The film is known as Junglee Manchhe, a stunningly crazy Nepalese martial arts movie spoken in Nepali.
Unlike many other recent Tarzan Boy movies from South Asia, Junglee Manchhe was conceived by B.S. Balami and Bishnu Kumar Shrestha as a 'martial artsy prisoner revisits his hometown' social drama.
It stars Arjun Karki, in his first antihero role, as the Kathmandu DogMan, while Geeta Shahi plays his pragmatic girlfriend.
Is it a ripoff of either the Abashiri Prison series or both Zimbo and Adavi Donga ‘85? Well, it’s not a total rip-off, but it does have some elements taken from the whole Yakuza-focused, book-based classic film series, the so bad it's good Zimbo series and the aforementioned Telugu hit film featuring superstar Chiranjeevi.
The story likely began fully in 1985, the year when Adavi Donga ‘85 was released. It was when an autistic boy was having a fun time living with his lower caste parents. Then, he lost the mother to a higher caste gangster politician, whose equally corrupt friends sent him off to a prison dungeon. The situation was pretty messed up because their status TALKED more than his family’s status! It was also due to them getting away with having more corporate connections than the antihero himself or even the rest of their fellow populace, which is saying something about how influential corporations are. As a result, a stray dog was the only friend whom he had for over a decade.
Even though the poor hyper empathetic boy was wrongfully imprisoned for being in a such a messed-up situation beyond his initial control, he had to learn self-defence and various creature themed martial arts while in prison mode all year long. By the time he was in such a mode, his only friend was a dog. Even as a teenager, his old clothes would be replaced not only with drab brown prison garb, but also with a pretty necklace and a pair of handcuffs. But the caveat was that it only happened largely offscreen, seconds before the first scene with him as an adult was shown.
Meanwhile, he had to escape some of the more corrupt police and meaner prisoners nearby. Thus, he would burst into the urban limelight for the first time since early childhood. Then he met his own lover and her cautious father, but both characters would ultimately make amends with him as time went on, since they were also themselves descendants of people who were below them. A slim former school bully and his wiser bearded father would rally him along with the other two, so that they all rightfully accuse the high caste money grabbers of both causing and growing the already messed up situation.
But as they would belatedly see how powerful the main dude was, they had to watch him for a while, since he’s also beyond their regular control. Thus, he would batter the big bad to deathly smithereens, so that the other four are pretty much safe from more blatant corruption ahead. The story would end as when the wrongfully convicted dude was finally declared as being freed, two of his friends and his dad hugged him happily.
The film is such a so bad it's good Schlockbuster that it may as well be released a decade before the awareness of disability rights in Nepal and the rest of South Asia was finally becoming known to societies in the subcontinent. Despite its amazingly overacted plot, be aware that the film is still a goldmine of cliche storms.
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