04/06/08 ~ Early Tollywood

4.06.2008

Banner: Sri Durga Arts
Dialogues: Diwakar Babu
Lyrics: Sirivennela & Kula Sekhar
Camera: S Gopal Reddy
Art: Ashok
Music: RP Patnaik
Editing: Krishna Reddy
Screenplay: Gopi Mohan & Dasarath
Story - Dialogues - Direction: Dasarath
Producer: KL Narayana
Theatrical Release Date: 9th May 2002

Cast:
Nagarjuna,
Gracy Singh,
Sriya,
Prabhudeva,
K Viswanath,
Sunil,
Chandramohan,
Kota Srinivasa Rao,
Brahmanandam,
Paruchuri Venkateswara Rao,
Prighvi,
Bharani,
L.B. Sriram,
'Ahuti' Prasad,
Benerjee,
Master Akshay,
Sumithra,
Sudha and Anitha Chowdary.

Story

Karthik (Nagarjuna) is a well-placed architect in Ooty. He falls in love with Padmavathi (Gracy Singh), an IT intern. Padmavathi takes her own sweet time to accept Karthik's love. Padmavathi has a cute cousin sister Bhanu (Sreya). Bhanu encourages their love and gives courage to Padmavathi. When Padmavathi reveals about her love, her father Rama Chandraiah (K Viswanath) resists and asks her to marry the guy he has chosen for her. Padmavathi flees from home and marries Karthik. Padmavathi is very eager to get back to her parents and get their blessings. But Rama Chandraiah keeps them at bay. Karthik and Padmavathi migrate to New Zealand and they give birth to a kid named Lucky. Padmavathi dies in an accident.

Rama Chandraiah has a very big joint family. A few of the family members opine that inviting Karthik and his kid for a marriage to be happened at their place would give an opportunity to get a closer look at Lucky, the kid of Padmavathi. When Karthik visits Rama Chandraiah's place he gets mixed responses from different people in the house. Rama Chandraiah doesn't like Karthik and others like him. Over a period of time, Karthik impresses them all and when he was about to go back to New Zealand, Rama Chandraiah expresses his repentance for whatever happened and says that he is accepting Karthik as his son-in-law.

Bhanu has fallen in love with Karthik at first sight way back when she went to meet Padmavathi at Ooty. At that time she was not aware that Karthik was the same guy with whom Padmavathi was in love. She meets Karthik, a widower now. She continues having feelings for him. But at the same time, there is Pawan (Prabhu Deva) - a childhood fiend of Bhanu - who is deeply in love with her.

Karthik returns back to New Zealand. Bhanu along with Pawan visits Karthik. They were there to write MS examinations. During that period Bhanu gets closer to Karthik. When Karthik realizes the intentions of Bhanu, he fixes Pawan as the fiancée for her.

Now Bhanu is about to get married to Pawan. Karthik loves Bhanu, but is hesitating to repeat the history by marrying a girl against the wishes of family. Will they get united? You should watch this film on big silver screen to know yourself.

Artists:

Nagarjuna: Nagarjuna is as charming as ever. He suited the role of father and as the man in love perfectly. He wore black and white suits in this film and he looks very dignified in that get up. This role has given him ample scope for exhibiting histrionics and he made maximum use of it to impress upon one and all.

Gracy Singh: This is the first colorful film of Gracy Singh (Lagaan had a shade of gray). But she is not as glamorous as we expected her after seeing Lagaan. Her role is limited to 45 minutes in this film. She did justice in displaying right kind of emotions on her part.

Sreya (Sriya): Sreya got the major share of the pie. She is very cute and did the role of Bhanu with élan. Her vivacious attitude and chirpy outlook added the necessary luster to her character. She is a treat to watch.

Technical Departments:

Screenplay - direction: Screenplay of the film is very good. Direction is also very commendable. Dasarath has got good narration skills. The best thing about him is that he did not try to follow the trend. He chosen his subject and narrated it in his own style. This film oozes positive attitude. All scenes flow naturally and none them look forced. But he is slow in his narration, which might make masses squirm a little bit.

Dialogues: Dialogues in this film are very apt. No forced comic punch (except for a few scenes involving Sunil)! But Dasarath provided the right dialogues for the right scenes. A dialogue is worth mentioning here. It is 'preminchadaaniki rendu manasulu chalu - kaani pelli chsukovadaaniki rendu kutumbalu kavali' (while telling Sreya that he likes her .. but he does not want to disturb the equilibrium in the family of Rama Chandraiah).

Music: The best thing about this film is it's sweet music. RP Patnaik intelligently mixed the tunes into background music. Whenever you sense the augur of boredom, you find RP's background music uplifting the spirit.

Song: All the songs in the film flow naturally according to the storyline except for Mehabooba song. All these 7 songs are situational songs. Here is the sequence and placement -

1. Emayyindo Emo Naalo: When Nagarjuna first spots Gracy Singh.
2. So much to say that I love you: When Gracy rejects Nag love.
3. Devudu Digi Vachina: This song is pictured on Sreya, Nag and Gracy. This song follows when Sreya unites Nag and Gracy.
4. Nuvvunate Naakistamani: This song is on Gracy and Nag. It starts with the marriage of Gracy and Nag and ends with them giving birth to Lucky.

5. Dhim Dhinaktari: This is a marriage song at K Viswanath's house, which start immediately after Nag finishes his flashback
6. Diri Diri: A marriage song in New Zealand NRI function.
7. Mehabooba: A special song on Prabhudeva and Sophia Haq.
8. Ne Toli Sariga: This is the highlight song of the film. This song is cut into three pieces and is played between Nag and Sreya before climax

Photography: S Gopal Reddy has done a fine job, as usual, for this film by canning the picturesque locales of Ooty and New Zealand.

