Prabhas Goes Heavy Beard and Heavy Action for Rajamouli's Baahubali

The first proper look at Prabhas in Baahubali landed this week and the beard is doing a lot of the talking. Gone is the clean-shaven boy-next-door from his earlier films. This is a warrior build, long hair, thick beard, and the kind of stare that tells you Rajamouli is not making a small movie.

What we know so far: Baahubali is a two-part period epic, with Prabhas in the title role, Rana Daggubati as the rival, Anushka Shetty as the female lead, and Adivi Sesh in a role the makers are keeping close to their chest. Rajamouli has been teasing battle sequences on a scale Telugu cinema has not attempted before, and the early stills back that up. The sets look enormous and the action looks practical rather than cartoonish.

Prabhas reportedly spent months training for the fight sequences and the physical change is obvious. For a director who gave us Magadheera and Eega, the ambition here feels like the natural next step. I am cautiously excited. Big-budget Indian epics have a habit of looking great in stills and falling apart in the writing, so the real test is whether the story can match the scale. Are you in for part one, or waiting to hear the reviews first?