Tere Ishk Mein is a musical romantic drama that brings Dhanush and director Aanand L Rai back together in Hindi cinema after Raanjhanaa, with Kriti Sanon stepping in as the new face of heartbreak and longing.
The film is written by Himanshu Sharma and Neeraj Yadav and produced under Colour Yellow Productions and T Series Films, with A R Rahman composing the music. It released in cinemas today on 28 November 2025 in Hindi, Tamil and Telugu, after a long build up through teasers, songs and city promotions.
The film has been positioned as a spiritual successor to Raanjhanaa. That means it shares its emotional DNA and Benaras backdrop but does not continue the earlier plot or characters. Here, Dhanush plays Shankar, and Kriti Sanon plays Mukti, two lovers whose story is defined as much by anger and self destruction as by romance.
Promotional material and early coverage had already made it clear that this would not be a gentle love story. The teaser, trailer and title song all pointed towards a world of passion, betrayal and the threat of violence, including Shankar’s now famous warning that he could burn all of Delhi for love.
With a runtime of around two hours forty seven minutes and a strong focus on music, Tere Ishk Mein aims to be the kind of full scale big screen romance that Hindi cinema has been missing for a while. The question is whether the film manages to balance its intensity with emotional clarity or gets lost inside its own storm.
Tere Ishk Mein: Plot
The story follows Shankar, a fiercely impulsive young man who grows up in Benaras and later serves as a Flight Lieutenant in the Indian Air Force. His life is shaped by a single overwhelming relationship, with his college classmate Mukti. Their connection begins on campus, in the middle of ordinary student life, and slowly grows into a passionate romance that feels larger than the world around them. The film uses the ghats and lanes of Benaras and the winter mood of Delhi to give their love story a tangible sense of place. 
In the college portions, Shankar is hot headed and quick to pick fights, but he is also completely sincere in his affection. Mukti, on the other hand, is drawn to him yet constantly aware that his temper and his intensity can be dangerous. She tries to channel him towards becoming a better person instead of a man ruled completely by rage. For a while, their relationship has the warmth and idealism of a typical young romance. They share dreams, argue, make up and move through the city like it belongs only to them. 
The turning point comes when Mukti decides to leave the relationship and chooses a more stable future with someone else. Her decision is not presented as a simple betrayal but as a desperate attempt to escape a love that feels unsafe. For Shankar, though, it is experienced as a complete collapse of his world. The film then follows the chain reaction that begins from that one moment. Shankar’s anger spills out in destructive ways. He lashes out, makes violent threats, and famously declares that he will burn Delhi if pushed too far. 
From this point the narrative alternates between their past and Shankar’s present. In the present timeline, Shankar is an Air Force officer with the skills and discipline that come with the job, but he still carries the emotional scars of his college love story. The film shows how unresolved heartbreak and guilt continue to shape his decisions, his relationships with family and friends, and his ability to control his impulses. Mukti’s choices also continue to echo, affecting not just her own life but the lives of people around her. Their love story is presented as something that never quite ended, even after the relationship did.
By the time the story reaches its final stretch, Shankar and Mukti have been pushed to extremes. The film explores whether they can find any redemption after so much damage, or whether some loves are destined to remain open wounds. Without revealing specific twists, the climax stays true to the tone promised by the promo material. It is dramatic, emotionally loaded and designed to leave the audience shaken rather than comforted. 
Tere Ishk Mein: Performances
Dhanush is the beating heart of Tere Ishk Mein. As Shankar, he moves between the vulnerable boy and the furious man with remarkable ease. In the college flashbacks he captures the insecurity, excitement and possessiveness of a young lover who does not know how to handle rejection. In the later portions, his body language changes into that of a man who has seen too much and carries a constant internal war. His Hindi still has traces of an accent, but the emotional truth he brings to moments of rage, breakdown and silent heartbreak lifts many scenes beyond the written word. Several sequences, including a rooftop confrontation and some quieter scenes with his father, are clear standouts.
Kriti Sanon gets one of the most challenging roles of her career as Mukti. She is not just the pretty romantic interest. The writing demands that she play Mukti as a woman who is both deeply in love and deeply afraid of where that love might lead. She has to shift between being the emotional shelter in Shankar’s life and the person who chooses to walk away from him for her own survival. Kriti portrays Mukti’s conflict with a mix of strength and fragility. In several key scenes, especially where she confronts Shankar about his temper or tries to explain why she cannot stay, her eyes do as much work as the dialogues. It feels like a deliberate attempt from her side to step into more emotionally riskier parts. 
