Varun Tej as 'Korean Kanakaraju'

The makers of director Merlapaka Gandhi's upcoming Indo-Korean horror comedy, tentatively being referred to as #VT15 and featuring Telugu actor Varun Tej in the lead, have now announced the title of the film as 'Korean Kanakaraju'

The production house First Frame Entertainments took to its X timeline to make the announcement on the occasion of actor Varun Tej's birthday on Monday.

Sharing the link to a title glimpse video, the production house wrote, "#VT15 is #KoreanKanakaraju.#KOKAGlimpse OUT NOW.Happy Birthday @IAmVarunTej. Get ready for a roller-coaster of fun and thrills in theatres this SUMMER 2026. #HBDVarunTej."

Varun Tej, for his part, shared the link to the title glimpse on his X timeline and wrote, " Meet Korean Kanakaraju. See you all in theatres this SUMMER 2026. #KoreanKanakaraju."

The title glimpse opens with a photographer from India being tortured by policemen in Korea. The cops want the photographer to give them details of the location of a person they know as Kanakaraju. Initially, the photographer struggles to understand as he does not know the language. When an interpreter(Ritika Nayak) comes and translates what the cops seek from him, he says he does not know where Kanakaraju is. But then, on a full moon night, a possessed Kanakaraju (Varun Tej) walks into the station and hacks the Korean cops to death with a Samurai sword. He laughs in an eerie fashion and says "I'm back" in Korean, prompting the photographer to say, "This Kanakaraju isn't our Kanakaraju..."

The film has triggered huge expectation among fans and film buffs, ever since the project was announced.

The fact that an Indian actor will be working on a joint Indo-Korean film has thrilled fans, who are eager to see how the film will turn out.

The film has one of south Indian cinema’s top music directors, S Thaman, scoring music for it. It has art direction being handled by Paneer Selvam.

It may be recalled that Varun Tej had left for Korea in the middle of June last year for the shooting of the film. The unit had, during the third week of May, wrapped up its Ananthapur schedule.

After kicking things off with an auspicious pooja ceremony in Hyderabad, the team shot in Ananthapur, where shooting took place at a number of places including the iconic KIA grounds and the picturesque village locales. One of the highlights of the Ananthapur schedule was a visually stunning song sequence that was shot.

The schedule in Korea was the third. While sequences shot in the first two schedules had more of the thrill element along with humour, the Korea schedule had more of entertaining sequences filled with thrills.