Gangs of Wasseypur II

Opening with the fallout from the assassination of patriarch Sardar Khan (Manoj Bajpai), the second instalment of Anurag Kashyap's period gangster epic then follows Khan's reluctant warlord son Faizal (Nawazuddin Siddiqui) as he seeks vengeance. However, simmering away in the background is a subplot involving the dead man's jilted mistress (Reemaa Sen) and her loyal son (Zieshan Quadri) who seek to play the Khan and the Qureshi clans off against each other. They have the protection of puppet-master politician Ramadhir Singh (Tigmanshu Dhulia), who jokes that he has survived so long because he takes his lessons from life, not Bollywood movies. As in the first film, Kashyap gleefully blends Indian and American tropes, but the carnage is much more influenced here by Quentin Tarantino and Hong Kong's "heroic bloodshed" genre. With the plot being much less sprawling and convoluted, there is also more time for musical interludes and comic digressions. While less demanding than its predecessor, this still makes for highly cinematic, satisfying viewing.