Currently, there seems to be a rush to tell stories in 'series' among Nepali filmmakers. Whether the first series of a film is completed or not, the second one must be announced. While announcing a film, a subtitle like 'Part One' or 'Chapter Yeti' must be attached at the end of the title. As if this is a method that must be followed!

This does not mean that stories should not be told in series. However, when the story of the film is told in parts, the audience would be waiting for the next series if the story of the first part is tied up! However, here, to stretch the story until the second series, the story is left incomplete in the first part. Without knowing the background of the main character, the story becomes 'The End'. The

is a continuation of this, 'Alone-1', which was released at the beginning of the English New Year. Director Pradeep Shahi has tried to draw the story of the film on a very large canvas. The story of this film, which questions humanity while imagining the future, is new. Taking the risk of telling this kind of story in the adventure genre is welcome. However, director Shahi has failed to create that world within the film, in which strange characters and events occur. The power of the film is to establish the world where the story is being told about the characters, geography and society. But, what happens if that world is not established in the film? The audience cannot believe in the world that the director is trying to create. As a result, the audience's attention is not drawn to the said world.

This film is set in the year 2090. Ariel (Kavita Nepali) and Jack (Jamie Bacon), who have arrived on Earth from space, find a strange human wandering in the dry land of Nepal. The last human to survive on Earth, Bhishma (Vijay Lama), lives a desert life with a robot. The huge dry mountain is Bhishma's home, a friend to speak of, a robot to call a friend. Through this meeting with Bhishma, Ariel and Jack discover other such human empires, who are successful in protecting themselves from the virus that spread in 2030. They are captured by a group of zombies. Zombies are a group that can eat people, from whose bite another zombie is born!

Nepali films rarely include topics such as space, robots, zombies. That is why 'Eklo-1', which is a story of the future, is a new taste for Nepali films in a special sense. However, when director Shahi tries to tell all these topics together, no topic is well established in the film. For example, Ariel and Jack from space. Why did they come to Earth? What was their place in space? And the love between them! The film does not establish these aspects very strongly. The love between the two is also shown in the cliché style of Bollywood. The scene in the film where two lovers stretch out their hands and try to touch each other while taking their last breath! This is not a scene that has not been seen in previous films. On top of that, how appropriate would this kind of longing for each other without a love relationship between the two be?

Another thing is the confused character portrayal of the character Bhishma, who is given a lot of priority in the film. The film tells the story of this character with great importance at the beginning. A lot of time is spent showing his background and relationship with the robot. However, as the film introduces the sky man, Bhishma's story becomes narrower. The fact that the central character used to advance the story disappears in the middle is a sign of a broken rhythm of the story.

While the film shows Maharaj (Sunil Thapa) and his empire, the usefulness of this character does not seem very necessary for the main story. The added characters like Kalki (Pradeep Khadka) and his guru (Dinesh DC) sideline Bhishma's story. Even though the film tries to give equal space to all the characters, whose is the central story of 'Eklo-1'? It is not clear.

After the interval, the story of the film revolves around the Maharaja, his rule within the kingdom, the struggle for power, and the 'untouchable' group. The group is depicted as 'zombies' who spread the virus when touched, have to be kept in cages, and cannot be touched. Director Shahi seems to have normalized the crime of 'untouchability', which is a symbol of caste discrimination, through this group. It is sad that director Shahi, who makes a film that questions humanity, has made such insensitive comments.

The most disturbing aspect of this film is the dialogues used in it. The film covers the story, but the dialogues are entangled in the (exaggerated) decade of the 90s. This kind of dialogue does not sound appropriate within the world created by the film. For example, there is a scene in the film, where the father is taking his last breath in a bloody body. The son, suddenly holding his father in his arms, asks, 'Is everything okay?' And the father says - you ask a dying man if he is okay. Dumba! Even though the characters spoke in ordinary colloquial language, the world that director Shahi tried to create could have been believed to some extent. This exaggerated dialogue, weak screenplay and presentation have made 'Eklo-1' superficial.