Shikari

Shikari, meaning "the hunter", is an action film series in Nepali cinema directed by Yadav Kanta Silwal, who also wrote the stories. The first film, Shikari, was released on 28 December 2007 and featured Sunil Thapa, Rajesh Dhungana and Pujana Pradhan in the leading roles, with Surbir Pandit also part of the cast. In the action-heavy style that dominated Nepali commercial cinema at the time, the film combined fight sequences, revenge drama and song numbers into a single mass entertainer.

The success of the first film led to a sequel, Shikari 2, which was released on 4 June 2010. The sequel once again starred Sunil Thapa in the lead, this time alongside Menuka Pradhan, with Dil Krishna Shrestha and Sailesh Pahari in supporting roles. The story, again written by Yadav Kanta Silwal, continued the pattern of the original, mixing drama with the high-energy action that fans of the series had come to expect. The version of the film that circulates today on YouTube is the 2010 sequel, uploaded by the OSR Digital channel under the Shikari banner.

Sunil Thapa was one of the busiest action heroes of the period, and the Shikari films helped cement his image as a leading man in the genre. Menuka Pradhan and Pujana Pradhan, who appeared across the two films, were both established actresses of the time. For audiences who enjoy old-school Nepali action cinema, the Shikari series represents the era when films were built around a single charismatic hero, spectacular fights, and dramatic confrontations between good and evil.

While detailed records of box-office collections from that period are scarce, the very existence of a sequel, released only a couple of years after the original, points to the first film having found a respectable audience. The films were typical of the hall-release culture of the late 2000s, and the fact that both titles continue to circulate online shows the lasting interest in this style of Nepali action filmmaking.