03/31/08 ~ Early Tollywood

3.31.2008

SUBBU (2001) Movie Profile

Lyrics: Sirivennela, Jaladi, Kula Sekhar & Suddala Ashok Teja
Cinematography: Vijaya Sri (debutant)
Music: Mani Sharma
Art: Kumar
Fights: Horseman Babu
Editing: Marthand K
Story, screenplay, dialogues and direction: Rudraraju Suresh Varma
Producers: R Srinivas and PM Hari Kumar
Release Date: 21st December 2001

Cast:
NT Rama Rao,
Sonali Joshi,
Brahmanandam,
A.V.S.,
M.S. Narayana,
Dharmavarapu Subramanyam,
Benerjee,
'Kallu' Chidambaram,
Krishna Reddy,
Jogi Naidu,
Swapna Reddy,
Manoja,
Manisha,
Nisha,
Krishnaveni,
Sowmya Rai and Latha

Story

Bala Subramanyam alias Subbu (NTR) is a college student who is loved by each and everyone for his cool nature and lovable philosophy of keeping his head cool all the time. Neeraja (Sonali Joshi) is a Good Samaritan who keeps on donating money anonymously to fund 25 seats in the college in which Subbu is studying. Subbu is curious to know about the person who is donating that money.

Subbu falls in love with Neeraja, mainly for her positive attitude. There is a strong reason for Neeraja to donate money to the college. There is a stronger reason for Subbu to become a cool-headed guy.

In the flashback, Subbu rescues a girl who met with an accident and admits her in a hospital. She is a daughter of a rich industrialist GK Chowdary. GK Chowdary misunderstands Subbu as the other Bala Subramanyam who is responsible for his daughter to become pregnant. Without knowing truth, GK becomes a reason for the suicides of Subbu's entire family. GK realizes the truth later. And incidentally Neeraja is the younger sister of the girl whom Subbu rescues.

By the time of interval the audience realize that Subbu are Neeraja are in search of each other. Rest of the film twirls around how this couple realizes that they are made for each other, in deed.

Artists:

NTR: NTR is improving from film to film. To put in a more frank way, people started accepting NTR as his number of films is increasing (remember the old adage - tinaga tinaga vemu teeyanundu). He is good in dances and fights in this film. He should concentrate on reducing his weight. His physical appearance has not changed for the last one year. His dialogue delivery has improved considerably. He is very natural in terms of acting and dialogues. There is a mud fight scene in this film that made the entire theater go roaring with the laughs, where he literally rags the goon's batch with his instant dialogue delivery.

Sonali Joshi: She is not attractive enough to be a heroine. She is very artificial in her acting. NTR should concentrate in getting a attractive heroines for his films. All his heroines so far did not contribute to any of his films.

Technical Departments:
Dialogues - Story - Screenplay - Direction: The story concept of the film is novel. The execution of scenes in the first half is swift. Suresh Varma is from Ram Gopal Varma's school. He is brilliant in few shots of the film. But in the second half of the film, Suresh Varma failed to sustain the interest of the viewers. Dialogues in this film are apt. The way hero and heroine characterization done is very poetic and positive minded.

Music: Music of the film is very good. All the songs are good and well shot. 'Haree Hara' and 'Mast Mast' songs standout. Background music for fights is also good. Mani Sharma gave racy tunes for this film.

Photography: Photography is the main asset of the film. 435 camera is used for the entire film. 435 is generally used to shoot only songs and chase scenes, as hiring this camera is very expensive. There are lots of matrix kinds of shots in this film in action sequences. The camera work for New Zealand songs is also exceptional. The debutant, and the first women cinematographer of Telugu cinema, Ms. Vijaya Sri has done a commendable job.

Fights: The highlight of this film is execution of fights. Though there are only 3 major fights in the film they standout for the excellent work done by Horseman Babu.

Production: The producers are basically fans of Original NTR and Bala Krishna. They are major distributors (Devi Films and RS films) from Ceded. They seem to have given free hand to Suresh. The entire film has rich production values.

