Oka Roju is a Telugu romantic drama releasing in theatres on May 1, 2026, directed by Sunil Pandey and produced by Aamir Khan Productions. It is the Telugu dubbed version of the Hindi film Ek Din, starring Sai Pallavi alongside Junaid Khan in a love story set across Noida and Sapporo, Japan. Sai Pallavi is everything the film promises and more. The film itself is sincere, beautifully photographed, and emotionally decent. It just does not use her or the premise at their full potential.
Watch the official Telugu trailer here: Oka Roju Official Telugu Trailer – YouTube
| Detail | Info |
|---|---|
| Movie Name | Oka Roju |
| Original Title | Ek Din (Hindi) |
| Language | Telugu (dubbed) |
| Theatrical Release | May 1, 2026 |
| OTT Release | Not announced yet |
| Platform | Theatre |
| Cast | Sai Pallavi, Junaid Khan, Kunal Kapoor, Jenifer Emmanuel, Reshma Shetty, Kavin Dave, Pragati Mishra |
| Director | Sunil Pandey |
| Music | Ram Sampath (lyrics by Irshad Kamil) |
| Cinematography | Manoj Lobo |
| Writers | Sneha Desai, Spandan Mishra |
| Production | Aamir Khan Productions |
| Producers | Aamir Khan, Mansoor Khan, Aparna Purohit |
| Filming Locations | Sapporo, Japan and Film City, Mumbai |
| Runtime | 2 hours 5 minutes |
| Certification | UA13+ |
| Based On | One Day (Thai film, 2016) |
| Our Rating | 6 / 10 |
Is Oka Roju Worth Watching?
Once, yes. Primarily for Sai Pallavi, who uses this outing to quietly demonstrate that she belongs at the top of the industry regardless of the language she is working in. Junaid Khan is considerably better here than he was in Loveyapa and handles underplayed emotion with real skill. The Japan cinematography gives the film a visual warmth that covers for a few of the script’s weaker passages. But the music underperforms, some supporting subplots feel grafted in rather than organic, and the film plays it safe at precisely the moments where boldness would have elevated it.
What Is Oka Roju About?
Dinesh Kumar Srivastav, called Dino by everyone at work, is an IT employee at a Noida-based company. He is the kind of person who fixes your laptop and whom you forget the moment you walk away from your desk. He has been quietly in love with his colleague Meera Ranganathan for a while, but she is in a relationship with Nakul, their senior at the office, and Dino has no opening and very little courage.
The company schedules an annual offsite trip to Japan. In Japan, Meera discovers that Nakul is still married and has been hiding it. Devastated, she is involved in an accident and develops Transient Global Amnesia, a temporary condition that wipes her short-term memory. When she wakes up, the only person she remembers is Dino, who saved her life. She has one day with him before her full memory returns. Dino has one day with a woman he loves who currently trusts only him.
That setup has genuine potential for both comedy and tenderness. The second half explores what Dino does with that time and what it costs him emotionally when Meera’s memory begins coming back. The film is careful not to let the premise slide into manipulation, though it gets close to the edge in a couple of scenes.
What Works
Sai Pallavi’s performance, specifically in the second half. Her Meera in the amnesia sequences is where the performance gets most interesting. She plays someone experiencing the world with fresh eyes while the audience knows what she does not, and she makes that dramatic irony feel tender rather than contrived. The moment in the trailer where she describes Dino’s actions from a place of genuine gratitude plays very differently once you understand the full context.
The Japan cinematography. Manoj Lobo photographs Sapporo with patience and real love for the location. The snow, the festival lights, the quiet streets at night. Japan has rarely been used this thoughtfully as a setting in recent Indian cinema, and the film treats it as a character rather than a postcard.
Junaid Khan’s controlled restraint. Dino is a role that could easily become sentimental and excessive. Junaid Khan resists that pull consistently. The moments where he most clearly wants to say something and chooses silence are the ones that stay with you. He is clearly a better actor than Loveyapa allowed him to show.
The production decision to write Meera as a South Indian woman. Rather than asking Sai Pallavi to perform a Hindi-language identity from scratch, the writers built her South Indian identity into the character itself. It is a small but intelligent choice that lets her focus entirely on the performance rather than spending energy on a linguistic act.
The Fortune Bell sequence. Dino makes a wish at a famous bell in Japan that he will get one day with Meera. It is staged simply and without any cinematic grandstanding. That simplicity makes the wish feel real and gives the second half its emotional grounding.
The dance sequence. Sai Pallavi fans know what to expect and the film delivers. Her dance in one key scene reportedly stops the show in the way only her sequences do. In a film that otherwise keeps its energy quiet, this moment lands with real force.
What Does Not Work
Ram Sampath’s music does not match the setting. A romantic drama set in snowy Japan, starring one of South Indian cinema’s most beloved actresses, needed songs that become the film’s emotional memory. The title track works. Nothing else in the album stays with you after the credits roll. For a film with this cast and this location, that is a real missed opportunity.
Nakul’s subplot pulls the film in a different direction. Kunal Kapoor plays Meera’s married senior colleague with dependable professionalism, but the sub-story around his marriage and his relationship with Meera shifts the film toward a slightly heavier melodrama that does not sit comfortably next to the gentler romantic register the rest of the film builds. It is not a bad story in isolation, just not quite the same story everything else is telling.
