Label Review: Premiering on Disney+ Hotstar on November 10, 2023, the Tamil action drama series stars Jai Sampath as Prabha, Tanya Hope as Mahitha, Mahendran as Veera, Harishankar Narayanan as Kumar in pivotal roles with Sriman, Ilavarasu, Charan Raj and others also seen alongside them. Directed and written by Arunraja Kamaraj, the first three episodes of the web series have commenced the heavy action and conversation around the Article 20 of the Indian Constitution.
Streaming originally in Tamil, the series can also be watched in Hindi, Malayalam, Telugu, Bengali, Kannada, and Marathi, with English subtitles. The first three episodes have a runtime ranging between 26-33 minutes. Label series has been rated ‘A’.
Label Tamil Series Review Contains No Spoilers
Label Review: Discussion
On being falsely incriminated for a crime as a minor, young Prabha is sent to juvenile detention. After his traumatic experience of being stereotyped and discriminated against on the basis of where he lives, he vows to become a lawyer to fight against these injustices and struggles to overcome the identity society has labelled him with.
Cut to him becoming an adult, in addition to working his legal practice, Jai’s Prabha also initiates a reform project of sorts that helps youngsters concentrate their energies and intentions on sports instead of indulging in off-handed criminal activities rampant in the area they live in. However, sometimes, despite his big attempts, some of these youth still slip by and get enraptured by the bloody road he hoped for them to leave behind.
The first three episodes of the series quickly establish Jai’s backstory in the show and the kind of circumstances that fuelled his upward mobility for vindication. His personal fight against the system stands in as a microcosmic representation of a bigger social evil at play. The Arunraja Kamaraj directorial consolidates its fair intentions right away with these episodes, and instead of just focussing on the protagonist, the story also ropes in other characters to further illustrate the issue first highlighted by Jai Sampath’s Prabha.
Despite the short duration of these episodes, they instantly hold your attention and engross you with action-packed scenes centred around crime that speak for themselves and go on to prove exactly what Prabha seeks to fight against. Through Mahendran and Harishankar Narayanan’s characters, the plot is further convoluted, as despite them getting help from the protagonist, they keep crawling back onto the dark path of misdeeds.
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Kamaraj’s story aptly centres itself around Jai’s protagonist, but through Mahendran’s character’s choices, we also get a peek into the flip side of the ideal results that worked their charm on the young Prabha early on. In that sense, the show proceeds full throttle as Prabha deals with his personal issues that link back to his traumatic past, while also stepping in as a small fish in the big sea. Moreover, with Prabha helping Veera and Kumar, the show also goes on to portray the painful reality that until and unless someone wills to change their own life, anyone’s efforts from the outside will never be brought to fruition.
Jai’s portrayal of Prabha effectively brings this conflict across. Moreover, the fact that even after having attained such a legally powerful position as a lawyer, his character continues to be dragged down through the mud due to the prevalence of corruption and the rampant sense of discrimination that those supposedly in power casually spew without a second thought, only further sets in stone that one’s actions alone will never be enough to rid society of this twisted mentality until masses unite under the banner of the same inspiration and fight.
Therefore, the Hotstar series, Label, constructively demonstrates this realistic power play and struggle through Prabha’s personal fight for vindication and his attempts to bring in productive change in society for others like him too, both of which are ultimately interlinked to the reduction of a group of people under ill-named labels set apart due to preconceived notions and ill-judged biases.
To send the poignant message across, Jai’s dialogues have been pithily constructed to convey his thoughts succinctly. Action sequences and other character dynamics between Prabha, his family, his chance meeting with the budding journalist Mahitha, played by Tanya Hope, add more light to the series and enhance its entertainment value.
Moreover, Episode 3’s cliffhanger proves that the series is willing to dive deep into Prabha as a person rallying for these changes while also facing an identity crisis of his own. In that way, Label has already set itself apart from the recent release of Hotstar’s Mathagam starring Atharavaa and Manikandan, that simply chose to never dig deep in its attempts to truly exploring these characters and their motivations individually.
Label Hotstar Web Series: Final Thoughts
In addition to setting itself as a powerful mouth piece for social commentary, the first three episodes have made way for a promising start to a series that seems to be interested in piercing through its characters and finding more about them on this journey to self discovery and their placement in society as well. Visually, too, the series has so far favourably been supported by an affluent production value that is equally advantageous to the storytelling, character introductions and world-building around them.
Label Episode 1-3 are now streaming on Disney+ Hotstar.
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