Kahaani had its own tryst with misdirection, but there’s one important difference between the two films, and it isn’t even that Ghosh’s film hummed like a well-oiled machine while Te3n occasionally has problems bringing scenes to a crisp end. How do Dasgupta and the writers (Suresh Nair, Ritesh Shah, Bijesh Jayarajan) think the audience will feel when it realizes this isn’t the case? Because the viewer thinks these are happening at roughly the same time, the sequence is suspenseful.

What we aren’t told is that they also belong to different timelines. For instance, for one extended sequence, scenes occurring in two different locations are cut together. Without giving anything away, I would say that at least a couple of the revelations skirt the boundaries of directorial “cheating'.

Whether all these twists make sense, or are entirely fair, is another matter. To its credit, Te3n, an official remake of the 2013 Korean film Montage, has surprises at regular enough intervals, not all of which are easy to predict. Instead, his drained, unmoored manner seems to suggest that after Angela disappeared, John too became something of a ghost. It’s an unusually inward performance by Bachchan, lacking both the assertiveness and the flair one associates with the actor. As they work with the abductee’s grandfather, Manohar (Sabyasachi Chakraborty), John carries on with his lonely plod towards the truth. Detective Sarita (Balan) asks Father Martin-who, it must be said, needs very little persuading-to help out. A little boy is kidnapped, in exactly the same manner as Angela. Then, eight years later, it all starts to happen again.

Te3n 2016 review