General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20266 min read

Tooth Pari: When Love Bites

Tooth Pari: When Love Bites is a Hindi-language fantasy romantic thriller streaming series created by Pratim D. Gupta for Netflix, released on 20 April 2023. Set in contemporary Kolkata, it follows a rebellious vampire named Rumi who breaks a canine tooth while hunting for blood and falls in love with the shy human dentist who repairs it.¹^•² The eight-episode limited series stars Tanya Maniktala, Shantanu Maheshwari, Revathy, Sikandar Kher, Tillotama Shome, Saswata Chatterjee, and Adil Hussain.³

Key fact	Detail
Format	8-episode Hindi-language limited series; Netflix; released 20 April 2023; age rating 15¹
Creator	Pratim D. Gupta, previously director of Shaheb Bibi Golaam (2016) and Maacher Jhol (2017)⁴
Premise	Vampire Rumi (Tanya Maniktala) breaks a canine while hunting and lands in the chair of dentist Roy (Shantanu Maheshwari), who faints at the sight of blood²^•⁵
Setting	Kolkata divided into Upar (the human world above) and Neeche (the subterranean world of the vampire clan)²^•⁶
Vampire rules	Canines, garlic, and sunlight kept; mirror reflections, turning into bats, and fear of the cross dropped; vampires can be killed only by decapitation²^•⁶
Reception	IMDb 6.9 from about 3,400 user ratings; reviews praised the Kolkata setting and ensemble cast while noting a scattered narrative⁷^•⁸

Spoilers

Premise and world

The series is set in a Kolkata split into two levels. Upar is the ordinary human city; Neeche is the subterranean realm where the vampire clan lives, reached through a manhole. Rumi, turned from human to vampire ten years before the story begins, is a rule breaker who makes furtive trips to the surface to hunt, despite repeated warnings from her clan.²^•⁶ On one such hunt she loses a "sharpie", the retractable canine used to draw blood, and lands at the clinic of Dr. Bikram Roy, a reluctant dentist who moonlights as an anonymous chef on YouTube and faints at the sight of blood.⁵^•⁶

Gupta has described Neeche as "an exclusive resort or also like a luxury prison", a space whose incarceration is more psychological than physical. He drew a parallel with the Covid lockdowns: the natural tendency to break the rules and live a normal life is what Rumi does, an act with severe consequences.²

Characters and cast

The central pair is Rumi (Tanya Maniktala) and Roy (Shantanu Maheshwari). Around them, the ensemble includes Revathy as Luna Luka, a modern-day Wicca on a mission to rid the city of vampires; Sikandar Kher as Kartik Pal, an alcoholic police sub-inspector investigating a fang he has found; Tillotama Shome as Meera, an undead Kathak-trained courtesan from a distant past; Saswata Chatterjee as David; and Adil Hussain as AD, a human who controls the vampires and profits from them while the vampire leader Ora (Anish Railkar) hibernates.⁵^•⁶^•⁹

Casting approach. Casting director Shruti Mahajan, who casts for Sanjay Leela Bhansali's films, brought Maheshwari to Gupta's attention through his audition for Gangubai Kathiawadi; Gupta auditioned him over several weeks with a look test before casting him. Gupta deliberately built the crew and much of the cast from Kolkata, including cinematographer Subhankar Bhar, who had shot his previous four films, and Bengali actors such as Anindita Bose, Rajatava Datta, Swaroopa Ghosh, Anjan Dutt, Barun Chanda, and Kharaj Mukherjee, even though the Bengali dialogues are minimal.³^•²

Development and vampire lore

Gupta has said the idea of a love story between a vampire and a dentist had been with him for a long time: because a vampire's main weapon is the tooth, he asked what would happen if the tooth broke. He pitched the concept to filmmaker Sujoy Ghosh four or five years before release, when Ghosh was making the one-hour films Teen Paheliyan for Disney+ Hotstar; Ghosh told him the idea was too big for a one-hour film. Gupta has also traced the two-world structure to a visit to Wong Kei, a restaurant in London's Chinatown where waiters seat customers "Upstairs" or "Downstairs".³^•²

Because India has no indigenous vampire mythology, Gupta treated that absence as creative freedom. He kept some familiar elements, including elongated canines, the fear of garlic, and the problem with sunlight, and removed others, such as the lack of mirror reflections, turning into bats, and the fear of the cross. In his telling, his vampires have souls and cast reflections, choices he said work in an Indian circumstance. He cited Tomas Alfredson's Let the Right One In and Park Chan-wook's Thirst as the vampire films he admired, both of which treat vampires as a species cohabiting with humans rather than foregrounding the supernatural.²^•⁴

Production

The series was shot in Kolkata during the Covid pandemic, when night shoots were not permitted, a constraint Gupta called a real challenge for a story with many action sequences set largely after dark. The climax was filmed at Phool Ghat next to Howrah Bridge. Gupta said directing action was new to him, distinct from directing dialogue scenes. The two worlds are visually differentiated by color: Neeche has a cold neon palette, with a red blood bar and a green library, while the dentist's chamber is warm in orange, yellow, and red, and the colors begin to merge as the love stories develop.³

Kolkata functions as more than a backdrop. The Indian Express review noted that the series moves beyond stock locations such as Howrah Bridge and the Victoria Memorial into dark alleys, nooks, and quaint bungalows, adding authenticity to the drama. Gupta himself said the city is "a character in its own right".⁵^•¹⁰

Reception

Reviews were mixed to positive. The Indian Express called it a moody fantasy drama that aspires to humanize the undead and credited the lead pair, with Maheshwari endearing as the gentle dentist and Maniktala's expressive eyes serving her self-assured vampire.⁵ The Tribune highlighted the acting, the music by Neel Adhikari, and a subtle gender role reversal, while finding the final battle one-sided.¹¹ YourStory rated it 3 out of 5, calling the leads refreshing but the narrative scattered, and noting that the vampire concept is not organic to Indian folklore, which makes parts of the story feel imposed.⁸ Rediff's review found the romance lost under flashbacks and backstories but credited the show for breaking out of the narrow circle of crime and comedy on Indian streaming platforms.⁶ On IMDb the series holds a 6.9 rating from about 3,400 users.⁷

The series ends on a cliffhanger; Maheshwari said in an interview that he hoped for a second season.¹²

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Series and fictional screen worlds › International serial drama and telenovelas › South and Southeast Asian serials › South Asian web serials › Premiered 2013 to 2024

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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