04/01/08 ~ Early Tollywood

4.01.2008

Genre: Action
Banner: Balaji Arts
Story: Chinni Krishna
Dialogues: Paruchuri Brothers
Cinematography: VSR Swamy
Music: Mani Sharma
Editing: Kotagiri Venkateswara Rao
Screenplay and Direction: G Ram Prasad
Producers: J Bhagawan & DVV Danayya
Theatrical Release Date: 11th January 2002

Cast:
Nandamuri Bala Krishna,
Simran,
Reema Sen,
K. Viswanath,
Raghuvaran,
Charan Raj,
Jayaprakash Reddy,
Satyaprakash,
Mohan Raj,
Anandraj,
Chalapati Rao,
Brahmanandam,
'Ahuti' Prasad,
Bharani,
L.B. Sriram,
M.S. Narayana,
Sujatha,
Sangeetha,
'Venniradai' Nirmala,
Sivaparvathy and Sonali Sahadev

Story

Movie starts with a fight in which Durga Prasad bashes up polices for occupying the house of a poor woman. Visweswara Rao (Raghuvaran) comes to know the heroism of Durga Prasad and tells him his flash back.
Visweswara Rao and Chandra Sekhar (Charan Raj) are the best friends. They have a kid each. Visweawara Rao is a business magnate and Chandra Sekhar is a police officer. Chandra Sekhar arrests a dreaded goon and the goon's supporters kidnap the son of Visweswara Rao and hold the kid as hostage and want to exchange the kid for the release of goon.

If Chandra Sekhar does not release goon, he would be getting a promotion and prize money worth 5 lakhs from the Government. At the last spurring moment Chandra Sekhar becomes selfish which results in the death of son of Visweswara Rao.

Due to this incident Chandra Sekhar becomes enemy of Visweswara Rao. The wife of Visweswara Rao gets paralyzed. Visweswara Rao's aim is to kill the son of Chandra Sekhar.

Visweswara Rao asks for the help of Durga Prasad in killing the son of Chandra Sekhar. Durga Prasad accepts to be the contract killer. In the process, Durga Prasad cures the paralysis of Chandra Sekhar's wife. Durga Prasad also kills Simha Prasad (Sai Kumar).

Charulatha (Reema Sen), the niece of Visweswara Rao, falls in love with Durga Prasad. Visweswara Rao is impressed with Durga Prasad, as he got rid of Simha Prasad and cured the paralysis of his wife. He wants to adapt Durga Prasad as his son and marry off Charu Latha to him.

But, it is revealed that Durga Prasad is a big enemy of parents of Charu Latha back in their Nizam area.

Then there is a remote village in Telangana, which is dominated by the family of an MP (Vasu). There are no doors for houses in that village. This arrangement is done because the sons and goons of MP can run into any home and take hostage.

Durga Prasad is a hardworking and heroic IPS officer, which is sent on a special duty to get hold of the goons and set the village right. Hema (Simran) falls in love with Durga Prasad after observing his daring personality.

Hema proposes to the parents of Durga Prasad and all the elders accept the match. In a particular fight Durga Prasad's hand gets paralyzed. The parents of Hema cancel the alliance with Durga Prasad. Hema defies her parents and enters the house of Durga Prasad and stays there by serving him and making him a healthy man.

At the time of Durga Prasad and Hema marriage, the villains reveal that Durga Prasad is not the real son of his parents.

Then the story goes back into continuing the first half again. If you want to know who this Durga Prasad is, you gotta watch the film.

Artists:

Bala krishna: Balayya is in his elements, again, in this film. But the characterization is not strong enough to elevate heroism. There was very good applause for a few dialogues uttered by Balayya in this film.

Simran: Simran is the second half heroine with a role for emoting. She did extremely well.

Reema Sen: She is just a prop in this film used as glamour cushion so that a couple of songs can be pictured in the first half. She is wasted in 'Seema Simham'.

Technical Departments:

Screenplay - Direction: Screenplay of the film is bad. Direction is good in patches. There are a few brilliantly executed scenes. But the most of the other scenes in this film lack punch and are dull. Too many characters and too less time taken to establish these characters is the main drawback. The script of the film is loosely executed.

Dialogues: There are 6 - 7 very good dialogues in the film, which drew applause from the morning show crowds. Again, the dialogues became ineffective because of inefficient narration.

Comedy: Another drawback of the film is lack of entertainment in the form of comedy. There is no comedy in second half. There is some comedy, which is not rib tickling, by Brahmanandam and Gowtam Raju in the first half.

