Here is where The Conclusion opens up and thrives.
While the film cuts back and forth between courtly intrigues to create the stakes, it also allows Baahubali space to go off and explore his future kingdom in disguise as a commoner, learning how to rule his people by living amongst them. Even as The Conclusion never scales the same heights of tragedy or drama, it banks on their established conventions to sketch the scene. It bears a faint resemblance to some of Shakespeare’s historical plays, not to mention strains of Hamlet and Macbeth. Rajamouli revels in melodramatic political intrigue from the cackling, bumbling evil of Bijjaladeva (Nassar) to the sociopathic, cunning machinations of his son Bhallaladeva, Baahubali’s half-brother. The Beginning ends, now infamously, on a cliff-hanger suitably melodramatic to match the epic played out before it: the great Baahubali is slain not by an enemy, but is betrayed by his loyal uncle-figure, Kattappa. Hordes of enemies clash à la Peter Jackson’s Return of the King catapults hurl unfurling canvas through the air like flying carpets, lit aflame in midair thousands of arrows rain down from the sky from ingenious machines scythed chariot contraptions whirl blades through flesh and bone, and the marriage of hand-to-hand combat and larger-than-life CGI rivals that of the films of Tsui Hark and Stephen Chow. Yet besides its breathtaking opening thirty minutes which feature the waterfall, the strength of that film-as well as with The Conclusion-lies not with Shivudu, but with the flashbacks recounting the exploits of his father, the righteous Baahubali (also played by Prabhas). Gorgeously covered in CGI, with colors and vistas splashed across the screen without moderation (a superhuman scaling of a waterfall stands out: a new Herculean labour which alone is worth watching the film), The Beginning landed with a thunderous impact in 2015, garnering a massive following worldwide. The first film introduced Shivudu, played with a rascally charm by Prabhas, as he barely escapes death as an infant from the hands of his murderous uncle, Bhallaladeva, whose unerring villainy Rana Daggubati relishes with aplomb, and discovers his own identity as son of the revered former king Amarendra Baahubali.