Analysis: First half of the film is very good as it has the entire story in the flashback. The second half is average, and at times boring. This film is good in patches. The separate comedy track between Brahmanandam and AVS is good. You can watch the film at your leisure. You can enjoy the first half.

[+/-]

HANUMAN JUNCTION 2001

Story: Rafi Meckardin
Dialogues: Thotapalli Madhu
Camera: Ram Prasad
Fights: Kanal Kannan
Art: M Kumar
Co-directors: Seetha Ramaraju and M.N.R
Music: Suresh Peters
Screenplay - Direction: M Raja
Producer: MV Lakshmi
Presented by: Editor Mohan
Release Date: 21st December 2001

Cast:
Jagapati Babu,
Venu,
Arjun,
Laya,
Sneha,
Vijaya Lakshmi,
Jaya Prakash Reddy,
Brahamanandam,
Rallapalli,
M.S. Narayana
Kovai Sarala

Story

Krishna (Arjun) and Dasu (Jagapati Babu) are orphans and are close friends since childhood. Their motto in life is to win over the people and market by brute force methods. They start KD & Co together and make a fortune. Dasu has a younger sister Devi (Vijaya Lakshmi). Krishna too treats her as his own sister. Three of them live together and own a fortune earned at Hanuman Junction. Krishna has a childhood sweetheart Manjari (Sneha).

Sathru (Venu) joins KD & Co as a manager. He has a flashback. He loves Devi back in college. But she expresses her helplessness by telling that she marries the guy who is recommended by her brothers. Sathru is on the mission to win over the brothers to marry Devi. KD & Co organizes a cultural show in which Sangeeta (Laya) participates as a singer. The foolishness of KD & Co makes Sangeeta stay for four extra in Hanuman Junction, which lands her in a soup. When Sangeeta attempts suicide, Dasu and Krishna rescues her and brings her to their house.

Now Sathru and Devi decide to get a suitable girl each for Krishna and Dasu so that they will give green signal to the marriage of Sathru and Devi. From here onwards, the comedy or errors start. The relationships among the pairs alter. If you want to know how a serious mass film turn into a comedy flick with Venu excelling as a comedy star, you got to watch Hanuman Junction on the silver screen.

Artists:

Artists: Jagapathi did a role of stupid, yet innocent, mass guy and he excelled in that role. Arjun underplayed his character to perfection in this film. Venu turned out to be a revelation as a comedy actor through Hanuman Junction. Sneha is really cute and homely-looking in her role. She is the perfect fit for her character. Laya did her role with ease. New heroine Vijaya Lakshmi is good looking and appears like a pure Telugu product. LB Sriram provides comic relief. Brahmanandam, MS Narayana and Kovai Sarala excel in their brief roles. Jaya Prakash Reddy is pretty good as the villain.

Technical Departments:

Screenplay - Direction: The story and relationships in this film are quite complex. But the whole credit should go to the debutant director Raja to narrate story in such a way that all the viewers understand the complex and randomly changing relationships clearly. The film looks solid in most of the scenes. The director could have taken proper care to trim the unnecessary fight in the climax. This director knows the mass pulse. He can also effectively handle situational comedy.

Dialogues: The lifeline of this film is dialogue department. Marudhuri Raja has done excellent job in penning mass and comedy dialogues.

Comedy: Comedy in this film is very good. Venu character is full of comedy. Kovai Sarala has a brief role. She has a naughty dialogue 'Naa Boothe Naa Bavishyathu' (referring to 'Na Bhutho Na Bhavishat). There is one particular cow scene in this film in which LB Sriram and Venu gets dressed as cow and create a laugh riot in theater by entering the house of Krishna & Das. Much of the comedy in the film is situational humor.

Music: Suresh Peters has provided music for this film. Two of songs are good. But the background music of the film is inspired one.

Editing - Production: The editing of the film is crisp except for the climax. The production values are high. Each song in the film has at least 40 artists on the screen all the time. Editor Mohan is good at choosing suitable Malayalam films and changing them to suit the nativity of Telugu films.

