This is an age of monsters.
As the great darkness spreads across the three realms...
rakshasas, long since hidden in the bowels of the Earth,
came forth to rampage across the kingdoms of man.
Countless valiant kings fell
under the relentless armies of the rakshasas.
The rakshasas were led under the banner of a great and terrible master.
A master who drowns the three realms in blood.
In a sea of blood!
We're almost there.
Where is this place you're taking us to anyway?
Rishyamukh.
An ashram where King Sugreev and the rest of us currently live.
Wait.
We aren't going to Kishkindha?
I thought that was the home of the vaanars.
We are not welcome in Kishkindha anymore.
May I ask why?
It is a long story.
Then it is a good thing. We have a long walk ahead of us.
It is better if you hear it in the presence of King Sugreev.
Does Sugreev even have enough monkeys
to properly search for Sita?
Patience, brother.
I'm just saying, this Sugreev may not be as powerful as we--
Quiet.
Why have you stopped?
Be careful.
Stop!
Prince Ram, what are you doing?
What needs to be done.
We have to help him.
Just wait. Trust him.
Go in peace. You have nothing to fear from us.
Neither of you do.
Look!
Lord Ram... the child... How did you know?
I didn't at first, but it wouldn't have changed anything if I did.
That creature needed help.
But the rakshasas are your enemy.
No one is my enemy, Hanuman.
Sometimes, we have no choice but to take a life.
But to show mercy takes even greater strength.
When you kill, you steal from all who loved him
and steal from everyone he will ever love.
Now, let us continue to Rishyamukh.
My Lord, you asked me to discover the true nature of these strangers. I have.
They are friends.
Ayodhya's Prince Ram and Prince Lakshman can be trusted.
That is not for you to decide.
Not while I am your leader.
My Lord, I meant no disrespect, but they are good men.
Exiles, you mean!
They were banished from the kingdom of Ayodhya.
I have heard of these names, Ram and Lakshman.
My Lord, they are vagabonds with no allegiance to any man or king.
They cannot be trusted.
Hanuman is young, brash!
He is too easily taken in by fine words and friendly appearance.
He does not know the ways of the world and thinks only with his mace.
Be careful, minister.
If I am as you say, you may not like the thoughts my mace has for you.
Enough! We are not here to argue amongst ourselves.
I will hear what these humans have to say.
What happened in the forest?
What do you mean?
There is something... different about you, young Hanuman.
I... There is.
But I don't know what. Can you tell me?
In time, young Hanuman. In time.
Humans, why have you come to me?
We have come for your help, great King.
My wife, Princess Sita, has been kidnapped.
Your wife? By whom?
A rakshas, a powerful one.
She was carried away in his aerial chariot.
We have searched the Dandaka Forest, but he has left no trail.
Having heard of your greatness, we ask, humbly, for your aid.
You ask for much, Prince. But what do you offer in return?
I see no gold, or treasures, or gifts.
Yet, you wish the great Sugreev to chase what? A cloud?
I offer everything I have.
Everything I am.
Blood, heart, strength...
and friendship.
Which I offer you forever.
Friendship?
Humans are always promising friendship.
Where were such friends when I needed them?
They have never given us a reason to trust them.
You think too much of yourself, Ram.
"Prince Ram."
Let him finish, my Lord.
I believe Prince Ram can help us from the shadow that covers Rishyamukh.
Vaali.
Yes, my King. Vaali.
Be that as it may, answer me this. Why come to us for help?
Have your own people turned their backs on you?
Let the humans help their own kind.
Like you, King Sugreev, we too are exiles from our true home.
And so, we cannot ask for help from the humans.
Only the fortitude, numbers and the knowledge of this land,
which the vaanars possess, can aid us in our quest.
No, brother.
With or without the vaanars help, I promise you this, brother,
that, as long as I stand by your side,
we will finish our quest to find Sita.
Together, you and I. Ram and Lakshman.
There was a time when my brother and I were also so loyal, so inseparable.
But how quickly things can change.
Then tell me your story, King Sugreev.
Tell me of your brother, Vaali.
I was cast out by my own brother, who ruled Kishkindha with an iron fist.
Others, unable to live under his tyranny, joined me here upon the mountain.
Yet, there is not a night that passes when I do not dream of gaining all we have lost.
