Tag Archives: Sharada

Adavi Donga

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Adavi Donga is difficult to really capture in mere words. As I watched it, I kept wondering if Chiranjeevi was already the Megastar, because this is not the kind of film that I imagine would really enhance an actor’s reputation. This was an adventure without subtitles, but the visuals speak volumes. My  copy is a dodgy quality VCD so my images will not do it justice, but I have sourced some short clips to help bring Adavi Donga to life. No dear reader, don’t thank me yet!

Sharada, always so elegant and striking, is Vasundhara. She opposes the local bad guy, animal poacher and underpayer of vegetable growers, Rao Gopal Rao, and his idiot son.

He is slimey and not always just in the comedic manner you might expect from the wigs.

 

Look at what happened to the last person who crossed him! And consider the well appointed lair and excellent lighting effects. He also has a gang of brightly attired poachers, and Allu Ramalingaiah as a shady advisor and factotum.

Rao Gopal Rao frames Vasundhara’s husband for murder, and at the dramatic height of that incident, she stashes her recently tattooed infant son in the forest fully intending to come back when it is safe.  Unfortunately for her, the lad is discovered and adopted by an elephant and taken into the jungle.

I was delighted to find that the jungle was populated by lots of exciting animals like tigers, lion cubs, monkeys, antelope, peacocks and… fluffy white bunnies.

 

Some things made me question where the rabbits fit into the food chain. They had no protective camouflage or colouring – Stupidity or fearlessness? Were they just a convenient snack for local carnivores or something more sinister?

Sharada is left alone and angry. Vasundhara is a strong woman with a vengeful streak tempered by her principles. Her policeman brother, played by Kongara Jaggaiah, refuses to believe that her husband is innocent and doesn’t seem too fussed about the lost baby. Of course the boy grows up to become Chiranjeevi, a Tarzan character with a wardrobe comprising several loincloths and an array of matching sandals, who lives completely unnoticed in the not very distant jungle.

Radha has some strange ideas about jungle appropriate attire, although I guess pleather would be fairly hardy as fabrics go.

The poacher gang try to kidnap her, possibly in an attempt to force her to marry the idiot son. But Chiru cannot resist the piercing shriek of a maiden in distress and comes to her aid. She flees, leaving her cassette recorder behind. And that changes everything. I liked that the elephant mother seems appalled to find her human child dancing to some random disco rubbish. Sadly the damage has been done and Chiru goes in search of the pretty lady. This choice leads him into a world of floral curtains and scary reflections.

 

Radha certainly liked what she saw. The yodelling over Chiru’s arrival in this song is quite marvellous. Someone took their Tarzan tribute seriously.

Radha staged another incident to attract Chiru’s attention. She didn’t count on being chased into the jaws of a crocodile by a lethargic tiger, and of course Chiru arrives in the nick of time having been alerted by her robust screaming. I do like a good crocodile wrestling scene! He takes her to his treehouse and she seems to recover quite quickly considering her leg had been gnawed half off. But why didn’t Radha seem to notice the rabbits hopping all around her?

Chiru’s treehouse had an elephant operated elevator which at first surprised me – I mean, Tarzan needing a lift? How many city gals did he bring home? But then I realised the lift was possibly for the benefit of the bunnies who were sharing the penthouse treehouse with Chiru. Did the elephants have their own interpretation of bunny rug? What was their purpose? How on earth did the rabbits persuade so many creatures to do their bidding? Why do I care ?

Chiranjeevi’s idea of flirting with Radha is amusing rather than smouldering. He steals her bra, covers himself in a leopard skin and crawls around growling, gets his monkey to take a Polaroid of Radha while she is changing clothes and generally behaves like a hormonal teenager.

The romance between Chiru and Radha draws the attention of Rao Gopal Rao. His machinations place Chiru in danger, which allows for some excellent vine-swinging, and the elephants intervene to go find Sharada and reintroduce her to her son. Quite why it took so many years to do this is not clear, but maybe they just weren’t ready for him to leave home. It took Radha, resplendent in pleather pedal pushers, to reunite the family with a clever visual demonstration of the parent child relationship.

 

They quickly adjusted to this new family dynamic and the elephants helped Sharada break Chiru out of police custody. She is a very resourceful woman.

After a bit of divine intervention and maternal coaching, Chiru becomes Kalidasu. He starts wearing suits and accessorising with scarves. He also quickly develops an amazing mastery of rhetoric. Sharada imbues him with her own strong principles and he is the perfect son.