Analysis: Hanuman Junction is a mass film with sufficient comedy stuffing. You got to forget some logic while watching this film to extract viewing pleasure. This film is from the makers of 'Kshemamga velli Labhamga Randi' and it does not disappoint, if you have no expectations. But the big question here is whether this mass film clicks at box office where only the love stories are ruling the roost.

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BAVA NACHADU 2001

Music: Keeravani
Story - Dialogues: Janardhan Maharshi
Photography: Shyam K Naidu
Screenplay & Direction: KS Ravi Kumar
Producer: Arjuna Raju
Release Date: 7th June 2001

Cast:
Nagarjuna,
Simran,
Reema Sen
Suman Ranganath

Story

Ajay (Nagarjuna) is an adman (director and hero) who has a definite idea about how his future wife should be like. He gets married to a village belle Kamakshi (Simran), handpicked by his mom from her native town Kovvuru.

After marriage, Kamakshi meets with a hairline fracture. The entire family of Kamakshi lands up at Ajay's house to take care of Kamakshi. She has a beautiful and greedy sister called Lahari (Reema Sen). During that period Suma (Suman Ranganath), the regular model of Ajay, meets with a fracture and Lahari replaces her as the model opposite Ajay. During that moment, Lahari gets lured by the modeling profession and then falls in love with Ajay. But Ajay does not have any feelings for her.

Then Kamakshi gets well and the parents and sister of Kamakshi goes back to their village. But the bug of love bites Lahari and She is unable to forget Ajay. She starts behaving differently. She invites Kamakshi and expresses her desire for Ajay. Kamakshi gets mad and returns to her home to protect her husband. Meantime, Lahari resorts to suicide.

Kamakshi, being very close to Lahari, promises Lahari that she will make her marry Ajay. The rest of the film is about how Ajay manages to save his marriage without hurting Lahari. You got to watch this soft romantic comedy drama unfolding on the silver screen to experience it.

Performances:

Artists:

Nagarjuna: Nag is in his elements in this film. He is totally natural and exhibited the kind of charm he showered in the film 'Ninne Pelladatha'. He is stylish and more handsome in this film.

Simran: For Simran, this role is a typical one and she did it with poise. And too much of exposure to Simran can be dangerous as we see her in most of the big films as the heroine.

Reema Sen: She oozed lots of oomph in this film as the excessively obsessed in-law of Nagarjuna in this film.

Suman Ranganath: Her role is limited to give innuendos to Nagarjuna in this film. She has a song and few dance bits.

Technical Departments:

Screenplay & direction: The screenplay is the remarkable aspect of the film. He made sure that there is no boring moment in the film though the story is a clichéd one. KS Ravi Kumar makes sure that he gives a special appearance in all his films. In this film too he is shown dancing with the lead pair in the locales on New Zealand.

Story and Dialogues: Janardhana Maharshi, the man who grew along with EVV, is the story and dialogue writer in this film. Like any of his (and EVV) other films, this film too revolves around the sanctity of 'Thaali'.

Camera: Shyam K Naidu did a wonderful job in projecting the glamour of the film. Nag looks extra-handsome in this film.

Music: Though the audio is not well received in the pre-release scenario, the album sales may go up as the music and songs sound very good in the film.

Analysis: First half of the film is very good. In the second half, the pace of the film goes down a little before ending up in a predictable routine climax. The comedy track by MS Narayana and Mallikharjuna Rao looks inane. This film is a soft romantic comedy one. And is recommended for all the comedy film lovers. We have to wait and see, if the audiences in AP, unlike KS Ravi Kumar's earlier comedy film Tenali, receive this comedy. But it's worth a watch as Nag makes your funny bones tickle. This film is a sophisticated version of EVV's film sans vulgarity. It can pull ladies to the cinema hall. But its doubtful how far it can reach the masses at it sports just a fight.

