Tag Archives: Bhanupriya

Jebu Donga (1987)

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Jebu-Donga-Title

While Jebu Donga may not be the most deep and meaningful film of 1987 (or indeed any other year), it does have a slightly different approach to the Mass Hero as well as sufficient quantity and variety of dances and explosions to keep me amused.

Chiranjeevi is Chitti the pickpocket, happily fleecing the rich, helping some of the deserving poor and indulging his love of disguises. Bhanupriya is his rival in petty thieving, and has an equally strong commitment to the dress-ups and convoluted schemes. Satyanarayana Kaikala and Maruthirao Gollapudi are the not as bumbling as they seem CBI officers who need to get a spy into Raghuvaran’s gang. And Radha is a woman of mystery. The police decide to use the unwitting Chiru as a distraction, feeding the crooks a fake top secret file that names him as Special Agent Chakrapani. While he goes about his daily crimes, the crooks are after him and the cops are watching the shenanigans. But eventually things come to a proper masala conclusion, albeit one with a couple of surprises.

While Telugu mass films are all about the hero, one of the things I enjoy most about Jebu Donga is that Chiru’s character is not as much in control as he thinks he is. He reacts to the confusing succession of attacks and rescues but has no idea why some things are happening. He tries to beat Bhanupriya’s character to a heist but ends up losing his trousers – don’t panic, it is all quite family friendly. Radha appears as a woman from Chakrapani’s past and Chitti is unable to say no to her. And the police manipulate him so easily. He does have to do his bit to save everyone at the end of the film, but he is not the usual know-it-all lone hero.

Chiranjeevi makes the most of his role, adding a dash of levity to the fight scenes as well as flirting up a storm. I looked over my notes from watching the film and at one point I have just written “Jeep! Whips! Leaping!”  Chitti is a good person apart from being a thief, and he helps out where he can. One of his robberies even helped a reluctant bride escape an unwanted marriage. He has what might be a sister and younger brother (Shanmukha Srinivas) as well as his mother to provide for, and pretends to them that he is a labourer doing honest work. The songs are a real highlight, and not always just for the outfits. I love Rajaloo Rajalakshmi where Chiru steals Bhanupriya’s clothes while she is bathing.

His dancing is uninhibited and cheeky (even including a bit of snake style), and once she finds something to wear she dishes it up in equal measure.

I’m not so sure about his wardrobe choices. The double denim and highpants are a symptom of the late 80s but I really do not get the sleeveless skivvy.

Bhanupriya’s character is a bit ditzy although she exhibits competence in her chosen field of cons and theft.  While Chiru is relatively plainly dressed, she wears some outrageous outfits and more than holds her own in the dances. I’m not sure how she is related to Chitti but when she falls for him it feels more as though they have been meant for each other for a while but are only now admitting there is an attraction. And where many a filmi heroine has to be rescued, she does her share of saving him too. She knows she is smart and sees no reason to let the slightly dim but charming Chitti overrule her.

Radha’s character is the real secret agent. I think she tells Chitti that he is a perfect lookalike for the deceased Chakrapani and he cannot resist her helpless female act. He should have been alerted when her dream sequence song turned up looking like this! She is smart, runs her own operation although her dad is one of the CBI officers using Chiru, and she has firm views on what needs to be done. Like Bhanupriya, she will accept help but she doesn’t always wait around for it to materialise.

All good heroes need a bad villain. Raghuavaran is the sleazy Peter, the main man who runs operations  for the completely insane Kannada Prabhakar. I always like a bit of megalomaniacal set design and sadly that is where Jebu Donga fails me. Peter lives in a respectably glossy mansion decorated with portraits of himself and masses of horrible modern sculptures while the bad guy HQ is a simple rustic camp. Not quite up to the Mogambo gold standard despite the impressive commitment to training shown by the minions. Most of the thugs wear that pale blue or mauve, but there are special colour coded sets as well as some plain clothes goons. Satyanarayana and Gollapudi are actually lots of fun as the police masterminds. They amble around, two portly middle aged gents who giggle like school girls as they watch the drama ebb and flow around their hapless helper. They also have some odd little flashbacks to what I think are Gollapudi’s terrible ideas for going undercover.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ry25Oa7qNro

Chakravarthy’s soundtrack  borrows from Mr India, Michael Jackson and who knows what else. It’s all great fun, largely due to the enthusiasm of Chiranjeevi and Bhanupriya. And for once, the ladies get the sequins and lycra while Chiru dresses relatively conservatively.

I always have reasonable expectations of a Chiranjeevi/A Kodandarami Reddy film. There will be heroics, fights, dances, romance, eyeball melting colour and movement and almost no traces of logic. Jebu Donga delivers and shows Chiru in a more comedic, blundering hero role. Chitti may be a bit thick but Chiru knows exactly what he is doing and how to wring maximum entertainment from his material. The movie is available on YouTube. If you’re wondering, I deliberately chose the upload with the most offensive watermarks. Dear Reader, if you know anyone at that poxy company, please gently slap some sense, or at least some shame at defacing a film, into them.  Well worth seeing for the excellent cast and the frothy material. 3 ½ stars!

I will leave you with a Megabirthday Masala Multiple Choice Quiz. Please examine the following image.

Jebu-Donga-Quiz

Which of the following happens next?

  1. Evil Overlord makes crippled dance-obsessed Shanmukha Srinivas dance (a bit like Basanti in Sholay)
  2. Chiru, tied up and dangling in mid-air, escapes by breaking the trees from which he is dangling
  3. A Ma is terrorised by being given an unwanted haircut
  4. Radha kicks the bejesus out of about 47 bad guys
  5. Someone is so determined to detonate a bomb that he sets himself on fire and rolls across a clearing to ignite the fuse
  6. What do you mean which of the following? That’s a rookie question. All of the above, of course!

Chakravarthy (1987)

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Chakravarthy

Charavarthy starts off with a standard storyline where there are the customary good-hearted villagers living under the tyranny of a wicked village president and his sleazy side-kick.  Chiranjeevi is the rather rough and ready villager with a heart of gold who stands up to the president and fights against the various injustices he sees in the village.  So far so good, (although rather routine and not too exciting).

But then, suddenly, there is this:

Definitely well worth the Rs35 I paid for the VCD!  Sadly the rest of the film doesn’t quite live up to the expectations generated by watching Chiru dance in gold lame and black pleather, but there are still plenty of good songs, plus Chiru in a variety of dapper suits and bow ties – so I’m definitely calling it a good buy.

Chiranjeevi is Anji, a simple man who lives in the village and helps the local Swamiji (Somayajulu J.V.) look after a number of orphans.  Swamiji runs a school at his ashram where the orphans also live, but it’s under threat from the village president (Satyanarayana Kaikala) who wants the land for himself.  The president threatens and blusters, but Anji isn’t going to let anyone bully the gentle Swamiji and when the president’s thugs turn up at the school to throw the kids out (literally!), Anji makes sure that they are the ones forced to leave.

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Anji is also intent on making the best match for his sister, who is back in the village after completing her studies.  The scene where Anji meets up with her again is brilliant, although I’m not sure why he should be so shy and bashful on meeting his own sister.  Maybe it’s just because his clothes are several sizes too small, but at least he’s made the effort to dress up for the occasion.

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Despite the self-conscious nature of their meeting, Anji is soon trying to get Lakshmi (Ramya Krishnan) to marry his best mate, and the local police sergeant, Mohan (Mohan Babu).  Mohan Babu hams it up nicely for the camera here and does his best to be the overall good guy in the film, with mixed success.  Still it’s probably only natural that Lakshmi prefers her rich former class mate who has plenty of style, even if it is all wasted posing on the golf course.

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Anji is doing his own fair share of romancing, as he chases after the feisty Rani (Bhanupriya).  Although the two seem to spend most of their time arguing or at the very least teasing each other,there are some night-time shenanigans which result in this great song.

Bhanupriya is lovely here and she just sparkles in the scenes with Chiranjeevi.  They both frequently look as if they are about to crack up laughing at each other and the camaraderie between them ensures some great chemistry as they veer between fighting and making up, usually both at the same time.

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However the president has more evil plans afoot and Anji ends up losing an eye as he saves the ashram yet again, leaving him with an eye patch and a generally bad attitude.  He picks a fight with Lakshmi’s rich suitor (Sudhakar) who is later found dead, sparking a hunt for the murderer.  Since the fight with Anji was seen by everyone on the golf course, Anji is the obvious suspect, and Mohan is the man charged with bringing his friend to justice.    There is much drama and scenery chewing as Mohan and Anji head for a show-down while Rani and Swamiji try to deal with the fall-out.  The president’s servant is played by a young Brahmi, and he provides a large proportion of the comedy, along with Allu Ramalingayya as Rani’s quack doctor father.  It’s worth keeping an eye on the various support actors in the background too, as below where the servant who brings the president his drink, totally unnoticed, helps himself to a glass as well.

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That brings us to the re-incarnation of Anji as Chakravarthy, the famous disco dancer, who returns to his village presumably to clear his name and sort out the village president once and for all. And if he’s lucky hook up with Rani again too.

Chakravarthy is as far removed from Anji as it is possible to be.  He is suave and sophisticated, dresses in smart suits and talks in English as he schmoozes the villagers.  Mohan suspects Chakravarthy may be Anji, possibly due to the uncanny resemblance between the two, but is thrown off when Chakravarthy demonstrates that he has full use of his left eye.  It’s a conundrum!

ChakravarthyChakravarthyChakravarthyChakravarthyI’m not sure if the two functioning eyes is ever explained, but it doesn’t really matter since there are more fights, more drama and suspicious looks exchanged before the final big showdown to grab our attention.  There are also more of K. Chakravarthy’s excellent songs.  I couldn’t decide which to add in here, but decided to go with this as Bhanupriya gets to wear much more tasteful outfits than in a few of the others.   Needless to say, Chiranjeevi looks perfectly styled in every one!

Although the film is overall a fairly standard masala flick, director Ravi Raja Pinisetty has added a few touches that bring originality into the mix.  Since he later directed one of my favourite Chiru films, Yamudiki Mogudu, I was a little disappointed that he kept the flamboyance to a minimum in Chakravarthy, apart from disco dancer Chakrvarthy’s introduction number.  But the more restrained costumes and comedy suit the overall style of the film.  What I do like are the different dynamics in Anji’s relationships with his mentor, his lover and his best friend.  The sudden shift when he reappears as Chakravarthy is also well envisaged, although I really did miss the subtitles that might have explained where he got all of his sudden sophistication.  And the eye fixed up!  Chakravarthy is definitely worth a watch for the chemistry between Chiranjeevi and Bhanupriya and for the concept of a disco dancer being the only person able to save the day! 3 ½ stars.

Chakravarthy

Dhammu

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I’d been warned to pick up my ticket early for Dhammu and although I wasn’t expecting a big crowd given the response to NTR Jr’s last few ventures, I did dutifully turn up before the suggested start time. And the guys on the door were right. By the time the film was ready to roll, the cinema was totally packed, which meant a very loud and enthusiastic response to Tarak’s explosive entrance on screen. Despite a few issues with the sound and difficulties getting the second reel of the movie to play, the audience maintained their enthusiasm which helped turn a run-of-the-mill mass masala film into an entertaining Friday night ‘adventure without subtitles’.

Dhammu starts with a flashback, setting up the story and explaining the rivalry between two families in a rural village. Within the first few moments there is a decapitation followed by various scenes of death and dismemberment so it’s fairly obvious that this isn’t going to be a fluffy romance despite the promise of two heroines on the poster. The two families seem determined to use the Kilkenny cat principle of conquest and it’s not long before the remnants of Suman’s family are reduced to living under the yoke of Nasser’s sadistic thugs. Once the scene is set, the film jumps to the present day and Tarak enters via a suitably ridiculous leap from a window onto a black 4WD. This is the first of many such black 4WD’s that gave their lives during the making of this film, so be prepared for crashes, inexplicable explosions and general vehicular destruction often for no apparent reason other than the director seemed to feel that it was time for another car (or 3) to meet an untimely end.

Tarak plays Ramachandra, an orphan who is against violence although that’s not entirely obvious since he’s beating up bad guys single-handedly from his first appearance on screen. OK, so he does fight with his hands behind his back and shows a reluctance to actually kill anyone, but at first I took that to be a novel trick fighting technique just because it looks good.

Ramachandra meets and instantly falls in love with Satya (Trisha) and after some initial very mild reluctance she seems to reciprocate. But it looks as if the romance, brief as it is, seems doomed to failure since Satya’s father (Subhalekha Sudhakar) wants her to marry a rich guy. Trisha looks lovely in some beautiful traditional outfits, but apart from looking pretty and the odd dance routine she has very little to do. The appearance of Karthika as the second heroine seems totally redundant as she gets even less screen time than Trisha and the attempt to create some rivalry falls flat.  Karthika also has so much collagen pumped into her lips that it looks as if they might burst at any moment while she’s speaking and this is incredibly distracting, particularly since I think she looked much better and prettier in Ko.

Both Trisha and Karthika look very stiff in the Neelo Undi Dhammu song and their awkwardness seems to increase in direct proportion to the shortness of their skirts. They both do much better in the songs where they are wearing more traditional outfits and the choreography seems to suit them better too. Tarak is on excellent form in all of the dance routines and although the songs by M.M. Keeravani aren’t particularly memorable the choreography is less fixed on trick moves and more on coordinated steps which look very slick. The only exception is the song Ruler which has little dancing and lots of CGI which looks rather out of place compared to the rest of the film.

By some means Ramachandra’s friend (Ali) learns of a rich family looking for a son to adopt and Ramachandra promptly applies to become a member of the Vasireddy family, adopting the name Vijayadwaja Sri Simha. However it’s not long before he discovers the drawbacks, namely being expected to resolve the feud between the two warring families once and for all as well as dealing with his entire extended family.

The fight scenes are the best part of Dhammu which is fortunate because there are quite a few. Tarak is often shown in slow-motion leaping and pouncing like his adopted family mascot of a lion and it works well. Mostly the fight sequences are totally over the top and unrealistic but they are expertly choreographed by Ram-Lakshman and look fantastic. People ricochet off cars, buildings and other people if they don’t happen to hit anything else in the way, or bounce off the ground in totally gravity defying ways which most of the audience seemed to find as entertaining as I did. There are lots of declarative speeches in between the various bouts of mayhem which generally went down well too, although there were a few scenes where they slow the pace considerably and it takes a while to pick up again.

The supporting cast are all well known actors and generally do justice to their roles. Kota Srinivasa Rao is familiar as the aging patriarch, while Tanikella Bharani, Suman and Sampath Raj all appear in small roles. Nasser is good as the slightly psychotic head of the opposing family and he also sports a wild and strange moustache which looks incredibly impractical. Ali is fairly inoffensive as Vijay’s friend and he got plenty of laughs from the audience, although his comedy did seem rather muted. Brahmi pops up for a few scenes but I couldn’t work out exactly what his role was in the Vasireddy family and he had very little impact. Venu Thottempudi also makes an appearance as a member of the Vasireddy family and was good in a brief but important appearance.

Overall Dhammu has nothing new to offer and relies heavily on NTR Jr to make the most of an overused storyline with standard masala ingredients. There are plenty of good moments and NTR Jr puts in an impressive performance but there isn’t anything to make this film stand out from other similar action movies in his filmography. It’s not brilliant but it works well enough as a mass entertainer, especially with an appreciative audience and I’d recommend watching at least once for Tarak, his dancing and some excellent fight scenes!