Prakash Raj, in a special role as Shankar’s father, adds another emotional layer to the film. Their scenes together show a bond that is full of love but also weighed down by disappointment and fear. The father son track becomes a parallel story about how one generation deals with the self destructive tendencies of the next. It is a smart casting decision, given the history between Dhanush and Prakash Raj in South films, and their chemistry gives the film some of its most moving non romantic moments. 
The supporting cast includes Priyanshu Painyuli, Tota Roy Choudhury, Vineet Kumar Singh, Sushil Dahiya, Maahir Mohiuddin and others. They play friends, authority figures and people caught in the blast radius of Shankar and Mukti’s choices. While not all of them are given equally fleshed out arcs, they provide the necessary texture to build a world around the central couple. Mohd Zeeshan Ayub gets fantastic cameo which connects the film to Raanjhana smartly.
A R Rahman’s music deserves a special mention under performance, because the songs and background score function like emotional actors in the film. The title track, sung by Arijit Singh, becomes a recurring theme that binds different phases of Shankar and Mukti’s journey. Angaara and Ussey Kehna are placed beautifully in the film. The soundtrack shifts from soft, aching melodies in the Benaras portions to more urgent, almost haunting pieces when the story moves into darker territory. Live promotional performances and audience reactions already hinted that this album would be central to the film’s impact, and on screen that prediction holds true.
Tere Ishk Mein: Analysis
On a thematic level, Tere Ishk Mein continues Aanand L Rai’s fascination with lovers who are not easy to love. Shankar and Mukti are written as flawed, often frustrating people. The film is not interested in making them aspirational. Instead, it leans into their chaos. Shankar’s inability to accept rejection, his violent streak and his tendency to romanticise self destruction are all on full display. Mukti is not a passive victim either. She has agency, she makes hard choices, and she also hurts people in the process. Their relationship becomes a space where love and harm seem constantly intertwined.
Structurally, the film uses a back and forth between past and present to gradually reveal the true cost of their relationship. The college romance portions are not simply sweet memories. They are clues that help the audience understand why the present looks the way it does. This structure gives the first two acts a strong grip. There is a constant sense of tension as we wait to see which specific incident pushed Shankar beyond the point of no return and how far Mukti was willing to go before she finally left. 
Visually, the film stays true to its promise of an intense, grounded romance. The use of Benaras and Delhi is not just cosmetic. Crowded ghats, narrow streets, Delhi’s winter fog and Air Force settings all mirror the emotional states of the characters. When the story is in its early, hopeful phase, the frames feel more open and romantic. As things darken, the visuals grow more restless and closed in, matching the tightening of Shankar’s psychological grip on his world. 
Where Tere Ishk Mein falters is in the stretch leading up to the climax. The film is packed with ideas: unhealed trauma, generational expectations, addiction, masculine ego, social pressure and more. At times it feels like the screenplay is trying to carry more emotional threads than it can comfortably hold. The narrative becomes a little overloaded and a few subplots, such as both the fathers’ trajectories, never quite land with the weight they are set up for. The final portion is still affecting, but some revelations and decisions arrive faster than they should, which softens the blow.
However, the emotional honesty of the central track keeps pulling the film back on course. The writing is very clear about one thing. Love in this world is not gentle. It demands sacrifice and offers no guarantee of fairness. That clarity makes Tere Ishk Mein a polarising watch. Some viewers will find the toxicity, constant heartbreak and emotional volume too much. Others will see it as exactly the kind of fearless, big screen romance that has been missing, where characters are allowed to be messy and the film does not apologise for the intensity of their feelings.
Tere Ishk Mein: Verdict
Tere Ishk Mein is a dark, sprawling love story that refuses to behave. It is powered by a fearless Dhanush, a surprisingly raw and committed Kriti Sanon and the musical spine of A R Rahman. The film is not flawless. The final act stumbles and not every supporting character gets the space they deserve. Yet the experience as a whole stays with you because it never settles for safe choices.
As a theatrical experience, it offers exactly what it promises: an intense romance that uses the big screen for big emotions. If you are willing to surrender yourself to a story where love can burn as much as it can heal, Tere Ishk Mein is well worth the ticket.
Tere Ishk Mein: Rating
Critics Rating: 4/5
Box Office Rating: 3/5
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