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KHUSHI 2001

Music: Mani Sharma
Fights: Pawan Kalyan
Photography: PC Sreeram
Costumes: Renu Desai
Story, Screenplay & Direction: SJ Surya
Producer: AM Ratnam
Release Date: 27th April 2001

Cast:
Pawan Kalyan
Bhumika
Vijaya kumar
Sudhakar
Nazer
Rajan p dev
Sivaji

Story

This film stars with showing the births Siddhardha Roy (Pawan Kalyan) and Madhumita (Bhumika Chawla) in Kolkata and Kaikaluru respectively. They grow up and the scene changes and this couple are of 20 years old now. Siddardha Roy, who is fondly called as Siddu, is all set to go to Canada after securing the admission for doing his MS. On the other hand, Madhumita, who is fondly called as Madhu, is all set to engage a guy whom her father has chosen.

But the destiny has other plans for them. Siddu meets with an accident and gets hospitalized. The guy with whom Madhu is supposed to get engaged elopes with his secret sweetheart. And Madhu and Siddu get an admission in the Nizam college of Hyderabad.

They meet each other and find that they have lots of things in common and are made for each other. But there is one catch. They want others to express the love to them than expressing themselves.

One fine evening, during exams time, this couple wanted to do combined study. As Madhu is reading a book on 'Internet', our Siddu joins her with a book on 'Cobol'. Madhu is sensually dressed with a black transparent saree which made Siddu voyeur at her novel which gets exposed due to the breeze of air. Madhu gets suspicious and realizes that Siddu is ogling at her novel, in deed. She asks him about what he is doing and he denies the act of ogling at her. A small issue gets blown out of proportion and their inflated ego takes over their hearts and they decide that they are no more friends. They do not share any relationship.

They are brought back together as Madhu's best friend Lakshmi and Siddu's best friend Babu are in deep love and Lakshmi's father Gunduba Satti threatens Lakshmi of dire consequences if she continues her relationship with Babu. Madhu and Siddu decide that though they are united to save their friends, they individually share no relationship.

They marry off Lakshmi and Babu. As told by a background voice in the biginning of the film, it is sure that Siddu and Madhu are going to marry each other. But the most exiting thing is about this film that the turn of events they have gone through.

You must watch this film on a big screen with DTS effect to experience this amazingly essayed celluloid poetry.

Performances:

Artists:

Pawan Kalyan: "One-Man-Show" is the apt word that describes the role of Pawan Kalyan in this film. He has shown finesse in each and every department. Be it dialogue delivery, fighting, singing or dancing. This film has four fights, which are extraordinary. And the specialty of these fights is that Pawan Kalyan himself composes them all. They are very real and pretty powerful. The dialogue delivery and modulation of Pawan Kalyan is impeccable. So are the dances in this film, which are done with lot of grace.

Bhumika Chawla: Bhumika is very cute in this film. She matched Pawan with her performance.

Technical Departments:

Screenplay & direction: SJ Surya, who made a terrific film Vaali in the past, has come up with another winner this time. There is no story in this film. The whole 2 hours and 45 minutes of this story runs with a neat screenplay. He has done an extraordinary job as screenplay wright.

Music: The rerecording of this film is excellent and event the minute change of expression on the face of the actor is synchronized with the superb orchestration of background music in this film. Songs of this film are very good.

Dialogues: Rajendra Kumar's dialogues, which are pretty comedy oriented, make the viewers giggle all the time.

Songs: In addition to the six songs below, there are two other English straight songs for which Pawan Kalyan has done ultimate dances. One of that being the Macerena song that comes after the movie is over as a backdrop to the credit titles

* Ye Sarah Jahan: This song comes as an introduction to Pawan Kalyan and his Good Samaritan attitude of respecting the country and citizens and bashing up the evil elements. This song in shot the streets of Kolkota.
* Premate: This song is shot in the luster locales of New Zealand.
* Ammaye: This is another highlight of the film, which is shot in the sets erected.

* Aaduvari Matalaku: This is the cutest song of the lot in this film. Shot in the backdrop of luster locales, it shows Pawan Kalyan narrating the way women behave to his pet dog as Bhumika Chawla looks on.
* Chelia Chelia: This song of the film just happens when thing started to go right for the couple.
* Holi Holi: This song is a teaser for Bhumika Chawla that has Pawan and the vamp Mumtaj doing maverick dances.

