Feludar Goyendagiri: Royal Bengal Rawhoshyo Review: A Desperate Bid to Find Wit

Feludar Goyendagiri: Royal Bengal Rawhoshyo Review: When Feluda and his gang travel to Mahitosh Singha Ray’s mansion expecting a peaceful trip, a curious riddle and a shocking death catapult him into a shocking mystery that he must solve before time runs out.

The third instalment of the franchise has 7 episodes, each with a runtime of around 20 minutes.

Feludar Goyendagiri: Royal Bengal Rawhoshyo Review

In this Hoichoi adaptation of Satyajit Ray’s famous series, one can’t help but compare it with the 2011 film starring Sabyasachi Chakrabarty, Bibhu Bhattacharya and Basudeb Mukherjee. The series, much like its predecessor, follows the famous detective and his friends as they venture into the beautiful forests near Bhutan to solve a riddle and a murder.

As with every new series in this Hoichoi franchise, this one, too, feels unnecessary and a bit confusing, although fans might find themselves enjoying this mostly due to nostalgia. The series is 7 episodes long, and although the 20-minute runtime might not feel daunting, I must say that I found it to be too long, mostly because it doesn’t require anything more than a standard feature film’s runtime. The series, thus, utilises its extra time with roundabout conversations between Feluda, Jatayu, and Topshe, as the latter two ask him the most obvious questions, lest the audience has to connect the dots themselves.

I find that to be a problem with these shows. They are long for the sake of being so, and the excessive dissection of clues feels patronising at times. It takes away from the mystery because we are not allowed to ponder over the clues at hand at all. Rather, Jatayu makes sure that Feluda is constantly breaking every little thought of his down, resulting in every sequence feeling heavy and uninteresting.

The problem mostly lies with Jatayu’s character, as I always mention with the Feludar Goyendagiri series. While Anirban Chakrabarti is a fine actor, the script asks Jatayu to be completely devoid of any and all thought. Depending mostly on making us nostalgic with Santosh Dutta’s iconic portrayal of Lalmohan Ganguly, the writing depends on making him a laughing stock as he breaks out in poetry and asks stupid questions that don’t make sense. Topshe is mostly a non-entity, in my opinion, and doesn’t add any fresh perspective to Feluda’s thoughts as you’d expect.

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This over-dependence on trying to make us laugh by degrading the characters has become such a sad part of the Feluda franchise, and I can’t help but miss the witty humour that comes with the franchise. It doesn’t make me laugh at all and, rather, makes me cringe every time some character is asked to act uncharacteristically.

Either way, the series is mostly fine and looks great. It can get a bit cringy at times, but I will say that Tota Roy Choudhury carries the series on his back. The other characters mostly exist to hover around Feluda, and while I get that, I feel like everyone constantly reacts to Feluda instead of being their own person. Thus, when you watch it, none of them creates a lasting impression, and thus the mystery remains half-baked.

Final Thoughts

In my opinion, it’s impossible to recreate Satyajit Ray’s magic. You might reference Sonar Kella all you want and use the same characters, but something will always be missing in these shows. But then again, capturing Ray’s wit, smartness, and magic is unattainable in my books. Either way, Royal Bengal Rawhoshyo is watchable thanks to Tota Roy Choudhury, but that only goes so far.

What are your thoughts on Feludar Goyendagiri: Royal Bengal Rawhoshyo? Let us know in the comments below!

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