Kanooru Heggadithi is significant because it marks Girish Karnad's return to film direction after over a decade. Shashi Kapoor's Utsav in Hindi, was the last film for which he wielded the megaphone.

Subbamma, the mistress of the house is a born rebel and spurs even an unfriendly cluster of women folk around her in the sprawling habitat into periodic acts of defiance. And, when Chandre Gowda dies a miserable death, groaning under the weight of his own tyranny and subsequent repentance as it were, handing over the mantle to her, she revolts by her own brand of promiscuity, as if to avenge all the wrongs done by man to woman. She destroys herself in the end, of course, but not without putting up a brave fight against machismo.