Photography: PC Sreeram's work is another asset for the film.

Production: AM Ratnam, the uncompromising producer has compromised on some thing this time. Quality, that is. No wonder, this film has taken one year in making. AM Ratnam deserves another pat on his back for delivering another wholesome entertainer, a remade film this time.

Analysis: This film has 70% of comedy, 20% of songs and 10% of action in the backdrop of undercurrent love. Once, I started watching this film, I forgot about everything else and immersed myself in the inscrutable story that is unfolding on the screen. This film is an urbane one and has got all the ingredients the youth looks for. Pawan Kalyan is going from strength to strength and this is the best film done by him so far. The success of this film is unstoppable. But the magnitude of success of this film depends on how hardcore masses embrace this delicate urban youth film. Only the time will tell.

[+/-]

PRIYAMAINA NEEKU 2001

Music: SA Raj Kumar
Story, Screenplay & Direction: Bala Sekharan
Producer: RB Chowdary
Dailogue:Chintapalli ramana
Release Date: 21st February 2001

Cast:
Tarun,
Sneha
Preethi
Tanikella Bharani
Sivaji
Venu madhav

Story

Ganesh (Tarun) is a carefree college youth whose life revolves around friends and doing good deeds for them and upsetting his father (Bharani). One day he fumbles upon a Red diary in his father's auction shop. It is a dairy left behind unknowingly by Sandhya (Sneha).

The entire first half is narrated through the diary in this film. Sandhya is staying in the house opposite to that of Aishwarya (Jhansi), who is the sister of Ganesh. She falls in love with Ganesh after listening to his melodious guitar play. But Ganesh is unaware of her love and he never uses to interact with her. She is also a shy girl, who never let Ganesh know about her feelings. Sirisha (Preethi) is the younger sister of Sandhya, who is studying in a hostel. When she comes home for holidays, she gets jealous of Sandhya for loving Ganesh and she wanted to grab him from her. Sirishna assures Sandhya that she will liaison the love of Sandhya between Ganesh and Sandhya and plays a double game by playing tricks on Ganesh to attract him. Meantime, the father of Sandhya and Sirisha gets transferred to Vizag. Sandhya asks Sirisha to tell Sandhya's love to Ganesh. Sirishna proposes to Ganesh and gets rejected. Sandhya, who witnessed the entired episode secretly, feels cheated by the betrayal of her own sister. At the same time, Sandhya stays away from proposing to Ganesh for the fear of rejection. The family of Sandhya moves to Vizag. In the transfer process her diary gets misplaced.

After knowing that Sandhya is her secret admirer, Ganesh recognizes the purity in her love and wants to meet her and propose his love to her. He jets off to Vizag along with his friend Chacha (Venu Madhav). There he finds a mutual friend Raghu (Sivaji) and stays in his house. Raghu is a rich bachelor, who is staying with their parents and is very good at heart. As Ganesh explores his secret mission of finding Sandhya, Raghu gets engaged to the unwilling Sandhya. Later on Raghu comes to know that Ganesh is there to search his silent admirer.

Ganesh know that Raghu is marrying Sandhya. Being a good friend, he does not want to betray him. Sandhya has agreed to marriage since she does not want to make the things worse for her father and sister. But she still loves Ganesh. Sirisha wants to amend the mistake she has done. She searches for Ganesh to unite them. Things are still unsure and hazy as Sandhya and Ganesh are going to tie the knot in a few minutes. You have to watch this slow paced different love story if you want to know the climax.

Performances:

Artists:

Tarun: Tarun did this tailor made role with an ease of perfectionist. In this film too his character gets lot of sympathy just like his character in Nuvve Kavali.

Sneha: The newcomer is in her elements in this film. This natural beauty is the perfect fit for the role. She has very few dialogues in this film and carried the most of her action through expressions.

Preethi: She is a misfit in this film. A girl with josh is needed for this character and Preethi made a mess out of it.