 

She is still crusading against the poaching and other villainous goings on. I liked the villains lair, apparently accessible only via secret rail tunnel, or the truck loading bay. Despite all the secrecy, Sharada and the local ‘tribe’ seem to be able to wander in as they please.

 

Naturally the bad guys refuse to be warned off by Sharada or by Chiru. He is outraged at seeing his former jungle friends sold for skins and tusks, although he was no tree-hugging conservationist  in his previous jungle existence. An assassin is sent to kill him. This role, if not the outfit, would have been perfect for Bob Christo. Please pay particular attention to the Wolverine style claws made from apple peelers.

Other pleasing details include the abundance of  fake ‘taxidermy’ in the villain’s house. What were they thinking?

The commitment to that theme continues into a song.

The songs (music by Chakravarthy) are kind of fabulous and completely excruciating.

The final showdown takes place in the villain’s lair and poor Chiru is faced with a terrible dilemma. Rescue his recently freed father from this?

Or save his mother from this?

And how to help anyone when he is trapped? And with evil henchmen tearing his clothes off?!? Oh the humanity!

 

Director K Raghavendra Rao wraps things up neatly, if not terribly sensibly, and there is excellent utilisation of the elephants. There is so much fabulous wardrobe, a ridiculous plot that merrily disregards any inconvenient logic, and very appealing performances by Chiranjeevi and Sharada. A must see for Tarzan fans, Chiru fans, rabbit fans and anyone who ever wanted to know which sandals go best with a loincloth. While not a great film, this is So Bad It’s Really Very Good.  3 stars!

State Rowdy

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It is no secret that we are fans of Chiranjeevi, masala, action, dancing, convoluted stories and crazy outfits. State Rowdy fulfils many of our film wishlist items. In addition, this film is often cited as the inspiration for Pokiri/Pokkiri/Wanted.

Chiranjeevi plays Kalicharan – the local tough guy, self designated State Rowdy and goon with a heart. He systematically takes on and eliminates all other rowdies on his turf (the coastal rowdy, the Rayalaseema rowdy, the Nizam rowdy …you get the picture).

Bhanupriya plays Asha, a local girl who witnessed a murder and flees the scene. The killers know she saw them, but don’t know who she is. The SP (played by the impressive and elegant Sharada) also wants to find Asha as the murdered man is the policewoman’s husband.  And oh yes, she is the long lost daughter of… never mind. Just go with the flow!

Kali and Asha cross paths and romance sparks – especially once she gets an eyeful of his manly dance style and gold tipped boots.

The police try to find out who is kidnapping all the rowdies, and the goons plot to rid themselves of the menace who is kidnapping their men.  Meanwhile, the lovely Radha pines over her lost love Prithvi….but how is this all related?

Just to add to all this confusion we also have local crime lord Narendra Bhupati, his merry band of brothers one of whom was responsible for the murders, and local businessman and would-be CM Mankamatti Bhaskar Rao who are all searching for the eye witness for various reasons.

All paths lead back to Kalicharan. Through a series of slightly confusing but very charming flashbacks we learn of his early life as good boy Prithviraj who wore white pants and parted his hair neatly on the side. Prithvi was a promising police cadet but was apparently passed over for promotion, had a spat with his superior, and left the force. His life went off the rails and he became the scourge – Kalicharan.

Radha (played by Radha), Prithvi’s cousin and fiancee, discovers his double life and engineers an emotional confrontation between the headband and muscle shirt wearing Kalicaharan and his sari clad mother.  The truth behind his fall from grace is revealed and like all things confided in secret, becomes well known in no time at all. All parties seek to use him to gain victory and to exploit his vulnerability while he strives to achieve his goal and protect his loved ones…and keep the girls from learning of each other’s existence.   Displaying a fine sense of political fair play he accepts payment from opposing sides and splits his resources to cover both obligations. And then resumes his policing career. There are kidnappings, mistaken identities, corpse swapping, and that’s not even the tip of the iceberg.  Once again, these succeed because Chiranjeevi is believably physical and heroic.

From a heavily customised budget friendly Bond style motorbike to the thrilling conclusion, the laughs and gasps just keep coming.  The climax scenes involve a return from the dead (that corpse swapping incident), kidnapping, blackmail, a masala death trap of delightfully rickety and impractical design and a lot of explosions and crashes.  And a brilliant sequence with Chiru, trapped inside a spherical metal cage, being used as the ball in a game of car-soccer. We said this got a bit convoluted!