Production: KL Narayana produced this film very lavishly. This banner is called as a lucky banner in the industry. And he might again prove lucky with this film.

Analysis: First half of the film is entertaining. The beginning of second half is little boring. But the director got the audiences back into his grip half an hour before climax. Heart-rendering climax is a plus point of the film. The strength of the film is music (RP Patnaik), hero (Nagarjuna) and cool n composed direction (Dasarath). Weakness of the film is slow narration. As the director told in a press meet, this film oozes positive attitude. Hence, you will not come across any negative comments about the film. It is a good film to watch!

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LAHIRI LAHIRI LAHIRILO 2002

Banner: Bommarillu
Dialogues: Chintapally Ramana
Lyrics: Sirivennela Seetarama Sastry
Music: MM Keeravani
Story - Screenplay - Direction - Production: YVS Chowdary
Presenter: Yalamanchali Geeta
Theatrical Release Date: 1st May 2002

Cast:
Aditya,
Ankita,
Hari Krishna,
Bhanu Priya,
Vineeth,
Sanghavi,
Suman,
Rachana,
Viswanath,
Lakshmi,
Jeeva,
Jaya Prakash,
Chitram Seenu,
Kallu Chidambaram,
Kalpana Rai,
Kalpana,
Achyut,
Naveen and Chakravarthy

Story

Nani (Aditya) is an orphan and a fun loving college student. He makes his living by acting as a marriage broker. He gets a proposal to find matches to three sisters namely Indu (Bhanu Priya), Chandu (Rachana) and Sindhu (Sanghvi). But their father is adamant that his daughters should get married to three brothers. Nani discovers that there is a set of three unmarried brothers in a village. Nani converts himself as the younger brother of these three sisters and visits the village of three brothers on the eve of a festival. These visitors are put up in a house, which is just apposite to that of those three brothers, namely Krishnama Naidu (Hari Krishna), Chandrama Naidu (Suman) and Sreenivasa Naidu (Vineeth).

These three brothers have a pretty younger sister named Priya (Ankita). Priya and Nani are classmates back in the city college. Both of them love each other, but never express it. Nani starts playing the role of cupid for the three brothers and three sisters. That village has a rule that the brothers cannot marry unless the sister in the house is married. That's why these three brothers remain unmarried even after they entered 30's, as their sister is not ready for the marriage.

There is a woman called Achamamba (Lakshmi), who once loved Raghava Naidu (K Viswanath), the father of three brothers. But due to some circumstances, he marries another lady. Hence Achamamba remains as a spinster and vows to create havoc in the lives of Raghava Naidu and his sons.

Achamamba impresses Raghava Naidu in a competition and proposes to marry off her foreign returned nephew with the daughter of Raghava Naidu. After this incident, Priya confesses Nani that she loves him. The rest of the film deals with how Krishnama Naidu takes the lead to put an end to the vices of Achamamba and successfully arranges the marriages for these four pairs.

Artists:

Hari Krishna: Hari Krishna acted like a live wire in this film. He did a cool job in spite of having so many negative points. He is the main hero of the film and he justified it with his performance.

Aditya: He looks like a shorter version of Ravi Teja. His mannerisms, dialogue delivery, body language and appearance are very much similar to Ravi Teja. Aditya dialogue delivery is pretty bad and he overacted in most of the scenes.

Ankita: Ankita is the grown up 'Rasna' girl (She acted in 'I Love You Rasna' ads when she was a kid). She looks pretty cute. But she is on the back foot when emoting sensitive feelings.

Lakshmi: She did the role of main villain in this film with a great poise. She expressed ferocity and guile with equal ease.

Technical Departments:

Story - Screenplay - Direction: YVS Chowdary tried making a complete family story with necessary quotient of mass elements. He succeeded in narrating the story in an interesting style with the twists inserted at the right moments. His ability to select good music and finesse in canning songs with a romantic flavor helped the film become a musical entertainer. But, he tried splitting up the scenes equally between four pairs. This led the film to become a 3-hour fare and scenes between Suman-Rachana and Vineeth-Sanghavi are little boring. In the climax too he tried putting too many mass elements (like the climax of his other film Seetarama Raju), which would really irk the sensibilities of audiences.

Dialogues: 'Pagilipoddi … Every thing is fair in love and war' is the most powerful dialogue told by Hari Krishna to Lakshmi. You really can't expect such kind of powerful mass dialogues from the pen of comedy dialogue writer Chintapally Ramana. He gave youth-oriented dialogues for the young pair and ferocious dialogues for Lakshmi and Hari Krishna. Chitapalli Ramana did a neat job.

Music: Keeravani came up with very good music for this film. All the songs are melodious. He customized the tune of 'Winds of Change' for a song in this film. He also used the same tune as the background music for the scenes between Ankita and Aditya. Background score of the film is also impressive.

Photography: Photography is another asset of the film. Village locations add some native color to the camerawork.

Production: YVS Chowdary worked really hard to complete this film. It consists of huge star cast and getting their dates with combinations is difficult. This film saw the light of day after being stopped in middle for lack of funds. And YVS Chowdary is so confident of film's success that he announced the venue (as Gudiwada) and date for 100 days function. He did a satisfactory job as a producer.

Analysis: This film has an old and traditional story line. But the treatment is fresh. First half is entertaining with the director taking his own time in establishing the characters. The second half goes on a serious note, with mass elements like fights and serious dialogues taking over the aspect of entertainment. The climax of the film is dealt shabbily with unnecessary fights. Over all, this film might become a minimum guarantee film as it has good music, comedy, mass elements and treatment. We have to wait and see if labor day (may 1st) release of'Lahiri Lahiri lahirilo' yields the desired result for YVS Chowdary's labor.

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