Technical Departments:

Story, Screenplay & direction: Bala Sekharan, the man who directed the Tamil version of Pawan Kalyan's Suswagatham, did try to repeat the success by weaving another one sided love story. The flash back in the first-half is narrated though the series of leaflets from the memoirs of the Hero. He could have made the script a crisp one. Because of the nature of story, this film went on a slow pace. He could have made the film little shorter. Nonetheless, he made sure that this film too have all the clean ingredients the youth is looking for.

Dialogues: Ramana Chintalapalli, who was in hot seat during the days of 'Toli Prema' penned dialogues for this film. There is one particular eye-opening dialogue in this film, which goes on like this - "Manishiki Manishiki rayabaaraalu vundochukaani - Manaduki Manasuki raayabaaraalu undakoodadu'. There is another full-length dialogue for Venu Madhav that evokes lot of laugh.

Music: Songs of this film work like the typical slow poisoning by SA Raj Kumar. 'Manasuna Vunnadi' song is the highlight of the film, which represents the state of heart of the secretly admiring heroine. There is one particular catchy guitar bit in this film that comes repeatedly, which comes in the starting of the song 'Manasuna Vunnadi'.

Production: RB Chowdary, like any other seasoned successful producer, knows the pulse of the viewers and according the select the scripts and directors.

Analysis: This film started with a low note as an average film. Courtesy - the movie-eater Narasimha Naidu. With the help aggressive publicity, a good film can never fail. Over the next few weeks, it made an unexpected turnaround to become a good hit, as the collection sour up week after week. If you are patient enough to watch a little slow paced film, this movie is a best bet.

[+/-]

GUNA SEKHAR

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MRUGARAJU 2001

Music: Mani Sharma
Dialogues: Satyanand
Story, Screenplay & Direction: Guna Sekhar
Producer: K Devi Vara Prasad
Release Date: 11th January 2001

Cast:
Chiru,
Simran,
Sanghvi
Nagababu
Prakash raj
Surya
raja raveendra
Rami reddy

Story:

There is a village called Adavipalli in the midst of the jungle where the land is having lot of ores. Since it is located between two hills, the government wanted to construct a railway bridge to gap the commutation and make the transfer of goods easier.

In that jungle, there lives a man-eating lion. The latest victim of lions havoc is the death of the chief engineer who is constructing the rail bridge. The Railway department asks Aishwarya (Simran) to go on the mission of constructing the bridge.

Even after Aishwarya resumes the duty, Lion starts terrorizing the crew of the construction team. The ace hunter of Adavipalli, Raju (Chiru), is entrusted with the job of hunting the lion. The rest of the first half is all about how Raju traps the lion and kill it at the cost of Appanna Dora (Nagababu). But, the other lion in the jungle gets enraged at Raju for killing its companion. There is another trouble for the bridge project in the form of forest ranger (Surya) and a local smuggler (Ramireddy). Raju gets rid of these two goons by the interval. Then the viewers are revealed that Aishwarya is the wife of Raju.

In the second half, the flashback is revealed. Raju comes to city to participate in the crafts mela to sell his herbs from the jungle. There he meets Aishwarya, who is come to visit a fun stall along with his fiancée Vicky (Raja Ravindra). When Aishwarya tries to take a shot at shooting the balloon, Vicky disappoints her saying that she cannot do it. Raju, who is an onlooker comes forwards and gives her confidence and tips to shoot. Then Aishwarya's bullet hits the bull's eye. Impressed with Raju's help, she invites him to come to her engagement. At the engagement, Raju spots Vicky flirting with another girl and tells him about the importance of being a good human being. Aishwarya watches the entire episode from the behind and she decides that Raju is a loyal man compared to the flirtatious Vicky. And she seeks for Raju's hand and then they get married. The father of Aishwarya cunningly separates the couple by creating misunderstandings.

The rest of the film is about how the hunter Raju and engineer Aishwarya sort out the matters and complete the construction of the bridge.

Performances

Artists:

Chiru: first half of the film does not have more scope for performance, as there are only a few scenes between Chiru and Simran and his pranks. But in the flashback, Chiru did a fine act. His dances, as usual, are the best.