Music: Mani Sharma is not impressive with his music in the film. The work is not as good as he has done for Samara Simha Reddy and Narasimha Naidu.

Dances: The first song is heavily inspired by Rajni Kanth's Basha song, which includes Rajni mannerisms. Chandamama Chandamama song stands out as the best of lot. Other four songs are beat based with lots of dances.

Production: The producers did not seem to have gone into the details of movie making other than putting in their money. The film looks very rich with hundreds of people participating in many scenes of the film.

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NUVVU NENU 2001

Music: RP Patnaik
Songs: Kula Sekhar
Camera: Rasool
Story, Dialogues, Screenplay & Direction: Teja
Theatrical Release Date: 10th August 2001

Cast:
Uday Kiran,
Anita,
Tanikella Bharani,
MS Narayana,
Dharmavarapu,
Shakuntala

Story

Ravi (Uday Kiran) is the son of multimillionaire in Hyderabad. Vasundhara (Anita) is the daughter of a milk supplier cum rowdy. Ravi and Vasundhara do study in the same college. The film starts with Vasudhara showing hatred towards Ravi, as he is a sportsman who is a zero at studies. Over a period of time her hatred turns into love. Finally, they are in love. The parents did not agree to their marriage. The parents plan to avoid the marriage by putting the love couple a clause that they should not meet each other for one year. If their love stays even after a gap of one year, the parents would marry them off.

Father of Ravi kidnaps him and puts under house arrest in Mumbai. Father of Vasundhara takes her to his hometown and arranges a forced marriage. The rest of the story is about how the love pair unites against all odds.

Performances:

Artists:

Uday Kiran: There is more scope in this film to exhibit his histrionics. He did justice to his role. He developed lot of muscles for this film and they show up in the initial scenes. The biggest drawback of his character is the dubbing. His voice is a typical Hyderabad born and brought up (non)Telugu guy accent. The voice sounds quite embarrassing for the regular moviegoers.

Anita: Anita looks the girl next door. But her hairstyle is the minus point. She has a big forehead. She covered it by maintaining a hairstyle that cover's her forehead. She is decent at her performance.

Shakuntala: She played the Telangana Phoolan Devi kind of role. The dialogues given to her are very raw and she essayed her role with perfection.

Technical Departments:

Story: You would come across a plethora of Hindi love stories when you watch this film. The Bollywood love blockbusters like Bobby, Ram Teri Ganga Maili, QSQT and Maine Pray Kiya heavily inspired this film. The treatment of love stories in Hindi field changed with the advent if HAHK and DDLJ, where the lovers wish to get the parents approval to get married. Thankfully, the story of this film is about the couple eloping. Hence, the director could not lend the modern-era Hindi love stories. This story is also remotely close to the story of NTR's debut vehicle 'Ninnu Choodalani'.

Screenplay & direction: The screenplay and direction of this film is very technical. You can see the touch of Ram Gopal Varma in this aspect. But, he failed to establish the characters of Ravi and Vasudhara in this film. He has done a wonderful job in establishing the lead the pair in 'Chitram' film. The way the hatred starts and how the lead pair falls in love is also very unconvincing. This film is a prime example of what happens when you concentrate more on technique and less on narration.

Music: The highlight of this film is the music and background score. This is the best music done by RP Patnaik so far. You can see the Varma's touch (Hindi film Satya) again in the scoring backdrop music.

Photography: Another remarkable aspect of this film is camera work. It's simply superb. Rasool has done an extraordinary work for this film.

Production: Kiran, the supreme of Gemini (Telugu) TV, has produced this film on Anandi Arts. The production of this film is done on high budget with rich taste for visual and aural appeal. With a powerful media in the form of Gemini TV at his disposal, the producer will leave no stones turned to promote the film.

Analysis: The strength of this film is songs, DTS mixing and photography. The comedy is also dealt well. The weakling of the film is story and narration. First half of the film is entertaining. The second half is dragged to no end and makes you feel bored. A simple story can be told in a simple manner. But the director used every possible technique to insert the twists and unwanted violence in this film.

This film reminds me of Ram Gopal Varma 'Prema Katha', which has 'all sound & violence - no substance'. This film would gel well with the school going kids and intermediate studying youth. It might sound amateurish for the people who crossed 16, as the concept of love in this film is totally outdated. We have to wait and see how the Telugu movie lovers welcome this film.

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