# Asur (2020)

> A forensic expert turned teacher is pulled back into a cat and mouse hunt with a brutal serial killer in the holy city of Varanasi.

Canonical page: https://ember.film/tv/84722

## Facts

- Seasons: 3
- Episodes: 16
- Episode runtime: 41 min
- Status: Returning Series
- Genres: crime, mystery, thriller
- Created by: Gaurav Shukla, Vibhav Shikdar, Shweta More
- Network: VOOT, JioCinema
- Cast: Arshad Warsi, Anupriya Goenka, Ridhi Dogra, Sharib Hashmi, Barun Sobti, Amey Wagh, Vishesh Bansal, Meiyang Chang
- TMDB rating: 8.5/10
- IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11912196/

## Ember's analysis

- Pacing: brisk
- Intensity: strong
- Complexity: layered
- Violence: brutal
- Tone: brooding, suspenseful, eerie, cerebral, unsettling

## What critics say

Viewers broadly acclaim Asur as a gripping, mind-bending crime thriller whose blend of Indian mythology and serial-killer suspense is unique, though the second season's ending is seen as anticlimactic.

## Synopsis

Asur (2020-2023) is an Indian Hindi-language crime thriller series created by Gaurav Shukla, Vibhav Shikdar and Shweta More for VOOT and JioCinema. Forensic expert turned teacher Nikhil Nair (Barun Sobti) returns to the Central Bureau of Investigation in the sacred city of Varanasi, where he teams up with his former mentor Dhananjay Rajput (Arshad Warsi) to chase a brutal serial killer. The engine is a relentless cat and mouse game, with each episode built from grim crime-scene forensics, interrogations and the pull of murders that seem at first unconnected to the central case. Over two seasons of eight episodes each, the story stays a single continuing investigation rather than a case of the week, weaving suspense with Hindu mythology and ritual in a way that feels eerie and unsettling. Anupriya Goenka and Ridhi Dogra round out the principal cast, while Vishesh Bansal and Abhishek Chauhan play the antagonist in his younger years. The tone is brooding and cerebral, with a claustrophobic sense of dread that lingers. Fans of Monster, Mindhunter and Sacred Games will find resonance in its blend of procedural rigour, moral unease and mythic atmosphere.

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