Prathyush Parasuraman
Asur is the kind of show that thinks if it stuns you, again and again, newer twist at the corner of every new twist, fresher evidence at the corner of every fresh evidence, it is doing a good job.
Created by Gaurav Shukla, who is also a co-writer, and directed by Oni Sen, Asur isn’t interested in being philosophical but seeming philosophical; much like its scenes of forensic science aren’t interested in being scientific and pedantic, but seeming specific. That seeming-ness, however, is too thin, too transparent.
Dhananjay Rajpoot (Warsi) is now a monk in Dharamshala, having escaped the brutal life of being a forensic expert for the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and suffered the loss of his wife at the hands of the serial killer in the first season.
Halfway into this jalebi-jangled, frigidly staged show, Meiyang Chang — who plays an Anti Terror Force officer with helmet hair— enters and strikes a comically rigid pose, always hands on hip. Meanwhile, Asur continues his killing spree. People drop like flies.
Here is a wholesale serial killer, who will have to battle it out with a miracle-manifesting monk, a child really, who mimicks the empty mystery of the Mona Lisa smile.
At any given point, there is too much happening, too much being explained and too little intelligence to Asur. This is because this is not a show of complex characters whose inner lives will be excavated through the run-time, but rather because the story is told using cardboard cutouts, who once-defined remain stuck.