Was it Yuva Rajkumar or a stunt double in James second half fight sequence?

Now that the late Puneeth Rajkumar’s last commercial film James is in theatres, cast members, who have been holding on to images from the shoot, have been sharing them on social media. One such was John Kokken, who plays one of three villains on Sarath Kumar’s team. John, Tarak Ponnappa and Yash Shetty are responsible for certain events in the narrative that lead to army man Santhosh Kumar (Puneeth) taking up a fight against the drug mafia.

Unfortunately, some of the scenes involving this trio and Puneeth, were shot after the latter’s demise, including an action sequence. Since the film’s release, social media has been abuzz with the use of CGI in the film and this stunt is also being discussed with fans wondering if it was only a nameless stunt double or if the late actor’s nephew Yuva Rajkumar, who has the skill sets to pull off the moves in this sequence, stepped in for his uncle. The discussions centred around the built of the ‘stunt double’ with fans stating that Yuva comes close to matching his late uncle’s physique and body language.

The team of the film is yet to address this, especially since director Chethan had always maintained that Puneeth had finished the talkie portions prior to his demise and that only one duet song and some patchwork was pending. This patchwork, fans say, included this action sequence, a scene in which Priya Anand confesses her feelings for the actor and another at the army head-quarters. While the CGI is not top quality, fans maintain that it was commendable of the team considering the constraints they were working with.