The film features an ensemble cast including Yash, Srinidhi Shetty, Vasishta N. Simha, Ramachandra Raju, Archana Jois, Anant Nag, Achyuth Kumar, Malavika Avinash, T. S. Nagabharana and B. Suresha.

[2] In the film, Rocky, a high-ranking mercenary, working for a prominent gold mafia in Bombay, seeks power and wealth in order to fulfill his mother's promise.

Journalist Anand Ingalagi's book El Dorado, which detailed the events at the Kolar Gold Fields (KGF) between 1951 and 2018, was banned by the Indian government, but a television news channel procures a copy and interviews him.

Suryavardhan, one of the powerful dons and politicians of that time, who accompanied them, killed the officials and leases the land for 99 years under the pretext of running Narachi, a limestone mine, but secretly established K.G.F.

Rocky arrives in Bombay as a ten-year-old on a quest for wealth and power as desired by his dying mother, and begins to work for Shetty, a gold smuggler and Andrews' underboss, who competes against a Dubai-based underworld don Inayat Khalil.

Rocky stealthily accesses the map of the mine in the maintenance room during a roll call and narrowly escapes death after a fellow slave sacrifices himself to save the lives of his wife and unborn child.

He orders them to burn the guards' corpses to let Andrews' and his men know he is still alive via their informants, Kulkarni and Garuda's younger brother Virat.

Ingalagi concludes that Rocky intentionally chose KGF as the location to assassinate Garuda, thereby inspiring an army of slaves to help him seize control.

[14] Ravi Basrur, who earlier scored music for the director's Ugramm, was hired for the project, while Bhuvan Gowda handled the cinematography.

In an interview with The Times of India, Prashanth Neel stated that he planned to split the film in two parts, as the narration of the story is in a non-linear format.

[23] The film was slated to take off earlier that year, but was pushed back because of problems surrounding the Kalasa Banduri issue, which meant the team had to cancel its initial shoot schedule plans.

The schedule was further complicated by Yash's break from shooting films, in order to focus on his wedding to Radhika Pandit, which was held in Bangalore in December 2016.

[28] Aware that a freak accident happened at the sets of Masti Gudi (2017), claiming the lives of two actors, producer Kirangadur secured an insurance cover for the crew members working on the film.

[30][31] As a part of the film's shoot, the filmmakers painted a portion of the Jayalakshmi Vilas Mansion, which is located on the campus of University of Mysore.

Some sequences of the movie, which has Yash and Srinidhi Shetty in the lead roles, were also shot at the centenary clock tower located next to the campus.

[49] On 8 January 2018, coinciding with Yash's birthday, a one-minute long introductory teaser, with Ananth Nag narrating, was unveiled by the production team.

[56] On 9 December 2018, the makers hosted a pre-release event at the JRC Convention Centre in Hyderabad to promote the film's Telugu version.

[57] On 28 August 2017, the filmmakers announced that KGF will be made as a multilingual film, released in Kannada, Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, and Hindi languages, marking the first foray of its crew members (including Yash) into different industries.

[81][82] On 20 December 2018, the 10th Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate court in Bengaluru had passed an interim stay before the film's release, following two petitions, filed by Venkatesh G, Yogesh and Ratan, citing plagiarism allegations, and also accusing the filmmakers of portraying Kolar's history in a poor light.

[84] On 27 December 2018, the filmmakers issued a statement that the shows in Australia were cancelled due to an unauthorized screening, as the distributors of the film did not consult the producers of the original.

[citation needed] On 18 December 2018, a few scenes from the film were leaked onto social networking sites,[85] although Karthik Gowda, the executive producer, labeled it a rumour and clarified that the filmmakers have created a team to fight against online piracy.

[125] Within the end of the first week, K.G.F collected more than $522,848 at the box office,[126] becoming the first Sandalwood film to cross a half million ($500k) dollars in United States.

[131] Troy Ribeiro of News18 echoed her sentiment, writing, "Yash's endurance, strife and sincerity ... get projected as perfunctory" in the context of "tight close-ups and mid-shots the camera stops us from getting emotionally connected to" every actor in the film.

While she commended Yash's "extraordinary performance" and the "brilliantly choreographed stunt sequences", she wrote that despite having "universal theme, [the film] gets lost in translation, thanks to sloppy editing and atrocious dialogues.

While writing that "[t]here is a certain finesse to the edgy, moody cinematography", he concluded that the film lacked a "soul, a believable story, and a rounded protagonist.

[139] Also writing for the same news publication, Shubhra Gupta drew comparisons of the film in plot to those of Nayakan, Deewaar, and Parinda in its first half.

"[141] Sunaina Suresh of The Times of India said that "The growth of Rocky is shown steadily and the makers kept a clever story telling pattern right through that keeps pace with the narrative."

Director Pa. Ranjith praised the team after watching the trailer of the film,[161] while Puneeth Rajkumar and Shah Rukh Khan also appreciated Yash and the filmmakers.

Tamil actor Vijay, who watched a special screening of the film on 20 January 2019 in Chennai,[citation needed] praised the team for its brilliant filmmaking, and Yash for his performance.

[171] In a March 2018 interview with IANS, Yash stated that "The success of KGF: Chapter 1 boosted the morale of the Kannada film industry.