Simran: Simran's character here got a few shades that of her Yuvaraju character, which is also happens to be the mother of a kid. She did her bit with finesse.

Sanghvi: She did a trivial role in this film, which does not help her anyway to get more projects as Asha Saini is taking the center stage as the second heroine in today's Telugu cinema.

Other departments:

Story: This story is a straight lift from 'Ghost and the Darkness'. Unfortunately, this secret was leaked to the press way back in February of 2000. And the opportunists tried to cash in by buying the remake rights of 'Ghost and the Darkness' and threatened to release the remake two days before Mrigarju. As the story is simple and straight and do not justify the movie's length of 2 and half hours, a flashback story was created to fill in one hour. The original originator of this inspired story was Jayant. He was roped in to make a film for Devi films in December 1998. But he was swapped with Gunasekhar by Vyjayanti movies, that has planned to do another unofficial remake of 'An Affair to remember' (Ravoyi Chandamama) with Nag. Later on Nagababu developed the story line and then Yandamuri Veerendranath and Satyanand roped in to give the final touches. The result is a desi 'Ghost and the Darkness'.

Screenplay: As story is plain and simple, a lot would depend upon screenplay to make the film gripping and interesting. But Guna Sekhar failed stitch the scenes in perfect manner. And he tried to ape the original film in most of the scenes, which resulted in poor copying as we lack the special FX finesse the Hollywood boast of.

Direction: The director is the caption of ship. And Guna Sekhar tried to steer the ship towards the route of the 'Ghost and Darkness' rather than by following the wind. Even in 'Vamsi', B Gopal tried the same thing by getting too much inspired by the original and ignoring the basics. This movie does not have any drawbacks if you look from an average viewer point of view. But it definitely lacks what a typical Telugu cinema viewer looks for.

Production: Devi Vara Prasad needs to be commended for the kind of confidence he had in project by investing 15 crores. He spent 75 lacs on a single set for the Hungama song. He spent another 30 lacs to recreate the Amsterdam city in Annapurna studios. He has taken the entire unit to South Africa to shoot scenes with lion and then spent a fortune on Pentamedia Graphics to recreate the some of the lion scene. He had accomplished his goal of making a rich high budget film with chiru in the Hollywood standard. But what we have to see is if the Telugu people are willing to embrace these kinds of films.

Songs: Like any other movies, songs in this film are as good as the sequence of the scenes in which they are inserted. Chai song is the highlight of the film and an absolute treat for eyes and ears. The next best song is 'Ramayya Paadaletti' in which he made a superb step that is as good as the one he did in 'Abibi' song of Hitler. Third best is 'Satamana' slow song! The other songs are routine songs. Mani Sharma did an inferior job compared his earlier contributions to chiru like Bavagaroo, Choodalani Vundi, Iddaru Mitrulu and Annayya. Even the background flavor of the film is of Hollywood genre, which may not be very appealing for the Telugu viewers.

Camera Work: Camera work is good. But there are a lot of flaws in canning the scenes as the jungle is shot in different locations and it shows up breaking the uniformity of presenting the feel the jungle. In a few songs the light is dark. Sekhar V Joseph had done the cinematography for this film.

Dialogues: Satyanand, who gave dialogues for Annayya has given dialogues for this film too. He excels in the scenes in which Chiru does comedy.

Analysis: As the 60% of the film involves jungle and people may feel uncomfortable viewing the slow paced Jungle action. Another drawback of the film is fights. There is only one fight in the entire film. As the people expect a grandeur climax between lion and Chiru, Chiru eliminates the lion with one stab. The initial part of flashback episode is a big relief. This film is an attempt to make a Hollywood kind of film (that's too inspired by a Hollywood film) in Andhra Pradesh, which may suffer the problem of nativity. The box office fate of this film will be decided in a couple of weeks, though some of the people started writing off the film on the day one. If we go by the weight of the film, it may not become a hit. But this film sports Chiranjeevi, who has the history and ability of turning the average flicks into blockbusters.

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