In this age of remakes and adaptations and loose inspirations, I automatically nurse a soft spot for originality. The moment I see a period production that’s not based on pre-existing mythology, literature, movies or true events, it’s like discovering a rare (and soon-to-be-extinct) animal or an uninhabited new island at the corner of the earth. The heart rate shoots up. The mind hopes. You mean world-building is the actual building of a world without blueprints? The characters and rules are conceived from scratch? The fiction is imagined out of thin air? Backstories are created? How is that possible?
Akka is a five-episode drama that unfolds in a matriarchal kingdom in 1980s South India. The last time I was so taken aback by the narrative ambition of a Hindi series, it was Mandala Murders (from the same studio). The result, however, is similar. It’s doubly distressing when you realise that such islands are uninhabitable — and undiscovered — for a reason. It probably looks all exotic and mysterious from a plane, but it’s an optical illusion; the clouds were just being naughty that day.
Akka is all themes and labels. It doesn’t stop flaunting said themes and labels. The painfully elaborate universe feels like a cover for fundamentally shaky storytelling. The kingdom of Pernuru is a high-literacy and prosperous city that was once ruled by the three sisters (‘Akkas’) of a king who vanished. Despite a government merger in the 1940s, it stays spiritually autonomous. The descendants of the queens now run Pernuru as three regions: Malemar (house of fields), Perplady (house of seas), and Herkada (house of mountains). No topography is spared. They monopolise state tenders for country liquor and gold. They bump off all grubby (male) competitors.
The story focuses on Bhavani (Keerthy Suresh), the gangster heiress of Malemar, who follows the traditions of the royal lineage to the T: no marriage, no inheriting the revered position of ‘Akka’ without an (adopted or biological) child, and no mainland interference. Nepotism rules. The role reversals are neat: the man she loves is introduced in her kitchen, and he refuses to have a child with her out of wedlock. The peace of Pernuru is disrupted when a cold-blooded siren named Rudra (Radhika Apte) — with troubled roots in this kingdom — arrives to smash the matriarchy and empower the bitter Ken dolls of the land. A bit of Barbie, a dash of Black Panther, a sprinkle of The Crown. Rudra, with the help of a wily outcast named Shankar Anna (Anshuman Pushkar), wreaks havoc in the ranks: as a hired agent of chaos and a vengeful ex-resident.
I get the novelty on paper, because it’s a war of gazes: the villainous vamp in slinky dresses v/s the warrior queen with unshakable principles. The problem is that Akka, a story about women who run the show, is a show run entirely by men. And it shows. Despite the design, the male gaze bleeds into the cracks; it cannot stop itself from fetishising — and constantly reminding the viewer of — the sheer ingenuity of the concept. Which suggests it’s written through the lens of 2026. Not a minute goes by without hearing the word “aurat” (woman) in different tones; not a scene goes by without exposition dumps about gender subversion posing as verbal jibes.
The flashy Rajat-Arora-coded dialogue is one of the main culprits. It keeps yanking us out of the world with hollow innuendos and one-liners. Is it nice to be a man in a woman’s world? This is the first time I’ve seen a man without manhood. Women like being on top, inside and outside the bedroom. Men prefer a ‘r*ndi’ (whore) and not a ‘rani’ (queen) in bed. Mother and sister slurs parade as crude wordplay (“beheno ke chakkar mein maa naa ch*d jaaye”). You get the gist. Just a barrage of linguistic puns posing as texture. At one point, a disgruntled man compares the blood sport of cockfighting to sex, before going on to explain the cringiest metaphor possible.
It’s almost as if the screenplay itself cannot fathom the setting. There’s a sense that — to offset the creativity of the theme — it settles for the conventional beats of a period actioner. Rudra’s plan isn’t foolproof, but it makes Bhavani look like a fairly incompetent leader; key characters keep getting murdered without any sudden spike in stakes and tension. The action sequences are unimaginatively staged; some resort to gore and violence just to keep the audience interested. The detailing is a hotchpotch of ethnic and religious elements. The background score belongs to a Survivor-style reality show. Two marginalised tribes play a key role, but their identity is weaponised into a loyal-versus-rebel divide.
The irony is lost on the makers: the good ones serve their mistresses and forgive old humiliations, while the bad ones dare to resent the royal family and fight for their own individualism. I like that Rudra preys on their rage, but the upper-caste-saviour syndrome is writ large across the narrative. Even though the series tries to salvage this angle towards the end, the damage is done.
The broader idea of Akka is to reveal how a matriarchal society is not woke or revolutionary by default. And that it’s prone to falling into the same patterns, pitfalls and prejudices of their patriarchal counterparts. Unfortunately, the treatment reflects this simplistic female-replacing-male template. Bhavani has her blind spots; the experience of coming up against a monster of her ancestors’ making forces her to rethink the shackles of tradition. But none of the subtext is allowed to breathe; the fictional history is spoon-fed through flat delivery and visuals, predictable conflicts and face-offs.
It often feels like the gender dynamics are more of a gag or a gimmick than a portrait of an alternate reality. It doesn’t help that the leads are reduced to a slew of slow-mo walks and smirking punchlines. The show sees Keerthy Suresh’s Bhavani differently than we do; it’s a meaty role, but one that remains hostage to the ‘spectacle’ of the premise. The pitch is uneven, so the writing keeps searching for the dissonance (between physicality and aura) of Gangubai Kathiawadi. Suresh does what she can, but Akka fumbles the character.
Rudra being a campy baddie — a male-fantasy antagonist — with corny lines is not an issue. But Radhika Apte is fatally miscast as Rudra. She’s such a naturalistic actor that she often looks like she’s spoofing the aura of a commercial villain instead of being one; she struggles to own the vibe. It’s a bit like watching Marion Cotillard awkwardly die in The Dark Knight Rises instead of Michael B. Jordan in Black Panther or Robert Pattinson in The Odyssey. She’s almost too qualified to pull off the role, so the mainstream excesses (Rudra delivers threats and declarations like she’s imitating someone else) put Apte at odds with the tenor of the show.
A fitting cricket analogy: she’s a test purist who is not equipped to handle the dumbed-down T20 game. It’s a pity, because this is a woman who incites emasculated men into ‘remembering’ their worth in an environment rigged against them. She’s a men’s rights activist before social media made her controversial. It’s an inverted version of the male politicos who weaponise feminism and women’s safety agendas to get their votes. Shows like Akka are shaped by such performative optics. It starts with a cool hook — and then walks the plank like a safety-first entertainer drunk on its own posturing.