran away while the contemporary authorities tried to get a hold of her. Unable to locate her on their own, they hired someone to do the deed. However, it did not go as planned since the person hired for the various jobs decided to protect her.
By the time she became a young adult, he had seemingly helped her with her immortality. That’s likely when her journey began as a vampire. In the present, she is known as Chandra, living in an apartment in Southern India, while holding on to her secret identity. It doesn’t take long for someone in the local community to realize who she actually is.
How does Sunny learn about Chandra’s true identity?
In the beginning, Sunny (Naslen) doesn’t realize that Chandra is a vampire. He considers her a potential love interest after being smitten by her presence. He meets her briefly when she saves him from a car accident. She pushes him back to avoid the accident, but vanishes by the time he comes back to his senses. No one realizes how he is alive, other than him, who sees her in that blink-and-you-will-miss-it moment. She does not take credit for saving him, but it’s seemingly enough for him to fall in love. His friends and flatmates, Venu (Chandu Salimkumar) and Naijil (Arun Kurian), boost his confidence to win her over. So, on the following night, he invites her to a party at his house.
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Someone complains about loud noises from their apartment, leading the cops to show up there. The cops notice them boozing and getting high, and consider it an opportunity for moral policing. They question everyone’s intentions simply because they were having fun in ways they don’t approve of. One of these cops, Nachiyappa Gowda (Sandy Master), shifts his focus to Chandra, but doesn’t nag her the way he does others. Gowda, as it turns out, is a dishonest and misogynistic officer of law who uses his position of authority to engage in unethical activities. One of them is organ trafficking, which the film implies he has ties to.
Chandra falls into that trap by accident. It happens when Sunny follows her to locate Naijil, who went missing after the party. Naijil implied that he was going to Chandra’s house. That’s why Sunny follows her. The same night, a bunch of goons try to kidnap her. Sunny sees it happen, but can’t stop them. A few hours later, he realizes Chandra’s truth.
Lokah Chapter 1: Chandra (2025) Movie Ending Explained:
Do Sunny and Chandra survive the fight?
The goons drive Chandra to a remote location to take advantage of her, but she fights back and kills them. Sunny, who sees it from a distance, gets a first look at her superpowers. That night, he is obliged to join her in getting rid of those dead bodies. He sees her jump from a tall building as if it’s nothing. Later, at her apartment, he sees her getting bruised by a stroke of sunlight. She regains her powers by drinking blood stored in her apartment. If not for the high jump or her athletic powers, he might as well have assumed she was just another killer, but she clears his confusion and tells him that she is, in fact, ‘yakshi’, a vampiric entity.
As their love blossoms, she reveals that he resembles a man who once risked his life to protect her. It, however, does not save her from another doomed romance, because just when things start getting better, Officer Gowda makes it worse. He breaks into her apartment while she is away and finds blood pockets in her fridge. Soon, she returns and gets into a fight, biting him on his arm. That’s how he receives her supernatural abilities, but also her weaknesses. Before jumping out of her apartment, he shoots Sunny, leaving her to save his life. She carries him to an abandoned hospital to heal him.
The authorities consider her a threatening presence. So, they send a group of mercenaries to find her. In the end, Chathan (Tovino Thomas), presumably one of her past lovers, shows up to help her. He does everything in his power to stop the cronies, but Chandra is left with dealing with superpowered Gowda, who threatens to kill Naijil. In their scuffle, Gowda stabs Venu and proceeds to fight Chandra, only to get beaten instead. She stabs him in his heart, which is considered his weakness as a vampire.
What does the film say about the use and misuse of power?
The ending shows Sunny leaving the crime scene to take Venu to a hospital. He says his final goodbye to Chandra before parting ways. After that, the final scene shows Dulquer Salmaan as an unnamed heroic assassin, fighting a group of bad guys. It might be teasing a potential follow-up chapter with Salmaan as another hero in this franchise. Regardless of that, the film has a core theme through a rudimentary critique of the use and misuse of power. Chandra wields her power for the common good, unlike Gowda, who is driven by his blinding selfishness and sense of entitlement. He does not treat his female superior with respect, let alone any woman around him.
Gowda behaves as if the world revolves around him and is in service to please him or assume his authority. That’s why power in his hands becomes only a means to intimidate others, as opposed to Chandra, who wants to protect others or keep them away from any kind of harm. As Voltaire said before Marvel comics popularized it, “With great power comes great responsibility.”
