Yash Raj Films’ Akka replaces the familiar male don with an 800-year-old sisterhood that runs the criminal underworld and gold trade of Perunuru, a fictional region in South India. The Hindi series, now streaming on Netflix, is set in the 1980s and written and directed by debutant Dharmaraj Shetty.
The three houses of Perunuru
The sisterhood has divided its territory into three topographically distinct houses. The central and most powerful house, Malemar, is led by Muthakka — Tanvi Azmi and Monica Pawar play her at different stages — and inherited by the more morally conflicted Bhavani, played by Keerthy Suresh. The sea-facing and mountain-bound houses, Perplady and Herkada, are governed by aunts and cousins within the family elite, such as Devika, played by Poornima Indrajith.
- Malemar: the strongest house of fields, ruled by Muthakka and later Bhavani.
- Perplady and Herkada: the coastal and mountain houses run by the wider family.
- The business: the coven monopolises state tenders for country liquor and gold and removes male competitors.
- The line of succession: a woman cannot become Akka without having a child, while traditional marriage and mainland interference are kept out.
Rudra arrives from Bombay
The threat comes from Bombay in the form of Rudra, played by Radhika Apte. She has the backing of mafia don Shankar, played by Mahesh Manjrekar, and enters Perunuru with a clear agenda: seize control of the illicit liquor and gold trade. She is helped by men the sisterhood has resisted or pushed aside for years, including Anshuman Pushkar’s Shankar Anna.
What makes the central clash interesting is that it is not just gangster versus gangster. The Hindu’s review reads the Bhavani-Rudra fight through caste and class. Bhavani is the entrenched elite defending “tradition” because that tradition protects her privilege. Rudra is the outsider whose rebellion is personal, but she is also a stand-in for marginalised communities who helped the queendom survive and were then kept at the edges.
In that reading, Akka refuses to flatter the audience. It argues that simply putting women in charge does not automatically produce a fairer order; a matriarchy can be just as ruthless and exclusionary as a patriarchy.
Two performance styles, one power struggle
The show’s most exciting stretch is the face-off between Keerthy Suresh and Radhika Apte. Suresh keeps Bhavani’s moral unease close to the surface, while Apte plays Rudra with a deliberate, loud, hyper-masculine energy — the armour of a disruptor rather than the quiet interiority of a victim. That contrast gives the battle for Perunuru its charge.
For fans of Hindi crime drama, there is plenty to settle into: the grit of the 1980s setting, sharp dialogue by Hussain and Abbas Dalal, and production design that works with the story rather than around it. There is a familiar masala movie shell here — silk, blood, territory and revenge — but the questions underneath feel built for current conversations about women in power and who really gets a seat at the table. The series is streaming now, which makes it an easy weekend watch for viewers who like their gang wars with a political edge.
Source: The Hindu