Kerala's 'Kalaripayattu' Connection With 'Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse'

Kalaripayattu is an ancient martial art form from Kerala.

'Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse' has a Kerala connection.

(Photo Courtesy: The Quint)

The much-awaited Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse hit the theatre on 1 June and has already become a fan favourite. The film has garnered a lot of appreciation from the audience for its incredible animation and stunning visuals. 

The desi audience is especially delighted by the debut of Pavitr Prabhakar, aka the Indian Spider-Man, in the Spider-Verse. To make Pavitr's character more authentic and close to his Indian roots, the film's animators have drawn inspiration from Kalaripayattu, Kerala's ancient martial art form. 

As revealed by the film's lead animator, Nick Kondo, the different Spider-people in the Spider-Verse were to have unique motion and signature moves, and so for Pavitr's moves, they relied on Kalaripayattu. 

The animator shared the clip of the actual art form and wrote, "One of the great creative challenges for #AcrossTheSpiderVerse was giving 100s of different Spiders unique motion signatures. For Pavitr, we looked to one of the oldest known martial arts, Kalaripayattu, which originated in the Indian state of Kerala over 2000 years ago."

Further in the post, Nick also introduced and lauded the team of animators and software engineers from Kerala who worked on the film.

Nick's post quickly grabbed attention from the netizens, and they are amazed by this exciting piece of information. This is how they reacted:

A user wrote, "Wow, that's amazing! Very cool to draw inspiration from an actual martial arts form!"

Another user commented, "This is incredibly cool. Team did an amazing job bringing Pavitr to life on screen."

Here are some more comments: