Director: K. Raghavendra Rao; Producer: K. Devi Varaprasad; Cinematographer: Ajayan Vincent; Cast: Chiranjeevi, Naghma, Vani Vishwanath, Rao Gopala Rao, Satyanarayana, Sharat Saxena, Aahuti Prasad, P.L. Narayana, Chalapathi Rao, Brahmanandam, Ramaprabha, Disco Shanti
Duration: 02:20:27; Aspect Ratio: 1.778:1; Hue: 357.939; Saturation: 0.096; Lightness: 0.422; Volume: 0.266; Cuts per Minute: 22.377
Summary: Unemployed dock worker Raju (Chiranjeevi)
saves the life of industrialist Bapineedu
(Gopala Rao) who, in return, offers him a job.
Raju’s efforts to organise the workers lead to a
clash with Bapineedu’s daughter Uma Devi
(Naghma), who runs the company. Raju
becomes the president of the workers’ union,
defeating Sarangapani (Prasad) who, it turns
out, is actually in league with Uma Devi’s chief
rival Ranganayakulu (Satyanarayana). Uma
Devi marries Raju shortly after he has saved her
life following the rivals’ plan to have her
murdered, but this, it is later revealed, is only in
order to ‘tame’ the otherwise invincible union
worker. Raju moves into Uma Devi’s mansion
where he continues his union work, leading a
strike when Bhawani (Vishwanath), the woman
who originally loved him, is dismissed by Uma
Devi. In the end, when the true villains
Ranganayakulu and his son (Saxena) try to
destroy Uma Rani by burning the factory, Raju
saves his wife again and ‘forgives’ her. Taming
the wild and arrogant (i.e. independent)
woman is a major preoccupation of several
Chiranjeevi films, his adolescent machismo
being boosted as much by thrashing dozens of
villains as by putting women in their place (cf.
Donga Mogudu, 1987; Rickshavudu and
Alluda Majaaka, both 1995). One of
Chiranjeevi’s most successful film, its release
coincided with the brutal repression of a
Naxalite-led workers’ movements, in this
instance making reference to the Patancheru
industrial area in Hyderabad. Several notorious
‘encounters’ between the police and political
activists in this period of extreme State
repression when Janardhana Reddy was the
State Chief Minister, also led to a genre of
worker-centered films featuring and made by
R. Narayanmurthy (eg. Erra Sainyam, 1994).
The film was a remake of the Rajnikant film
Mannan (1991).
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