Dev Patel’s 'Monkey Man' swings into theaters with heavy heart and hands. What to expect.

If Dev Patel’s new moody and adrenalized film, “Monkey Man,” sounds familiar to Austin audiences (outside of the stylized film’s trailer that has probably snatched your attention online in recent weeks), it’s likely because Patel’s directorial debut made its world premiere before a raucous sold-out crowd at the Paramount Theatre in March as part of the South by Southwest Film Festival.

The actioner opens across the country Friday. Here’s what to know about the film before you buckle in for the wild ride.

Who is Dev Patel?

The London-born actor, whose parents are of Gujarati Indian descent, first earned global attention in Danny Boyle’s “Slumdog Millionaire,” playing a young man on a romantic quest to reconnect with his childhood love.

Patel later earned an Academy Award nomination for his role in the familial drama “Lion,” the 2007 film that once again found Patel’s character searching to find a lost love (his birth mother).

'Monkey Man' is more than 'Bollywick'

Some clever wordsmiths have described Patel’s new revenge thriller as Bollywood-meets-”John Wick,” but that description is a little reductive and ignores some of Patel’s major influences in making the movie. In broad terms, the movie is a throttling homage to Korean revenge films and Patel’s boyhood hero, Bruce Lee, whose brown skin made Patel feel seen and imbued the London native with possibility.

More: At SXSW, Dev Patel explains how a broken hand couldn't stop him from filming 'Monkey Man'

What’s the story of "Monkey Man"?

Patel’s hero in “Monkey Man,” simply named “Kid,” suffers through savage beatings in India’s underground fight world in order to make money to aid his plan of long-festering vengeance.

The submission to the pain comes off as both masochistic cleansing ritual, as he attempts to remove his traumatized history from his DNA, and as an act of love. By bowing to the bloody suffering, the sinewy fighter inches closer to exacting justice for the death of his mother (Adithi Kalkunte), a backstory told through choppy but effective flashback.

Heavy hands, heavy heart

One rarely finds as much heart in an action film as exists in “Monkey Man.” The Kid’s motivating trauma is detailed in flashbacks that can leave as many questions as answers, but the taut vagueness, and the brutality it echoes, resonate in a disturbing way.

The plot is driven by the action film device of fighting up toward the final boss, a framework that also establishes a commentary on Indian class hierarchy.

A corrupt cop (Sikandar Kher), fuzzy religious leader (Makarand Deshpande) and state-sanctioned violence all work as emblems of societal poison, though the nuances may be lost on some Western audiences.

“Monkey Man” is a hero’s journey told inside a darkened, tumbling bread box, one stuffed with ideas about love, loss and justice. Storytelling hallmarks of such a quest abound, with the wounded hero supported by an unexpected community of outsiders; a pithy and diminutive sidekick proving comic relief along the way (Pitobash); a severe but disturbingly humorous devil of a madame (Ashwini Kalsekar); and a mysterious and thinly drawn sex worker aiding the hero (Sobhita Dhulipala, whose eyes demand a new category at the Oscars).

'Monkey Man' draws inspiration from the Ramayana

The story of “Monkey Man” is set against the backdrop of the epic Hindu poem, the Ramayana, and its centerpiece deity, Hanuman, a story Patel’s grandfather shared with him when the actor was a young boy. Joseph Campbell tips his cap.

Patel 'faced catastrophe everyday' making 'Monkey Man'

The Kid’s suffering serves as a thin allegory for 33-year-old Patel’s undertaking in getting his hero’s journey to the screen. The filmmaker appeared beaten but jubilant when he presented the world premiere at SXSW. Hearing the film’s origin story, it was clear the filmmaker’s bedraggled but buoyant comportment was no act.

Patel’s shoot in India was disrupted by COVID lockdowns and then moved to the islands of Indonesia, where, left with limited resources, Patel hired random members of the crew as actors, used footage from his mobile phone for part of a frenetic action sequence, and created rigged camera set ups that sound like something from someone’s high school backyard production.

“We faced catastrophe everyday,” Patel said at the premiere.

And we haven’t even talked about the physical abuse endured by the actor in the film animated, but gory and graphic, fight sequences. The entire production teetered on collapse when a doctor had to insert a screw into Patel’s hand to hold it together. Disregarding doctor’s orders, the actor threw himself immediately back into action sequences reminiscent of the blurry and bloody confusion of Indonesian actioner “The Raid.”

All of this for a movie Patel had long dreamed of making … with someone else as the director.  Patel said he had originally shared the idea with “District 9”’director Neil Blomkamp, but the director, who worked with Patel on 2015’s “Chappie,” told the actor that his vision of the story was so complete that Patel should direct it himself.

Patel found himself “reluctantly pushed into the driver’s seat,” he said on stage at the premiere. Despite the unending challenges, he delivered. The film would not have made it to the big screen, though, had there not been a final push from Jordan Peele, the “Get Out” and “Us” director whose body of work over the past decade has served as a strong argument for more much-needed representation in the film industry.

Peele’s production company, fittingly called “Monkeypaw Productions,” pushed the film over the finish line and ensured theatrical release (thank goodness, because this thing needs a big screen to breathe). The producer was on hand, beaming with awed pride, to introduce the film at SXSW.

“No one has put their soul, energy, mind and body into a film than this man. And he has done it for us to enjoy this film,” Peele said.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: 'Monkey Man' taps Hindu myth and Bruce Lee movies for revenge tale