There are those that will defy even the greatest of monsters,
until they become monsters themselves.
So came the terrible Mayavi to the kingdom of the vaanars.
The rakshas had the blood of a dozen kings upon his claws.
Yet, his appetite for destruction remained undiminished.
The challenge was issued to the king of the vaanars,
my brother, the great Vaali.
Mayavi would test his strength against the famed king.
If Vaali lost...
Mayavi would devour his people.
The challenge was accepted.
My brother wanted to protect us.
He could not let Mayavi destroy the kingdom, our people.
What happened next, Your Majesty?
A battle unlike any one has ever seen.
The rakshas tore up mighty trees, yet my brother swatted them aside
as though they were stalks of wheat.
Mayavi hurled boulders at him,
but they shattered upon his shoulders like raindrops!
I witnessed it all.
How the earth shook.
How the skies thundered and trembled with fear
at the duel between these titans.
Then?
A miracle!
The great and terrible Mayavi, the conqueror of a dozen kingdoms,
fled like a coward.
My brother chased him, and I followed behind.
Eventually, Mayavi escaped underground,
hoping to hide from my brother's wrath.
If only... if only we had turned back then
and left Mayavi to cower in the underworld.
But no.
Vaali had won, but he could not leave it at that.
I begged him not to go.
But he told me a true vaanar doesn't just protect his kingdom
but must protect all kingdoms.
Mayavi's evil needed to end.
So my brother followed the rakshas into the darkness.
I should have followed him as you follow your brother,
Prince Lakshman.
Maybe together things would have been different.
Vaali disappeared into the darkness.
Lord Sugreev was commanded to stay and guard the entrance,
in case Mayavi somehow found a way back.
Days turned to weeks, weeks to months
and months to years,
but Vaali did not return.
We believed Vaali had perished in the underground.
He would never return.
Yet, a kingdom cannot prosper without a king.
We had no idea that Vaali would return. But what returned was not my brother.
The darkness did something to him.
Vaali blamed his brother for stealing the crown and imprisoned him.
So, Vaali took the crown and the throne.
Then he took something...
much more precious.
He took your wife.
Her name is Ruma.
What kind of a man abandons his wife?
You are not such a man, are you?
You would shake the world to find your beloved.
Is that what I should have done?
I cannot answer for others, great King. Only myself.
Then believe me when I tell you I love my wife no less than you do yours.
I am not fit to face her any more.
I should have fought harder.
You would have been killed if you'd faced Vaali.
Then where would we be?
Living under the boot of a tyrant, with no freedom, no hope.
A king must always protect his people.
Despite the costs.
Prince Ram can help us defeat Vaali and regain our true home.
Your memory is short, Hanuman. Vaali is too powerful.
If our King cannot beat him, what hope do these two have?
Look at them.
They are not great warriors.
What armour do they have? No shiny shields or deadly swords.
Vaali's very step can make the forest shake.
With a clap of his hands, he can blow down trees.
How will you face such a being?
You are neither gods nor saviours.
You are just what you appear to be.
Humans.
It's... it's coming back! We'll be destroyed!
No, not destroyed.
Enlightened.
Ruma.
You say there was no trail for you to follow?
Show them the jewellery.
Maybe there was.
We will find our wives together, Prince Ram.
This anklet belongs to Sita!
She was wearing it when I saw her last!
How did you get it?
I found it, young Prince.
I found the anklet upon a tree branch, after hearing what I thought
was the cry of a bird coming from the clouds.
A cry?
Now I realize it must have been a woman's cry.
If I had known whose it was, my Prince, perhaps your search would already be over.
But the clouds are too high even for me.
You have given us hope, Hanuman,
and we have had so little of that since Sita vanished.
Thank you.
Hanuman does not know who is responsible for kidnapping Princess Sita.
He does not know whose Pushpak Viman it was that flew so high above the clouds.
But I do.
This crime was not committed by a mere rakshas,
or a beast of the Dandaka Forest,
but by the demon king himself.
The greatest darkness the worlds have ever known.
The one who has conquered the heavens and humbled the gods themselves.
He's known by many names.
Lokvinashak, Dashaasan, Lankeshwar.
Whose name is the very scream that shakes the realms.
That name is...
Ravan.
A name. At last.
Ravan.
Tell me of this Ravan, o great Sugreev.
Tell me of the one I must destroy.