Chiranjeevi is in fabulous form. Even in this broadly drawn character he manages to convey some nuance and a deft comedic sense. Prithvi’s flirting with Radha is sweet and a bit awkward and a total contrast to the swaggering Kali. There is drama, emotion and romance galore and his performance hits all the right notes. He seems to be having a fine time in the action scenes, and his dancing is fabulous.  He even puts in a brief appearance as Arjuna in full gilded kit. One thing we just love is that he never seems inhibited by even the most peculiar wardrobe choices.  In fact, he looks so happy and as if this is all huge fun for him.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCKRGMO077k

We must make special mention of the costumes, especially in the song sequences. Even for 1989, and allowing for flights of fantasy and a bit of a fashion time-lag between Paris and Hyderabad, there are some absolute shockers. The star cast give the songs a boost as they all throw themselves into the choreography. Bappi Lahiri does his disco thing and the songs are really catchy and fun.

The supporting cast are all solid and do what they do in every film. Sharada has credibility as the angry SP and as the grieving widow and mother. Allu Ramalingaiah plays Quotation Chakravarti, part of the comic side plot, and is very effective. We struggle with many of the comic side plots but this is fairly well integrated into the story so works better than some.

The stunts and fights are so over the top and fantastic to watch. Once again, these succeed because Chiranjeevi is Chiranjeevi. Of course good will triumph, love will find a way and justice will prevail. But we encourage you to watch the film to see how much fun the journey to a foregone conclusion can be!

Heather says:  This has to be one of the most bewildering films I have watched for some time.    The plot is incredibly convoluted and the various relationships of the characters to each other didn’t seem to be necessary for the story but just added to the confusion.  I felt that there were really two separate films rolled into one, but this did have the advantage of giving us two Chiru’s. One suave, charming and dedicated to fighting crime, and the other tough, street wise and just dedicated to fighting.  He is fantastic in both avatars, and the switch between the two is very clear and well defined.  The female leads – all three of them – deliver some very fine performances, as do the supporting cast.  While the songs themselves are great, they seemed to be oddly placed in the narrative. The really terrible (and therefore fantastic in a ‘so-bad-its-good’ way) costumes didn’t help with this sense of displacement and for me, detracted from some very good choreography.  The dancing and action scenes were of a very high standard, as we’ve come to expect from a Chiranjeevi film, but what stood out for me was the dancing of both Bhanupriya and Radha.  Both kept up with Chiru and managed to make their moves look effortless.   Despite the confusing storyline the film is great fun.  My advice is to forget about trying to understand what is happening and why, and just try to keep up with the action!  I have to say that Chiru in a uniform makes any amount of mystifying storyline watchable. And since everything works out in spectacular style by the end I would recommend this film as a must see. 4 stars from me.

Temple says: I didn’t find the film all that confusing, just unnecessarily convoluted and a bit fragmented as it relies on flashbacks to fill us in on the story. But it is immensely enjoyable as it plays around with the rowdy stereotypes and allows Chiru to be both the good boy and the dangerous ruffian. There is a common theme of justice  in many Telugu films, and a few interesting takes on what justice is. In many instances it seems that despite what the law says, if the consensus is that a good man kills a bad man, then that’s probably OK. These themes do get a work out in State Rowdy but ultimately the law is seen to triumph; albeit with some help from the invincible Chiranjeevi and the determined Sharada. In addition to the excellent acting, the director decided to unleash the full might of the wardrobe team and make sure that Prithvi and Kalicharan looked nothing alike. Some dubious, but very entertaining, outfits were the result and the backing dancers and support cast enjoy the fruits of these labours too. And the ladies didn’t fare much better. For the most part the songs were reflecting the heroines’ wishes or dreams so they didn’t have to look at all realistic or be cohesive to the narrative either. The more pertinent question would be why, if you are fantasizing about a man, would you dress him up like that in your imagination? So much shiny metallic lycra – it’s quite concerning! I was going to say “less is more” when it comes to costumes but that might be misconstrued so let’s just move on. The support cast were very good, and there were some amusing little subplots and throwaway lines in amongst all the dancing, prancing and biffo. I found this very entertaining. I like detail, and this film has lots of it! I know this might not be to everyone’s tastes, but if that is the case then I think there is something wrong with you. Chiranjeevi is just awesome as State Rowdy. I give this 4 and 1/2 stars!