iSmart Shankar

<p>Shankar, a street-smart , works under another assassin Kaka. One day, Shankar falls in love with Chandini and tries various ways to impress her. Despite being annoyed at first, Chandini reciprocates his feelings. Under Kaka’s orders, Shankar kills Kasi Vishwanath and escapes to with Chandini. However, the cops learn about their location and a shootout ensues in which Chandini gets killed in a cross-fire and Shankar gets arrested. Meanwhile, Sara, a , is working on and has achieved successful results with . Sara’s fianceè Arun, a officer, is investigating Kasi Vishwanath’s death and deduces that a higher force has planned and killed him. Shankar escapes from prison and deduces that Kaka had a major role in Chandini’s death and has been ordered to kill Shankar. Kaka tries to escape, but Shankar shoots Kaka in Sara’s car. When Arun is about crack the case, he gets killed by the goons. Chandrakanth, Arun’s superior and CBI chief, is desperate to know about the killer, where they transfer Arun’s memory to Shankar with Sara’s help, knowing that Arun’s memory will remove his past. Shankar wakes up and experiences memories that are not his own, where he gets enraged after Sara reveals the truth to him and realizes that he will forget about Chandni in a few days. Shankar experiences brief flashes when he becomes Arun, but reverts to being Shankar. Shankar finds Arun’s house and discovers a bag that has evidences about the killer, where he calls Chandrakanth to meet him in Goa. When Arun is about to reveal the identity of the murderers, he reverts back to Shankar and escapes with Sara at . After a few events, Shankar reverts to Arun and reveals to Chandrakanth that Kasi Vishwanath’s son Devendra and brother-in-law Ramamurthy are the masterminds behind the assassination. Arun devises a plan to arrest Devendra and Ramamurthy with the evidence in . Devendra gets exposed and escapes and Arun follows him, but Devendra and his men continuously beat Arun in his head, which results in Arun getting reverted to Shankar. Sara tells Shankar that Devendra is behind Chandni’s death. After an intense fight, Shankar kills Devendra, thus avenging Chandini’s death. Sara and Arun leave for on a vacation and Arun proposes to Sara, who happily agrees, but Arun reverts to Shankar. began in January 2019 in . The first schedule finished in February 2019. The second schedule took place in on March 2019. The action sequences were shot in April 2019 and the third schedule took place in . The filming wrapped in May 2019. was released on 18 July 2019. The satellite and digital streaming rights of the film were sold to . The film was dubbed in by . received mixed reviews from critics with praise for the Ram’s performance, music and action sequences, but criticized its script. Hemanth Kumar of gave 3/5 stars and wrote “Despite its crassness at times, iSmart Shankar strikes a chord largely due to its story, Puri Jagannadh’s conviction, and Mani Sharma’s compelling background score.” Neeshita Nyayapati of gave 2.5/5 stars and wrote “In this make-believe world, when rules change by-the-minute, it’s hard to give a damn.” gave 2.5/5 stars and wrote “iSmart Shankar is aimed at frontbenchers. Despite the idea of transplantation of memories being new, the rest of the story and its treatment are over-the-top and too clichéd. This is a loud mass action-thriller.” In September 2022, it has been reported that the film’s is currently being developed due to Puri Jagannadh’s film being shelved after the of Jagannadh’s previous film . An official announcement of the spiritual sequel titled has been announced in May 2023. was released on 15 August 2024, coinciding with , which became a .</p>