The script plays it safe. Oka Roju is a remake of a 2016 Thai film and it respects that source material carefully. Too carefully, in places. There are moments where the film needed to take a creative risk specific to this cast and this setting, and it does not take it. With Sai Pallavi and Junaid Khan as leads, the romantic tension could have been developed far more boldly.
Reshma Shetty’s accent work draws attention to itself. She is a capable performer but the Gujarati accent her character uses pulls you briefly out of the scene each time she speaks. It reads as a performance decision that needed more rehearsal time.
Performances
Sai Pallavi (Wikipedia) needs no introduction to Telugu audiences. What Oka Roju gives them is the first look at how she carries a story that is not built around action, folklore, or sweeping drama. Her Meera is quieter and more interior than most of her South Indian roles, and she handles that register with complete ease. Her Hindi is confident, her emotional calibration is precise for this quieter genre, and her eyes do the work in scenes where the dialogue is doing very little. She holds the film together in its second half almost single-handedly.
Junaid Khan (Wikipedia) is visibly more at ease here than he was in Loveyapa. Dino is a character built on interiority rather than performance, and Junaid Khan has the patience and skill for that kind of role. He does not push for sympathy. He earns it quietly, which is genuinely harder to do than it looks.
Kunal Kapoor (Wikipedia) as Nakul is reliable as always. The role does not ask much beyond composed authority with a complicated private life, and he delivers that cleanly without overplaying the moral ambiguity.
Kavin Dave as Dino’s colleague and Pragati Mishra as Meera’s roommate both add texture to the supporting landscape without demanding more screen time than they are given. Jenifer Emmanuel is fine in her role. Reshma Shetty delivers well despite the accent inconsistency noted above.
Direction, Writing and Technical Elements
Sunil Pandey directs with a steady, unhurried hand. He is clearly more interested in emotional texture than cinematic showmanship, which suits this material. Where he is most effective is in the Japan sequences, where he gives the location room to breathe and trusts Manoj Lobo’s camera to carry the emotional weight. Where he is less effective is in the Noida office scenes, which feel functional rather than alive, like setups to be cleared before the film can get to Japan and start being what it really wants to be.
The screenplay by Sneha Desai and Spandan Mishra adapts the Thai original with care. The Transient Global Amnesia device is handled more delicately than similar plot mechanics usually are in mainstream Indian romantic dramas, and the writers deserve credit for not exploiting it for cheap sentiment more than they do. The decision to write Meera as explicitly South Indian is the kind of intelligent cultural adaptation that makes remakes feel locally specific rather than just translated.
Ram Sampath’s music is the film’s clearest disappointment. The title track Oka Roju carries the film emotionally in the right moments. Everything else in the album feels composed for a different story with different characters. Manoj Lobo’s cinematography is the technical highlight and earns its own ticket price in the Japan sequences. The editing keeps the film moving at a pace that feels natural rather than rushed, which is the right call for a quiet romantic drama of this kind.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Oka Roju worth watching in theatres?
Yes, once. Go for the performances and the Japan cinematography. Sai Pallavi’s performance and Junaid Khan’s growth as an actor are worth seeing on a big screen.
What is Oka Roju about?
An IT nerd falls in love with his colleague but never confesses. During a company trip to Japan, a wish he makes at a famous bell and a subsequent accident change everything for one day.
Is Oka Roju a remake?
Yes. Oka Roju is the Telugu dubbed title of the Hindi film Ek Din, which is itself a remake of the 2016 Thai romantic film One Day, adapted by writers Sneha Desai and Spandan Mishra.
Is this Sai Pallavi’s first Hindi film?
Yes. Sai Pallavi, known across Telugu and Tamil cinema, appears in a Hindi production for the first time with Ek Din. Oka Roju is the Telugu version of that film releasing simultaneously.
Who plays the male lead in Oka Roju?
Junaid Khan plays Dinesh Kumar Srivastav, nicknamed Dino. He is the son of producer and actor Aamir Khan.
Where was Oka Roju filmed?
The Japan sequences were filmed in Sapporo, using the snowy winter landscape as a central visual element. The India portions were filmed at Film City in Mumbai.
What is the runtime and certification of Oka Roju?
The film runs for 2 hours and 5 minutes and is certified UA13+.
When will Oka Roju release on OTT?
No OTT platform or release date has been announced as of May 1, 2026.
Final Verdict
CinemaCelebs Rating: 6 / 10
Oka Roju is a sincerely made, visually beautiful romantic drama that gets its two most important things right: the performances and the location. Sai Pallavi’s arrival in a Hindi production is exactly as good as her Telugu fan base would hope, and Junaid Khan shows genuine growth from his previous work. But the music lets the film down, the script plays safe when it should take risks, and a subplot involving the love rival is tonally out of step with the quieter, gentler story the film is mainly trying to tell. Worth watching once, and certainly worth more on OTT when you can settle in without the theatre distraction. Not a film you will return to repeatedly unless you are specifically there for Sai Pallavi.
Watch it if: You are a Sai Pallavi fan, a Junaid Khan follower, or someone who enjoys patient romantic dramas with strong visual craft and a Japan setting you rarely see done this well in Indian cinema.
Skip it if: You want a high-energy love story or a film that pushes either of its leads to their limits.
