The Age Of Heroes: The Incredible World of Telugu Cinema

NTR was the leader of Opposition in the Parliament in 1984 because when Indira Gandhi was assassinated, Telugu voters refused to sway to emotion and stuck to the man they trusted. The Telugu Hero, NTR.

Telugu has, instead, been reduced to political activism through movements, such as the Madiga Dandora movement, which aimed to unify the Madiga caste (the lowest amongst the caste hierarchies).

NTR’s tenure would later become infamous for quasi-judicial killings of ‘Naxalites’. Police officers were given a free hand to round up ‘suspected’ Naxalites, farcical conspiracy cases were slapped on individuals and Adivasi tribes bore the brunt of the activities to crush the rising Naxalite movement. NTR would soon lose the elections on 1989. Whe

There is another clear marker of Erra cinema – the antithesis to the protagonist. Not the villain, but an honest officer who has faith in the system and its workings, who believes that despite its faults, the system can work and should work. Usually, it’s an upper-caste urban idealist – a definite outsider to the conflict, represented by a lawyer o

Alluda Majaka caused such controversy that for the first time people protested against Chiranjeevi. Women’s groups complained to the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) to have the film removed from theatres because of how obscene it was. This film caused the right wing to join the cause of the left wing in the demand for its ban. The Bharat

Every casting decision in this film reeked of foolishness at that time. The film also featured the debuts of two male actors: Sivamani, the drummer, who plays an African American, and Thomas Jane, who would later star in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Boogie Nights (1997).

lip-syncing to double meaning lyrics. The peak of this genre was the 1995 film Alluda Majaka (No one Entertains like the Son-in-Law), a film starring Chiranjeevi, Rambha and Ramya Krishnan. Lakshmi played the mother-in-law. The film is a sleaze-fest and probably the sleaziest of all of Chiranjeevi’s works. There are films that age badly, and there

The reason I describe Okkadu in so much detail is because the film borrows liberally from Pathala Bhairavi.

They were put up in the plush Manjeera Guest House owned by the government. The Telugu daily Eenadu mocked the Maoists who were invited talks by showing waiters in posh restaurants who were confused by the culinary demands of their outlawed guests.