Rajeev Kanakala, Udaya Bhanu Vasanthika, Gayathri Bhargavi, and Bindhu Mouli's D/O Prasad Rao, a thriller series directed by Poluri Krishna is streaming on Zee 5 platform from 27 Feb 2026. Let us see what the six episode series offered to audience.
D/O Prasada Rao's story revolves around a father's desperate search for his missing daughter and the twists and turns involved in it. Prasad Rao (Rajeev Kanakala) who runs a grocery shop in Nellore, much against his wishes and upon persuation from his wife and brothers, sends his daughter Swathi (Vasanthika) to work in a software company in Hyderabad. However, he gets a shock of his life, when he finds his daughter's mobile switched off and loses contact of her. Where it leads to, what role CI Rebecca Joseph (Udaya Bhanu) played, what Prasad Rao finds out when he reaches Hyderbad and what happened to Swathi form the rest of the narration.
Rajeev Kanakala came up with a subtle performance and elevated the scenes with his performance. He showed variations with his expressions and body language according to the situation. He delivered dialogues showing emotions connecting chords with the viewers as a father who loves and is concerned about his daughter's well-being. He showed love towards his daughter, care and fear for her safety and also the pain when she goes missing.
Vasanthika is good in the role of a daughter. She is bubbly when she gets a job and convinces her family members and showed her fear when the situation turns against her.
Udaya Bhanu did the role of a tough cop quite well. She came up with serious expressions and delivered dialogues accordingly. Her body language as a cop is good.
Others like Swathi, Bhawani, Sujatha, Prasad Rao, Hima Bindu, Gayathri, Bhargavi, and Bindhu Mouli performed according to their roles.
D/O Prasad Rao story is penned by Poluri Krishna. He tried to thrill viewers with a story that has few surprises. However, he ended up coming with a simple story that turned out to be stale. He started the narration in an interesting manner and this increases the curiosity among viewers in the first few episodes. But from then on, everything turns routine and predictable as in their quest to come up with more twists and turns, they instead turned everything silly.
In his quest to come up with more twists, Poluri Krishna failed to come up with strong characters. This inturn impacted his writing leaving a void and the screenplay goes awry though it looks interesting from outside. With the passage of time, the characters turn preachy with the director unable to fathom how to take the story forward and bring it to a logical conclusion.
The cop is introduced as a tough person and has unique investigation techniques but the investigation scenes offer nothing new. They cop is just turned out to be a mere caricature taking orders from the higherups. Finally when the final episodes end, viewers heave a sigh of relief.
The editing of GV. Chandra Sekhar looks unpolished. There are many repetitive scenes that slowed the pace of the narration. He tried to be smart to turn it decent but overall came up with a haphazard output. Sriram gave the background score for the plot. Sriram in his quest to elevate the scenes, came up with a loud score instead of adding finess to the narration. This inturn turned everything into over the top when it is not required. The cinematography of K.Mahesh Kumar is in sync with the story. He didnot try anything extraordinary and did what was required for the story sticking to the basics. Production values are just ok.
Altogether, D/O Prasad Rao Kanbadutaledu promises a lot initially, only to falter in the end. Poluri Krishna tried to thrill viewers with a investigative thriller but he ended up coming with a stale and outdated story. To make matters worse he turned preachy instead of concentrating on the investigation. Had he stuck to the investigation procedures and came up with strong characters adding a tinge of mystery to each of them, rather than becoming preachy and trying to give a message to the society, things would have been different. Considering all these elements, Cinejosh goes with a 2 rating for D/o Prasad Rao Kanabdutaledu.