Sunday, December 16, 2007

Random Blogging - Telugu Movie


I was flipping through television channels when I saw the final scenes in a Telugu movie. I do not know Telugu but could follow what happened. Recording it for posterity:


Scene is in a mine shaft - Chiranjeevi appears talking lots of dialogue abusing the villain, Appa Naidu. Appa Naidu looks like a rich gentleman - why is Chiru yelling at him? Because Appa Naidu has Chiru's Mom tied up in a pit. Chiru's Dad is tied up near the roof somewhere, ready to hang. Chiru is mighty pissed at this and nears the villain saying nasty things in Telugu (which still sounded sweet to my ears).
Villain laughs, takes a step back and from top of mine shaft a steel cage falls and entraps Chiru. This further enrages Chiru. Villain is still laughing. Mean-looking guys with Naidu are also laughing. One guy brings what look like fiery tongs. They all poke at Chiru and laugh at him. Chiru's shirt torn off. Chiru seems comfortable in the mine shaft without shirt.
Suddenly, the Mom who is tied up starts speaking to Chiru - she is urging him to beat the hell out of Appa Naidu. Chiru looks at her and seems to ask "Can you see that I am in a freaking cage in a mine shaft?". Appa Naidu now turns attention to Mom (She should have kept her mouth shut in my opinion). Anyway, tap turns on and water starts pouring into pit where Mom is currently situated. Yes, she should definitely have shut up.
Chiru gets all crazy at this and starts mightily pulling at the bars of his cage. Villain and all his employees are laughing. But, wait - the bars seem to be bending. Yes, Chiru is out. Chiru picks up the huge steel cage which he was imprisoned in a minute back - picks it up with one hand and throws at Appa Naidu's staff. Staff exit stage left.
Chiru throws something at Dad who, (let me remind you), was tied up in the roof in very awkward position watching the whole show. Dad freed immediately, jumps down and starts fighting.
Things are beginning to look rosy for Chiru and bad for Appa Naidu.

But, suddenly, camera turns to show the brave Mom; Mom under water.
When camera tuens back to Chiru, Chiru is caught by Appa Naidu's reserve staff. Dad also caught. Mom gone.

(Now, a Malayalam film would have ended right there.)

But, this was, thankfully, not Malayalam; as the Mom was soon to find out. Chiru yells, "Rajaaaaaaa....". I am looking for this entirely new character.

Raja is the friendly neighborhood...elephant standing right there in the mine shaft, watching proceedings with interest. I don't know how he got in, but he did nothing when Mom went submarine. On Chiru's call, Raja comes to senses; picks up water from Mom's water tub and blows it on Villain's people.
Mom is now out of water and is smiling and happy.

She has reason to be happy - the police are here. They have been brought by Radha. The police announce their entry by shooting in the air in an abandoned mine shaft. Clever.

For those of you getting up and leaving the theater, hold on, movie has not ended.

Villain Appa Naidu and his son get Radha and jump into a mine vehicle and race along a track. Sharp Chiru jumps in another mine vehicle and goes after them at top speed. Fights with them, gets Radha transferred to his vehicle and stops vehicle before it goes over hill.
Appa Naidu and son hanging from mountain top. Chiru above, police below. Appa Naidu finally says the magic words - "Chiranjeevilu Niraparadhilu" - which I understood as Chiru is innocent.

Everybody breathes a sigh of relief and Chiru and Radha get married.

PS:
I am not making fun or any judgement call of Telugu movies - I have seen some of them and I do not really think that Tamil movies are that different. I thought it was interesting that I could understand the movie without knowing the language and even get some back story (that Chiru had been charged by the police wrongly).
I later found that the movie name is Adavi Donga - which again I could understand - Adavi means Forest in old Tamil and Donga means thief. So it was some kind of native Tarzan movie.

2 comments:

Destination Infinity said...

After reading so many blogs on the reviews of OSO, TZP (Taare Zameen Par), ATM, Billa etc, your telugu movie review was refreshingly different! On the selection of the theme to blog alone, my 100 congradulations to you.... But then, everyone of us have seen atleast a dozen of tamil and hindi movies, of that era, which were very similar (atleast had similar endings). But your style of the review made it look special! Probably this is the first review on a blog (may be even in www) for the film you mentioned, and you need to be credited for that> :-)

Destination Infinity.

Raman said...

That's a given in Indian cinema, irrespective of language. I remember people stopping trains with legs and hitting hand grenades back at the villain with cricket bats. Rajini is heavily criticized in the north (mostly because they can't undertsand how special he is) and Hindi movies are no exceptions.

You can read the review of a Hindi movie called Julie here http://thepurposeofhere.blogspot.com/ It is really hilarious and you might enjoy reading it.