The most important fact is that you just need few elements at the right place to churn out the accurate result. As said by Alfred Hitchcock, To make a good film you just need three things, the script, the script and the script. Director Ram Gopal Varma after delivering the masterpiece Satya, was back with Kaun again with his writer Anurag Kashyap who undoubtedly did an impressive job with his writing, of which the outcome was a film like Kaun, which had just few elements but was enough to stand out on itself.
The film stood out differently back in 1999 as it was set in one location, the film had no songs, just three actors but a great story and some of the unbelievable performances and the build up of suspense and horrific moments, keeps you hooked from the beginning till the end. The film becomes one of the best thrillers ever made in the Indian Cinema.
If you’ve watched Radhika Apte’s Phobia, you may find similarities between her character in Phobia and Urmila’s character in Kaun. The opening sequence in the film Kaun makes you believe that somewhere something is wrong and that connects you throughout the whole film. And at the Climax, which surely makes the film one of the finest works in Indian Cinema, as you never expect it that too for a Bollywood film made back in 1999.
This experiment by Ram Gopal Varma was really risky but was a great step towards the evolution of Indian Cinema, standing apart from the Mainstream movies.