Dobaaraa vs The Call: Which time-loop sci-fi thriller had more grip?
I recently watched the Bollywood sci-fi thriller Dobaaraa starring Tapsi Pannu with my family and couldn’t help myself recalling Park Shin Hye’s “The Call" until it ended.
Dobaaraa is an official remake of the 2018 Spanish film Mirage by Oriol Paulo starring Alvaro Morte and Adriana Ugarte in lead. I haven’t watched the Spanish one yet, so I won’t discuss adaptations today. This is a simple observation of mine as a film lover upon finding two different movies in a similar genre and concept. Let’s get started!
The Call by Lee Chung-Hyeon
‘The Call’ is a 2020 South Korean psychological thriller starring Park Shin-hye and Jeon Jong-seo. This K-movie is based on the 2011 British film ‘The Caller’ by Sergio Casci. I haven’t seen ‘The Caller’ yet either but after watching its trailer and reading a few of its reviews online, I can see that certain parts of the story have been changed for the Korean version.
The Call is set in 2019 in the rural area of South Korea where Kim Seo-yeon, a 28-year-old woman visits her sick mother at her old childhood home. There she finds a decades-old cordless phone through which she receives calls from a woman named Oh Young-sook, who claims to be being tortured by her mother. After a brief talk, Seo-yeon realizes that Young-sook is living in the same house but in the year 1999 and had died during an exorcism by her shaman mother. The two then communicate across time through the phone and help each other by Young-sook saving Seo-yeon’s father’s life who died in a fire accident in 1999, and Seo-Yeon helps save Young-sook’s from her mother.
The two succeed but little did Seo-yeon know that the person she had saved now becomes a serial killer. After killing her mother while trying to save herself Young-sook realizes that she enjoyed the process and proceeds to go on a killing spree. She also kills Seo-yeon’s father out of anger and as a way to punish her ‘future friend' for ignoring her calls (unintentionally) since her (Seo-yeon’s), life improved after saving her father. And Seo-yeon’s future changes again.
The story then is between the two females from past and present with Seo-yeon trying to stop Young-sook’s crimes but ending up getting tangled with her even more. I enjoyed how this film always kept me on my toes while watching. At first, I thought it to be a thriller film like others, I mean what could I’ve expected from a 2-hour long film… But I was proved wrong!
(It is one of the best thriller films I watched!!!)
Dobaaraa — 2:12 by Anurag Kashyap
Starring Tapsee Pannu and Pavail Gulati in the lead, Dobaaraa narrates the story of Antara Awasthi from 2022 who gets connected with a 12-year-old Anay from the 1990s through an old television set. Antara saves Anay’s life who died that year during a wild thunderstorm shortly after witnessing a murder next door. This change in the past brings Antara to a new present and a new past which she has no clue of, changing her whole reality.
For me, this film was a more light-hearted watch in comparison to the other. But that doesn't take its charm of being a thriller film. It is interesting and gripping till the end.
My Take:
If I am asked to recommend I would recommend both movies. Instead of just choosing one, I’d segregate them into a lighter and heavier version of the ‘time loop’ theme. ‘Dobaaraa’ is the lighter version whereas ‘The Call’ is the heavier version of the ‘time loop’ theme.
As I mentioned above, Dobaaraa felt like a light quick watch. It does keep you intrigued but isn’t complicated. For me, in many parts, it felt more predictable but a majority of the time it reminded me of ‘The Call’ more since I watched it first! It was a bit hard for me to not compare these two movies unconsciously due to the uncanny resemblance of the themes.
But that is entirely my opinion. For the two films.
Maybe, if I hadn’t watched ‘The Call’ first, I might have enjoyed ‘Dobaaraa’ without comparing it constantly in my mind!
Maybe…
Have you seen the two movies? If so, did you like them? What’s your take on them?
