Shakti (2011) Dir. Meher Ramesh

With Shakti, reportedly the most expensive Telugu film yet made, Young Tiger Jr. NTR is officially rebranded as A1 Star. Personally I will miss all the Tiger references in his films. I love a lot of the Telugu Heros (see my list of Favorites) but Jr. NTR is definetly at the A1 spot of my favorites so the title for me is apt.

I saw Shakti First Day First show here in Minneapolis, so there wasn't any plot synopsis available for me to peek at to help me out with the lack of subtitles. So once again forgive me for any mistakes I make and please correct me in the comments. I had to watch the movie over 2 days because the theater I saw it in had some major technical difficulties. Right at the interval bang the screen went dark. So other than seeing Tarak dodge a shoulder fired rocket I missed the whole thing the first night. Apparently the Interval bang was too much for the projector to handle because it over heated and went into auto shut down. Alot. Both days. Uff! They finally moved us to a new screen the second night I saw it. See, for Tarak I can do anything, I figure with all the delays from trying to fix the problem it took me about 7 hours to watch the whole movie.

The movie starts in Egypt  labeled as 1984 but with everyone inexplicably costumed up like from the Pharoah's time. Strange, but I decided to go with it. I thought maybe they belonged to some weird,  evil, pharoah obssessed cult intent on taking over the world.

 Pooja Bedi plays the scenery chewing evil Egyptian queen, Fakhtooni.  She  has her own secret lair right in one of the Pyramids at Giza. She starts off screaming in rage when the head of her husband is returned to her and she never stopped screaming after that. She is so evil that she plucks the eyes out of the head and  puts them into a jar to transplant them later into her son, who she turns into an evil behemoth of a killing machine by plucking out his eyes as a small boy and then dipping him in a magic firey pit ala Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, to toughen him up for the revenge she so clearly is screaming for. 

Besides revenge she wants to get her hands on a magical diamond that the Home Minister, played by Prabhu is keeping under lock and key. He meets frequently with a mystical yogi played by a heavily made up Nasser where they discuss the diamond. Prabhu has a a daughter Aishwarya, played by Ileana. Aishwarya is tired of always having security guards so she sneaks out of the house and meets up with some friends and  decides to go on a cross country trip with them to enjoy her new found freedom. Unbeknownst to her she accidently ended up in possession of the magical diamond and is unaware the Egyptians and Jackie Shroff, who plays an underworld Don, are after her. Whew! All of that in the first 15 minutes! This set up the premise well as near as I could tell.

Ok so what I need now is a kick ass Hero Entrance! I think coming in riding an elephant and then leaping off it in that gravity defying Telugu super hero way was A1-ji. Tarak plays a tour guide named Shakti. The first fight has Tarak beating up some goondas that were trying to rip off Aishwarya and Ali (playing her friend) over some movie tickets. He gets the tickets but then charges them for the fight. Much to Aishwarya's chagrin, he ends up getting hired as their guide as they continue their travels around Jaipur, Kashmir and Haridwar. Every time Aishwarya gets in trouble, (usually because of some trick that backfires on her) Shakthi charges her for rescuing her.


He keeps everything in a trunk that he drags around. I really wanted to know what all was in that trunk! He seemed to have all kinds of handy things in there and the couple of glimpses we got of the inside made it more mysterious. The trunk is a key element in the twist that comes with the interval bang.

I thought the first half was great. The cinematography of  Jaipur and the desert, Kashmir and the Mountains and Haridwar were beautiful. I LOOOOVED the first song Thaliya Thaliya. The choreography was so fun to watch and it was so colorful and vibrant. Just what I needed after this long, cold, colorless winter we've had. When it was over I was disapointed I couldn't rewind and watch it again! The other songs were well done too. Prema Desam was lovely and maybe it was just Tarak's Cowboy outfit but I especially liked the choreography and picturization of Mathileka Pichiga.

 Ileana was lovely as were her hips which the choreographers focused on alot. I wish they had her do more than just those belly dance steps, but what she did she did well.  There was a glimpse in this movie of how well she can do comedy, I hope she has more opportunities to showoff  her comedy skills in the future.

Initially, the second half was very confusing to me but when I read some synopsis it made more sense on the second viewing. Apparently the Egyptians and Jackie wanted control of the Shakti Peethams, which are places of mystical power at Temples around India. Prabhu and the Yogi were caretakers of a secret one that you needed the the diamond, a trident and a little book thingy in order to enter the temple and be sure everything is working and balance in the universe is maintained. Prabhu has the diamond, Jackie has the trident and Fakhtooni has the book. So the second half is all about how all three ended up with one of the items (told in the flashback) and about Shakti's connection to them.  The movie goes into fantasy mode which somehow seems so different than the first half. There just wasn't enough of a build up between the straitforward and "real" nature of the first half and the magical second half. At least from what I could tell, maybe it was conveyed through the dialogue.

The highlight of the flashback sequence was Tarak in the Rudra charactor.  I thought Tarak looked cool in the Rudra get up. The wig wasn't that bad and it was fun watching him swinging those swords around. He kind of reminded me of Inigo Montoya from the Princess Bride.  The Rudra theme music is awesome but I wish they hadn't had so many too fast edits on Tarak during it.

Sonu Sood as Fakhtooni's husband in the flashback is completely wasted. It's really a short appearance and all he does is alot of hollering. And riding back and forth between Egypt and India on horseback in a rage. Really.

The final showdown between Shakti and the Egyptians could have been done much better. There was lots of flying around and wire work that was somehow too slow. And the sword fighting he did was both too fast and in slow-mo almost simultaneously. It would have been so much better if they had spent some time and money on doing that right.

Tarak doesn't disapoint in his performance, the fights and the dancing are excellent. Mani Sharma's soundtrack is wonderful. But the editing and the story fall apart in the second half. If you can't suspend disbelief enough (like me) to find an evil Pharoah obssessed cult plausable then Shakti becomes a bit too outlandish. Really I don't know why they had to have the villains be Egyptians, unless Meher Ramesh just wanted to spend the money on the trip. It would have been better if they had the villains be raging Rajputs instead of screaming Pharoahs. It would have made a little bit more chronological and geographical sense.

I will leave you with a little glimpse of Thaliya Thaliya and Prema Desam.

Brindaavanam (2010) dir. Vamsi Paidapally

I won't be able to explain exactly how excited I was to finally see my favorite Tollywood hero on the big screen,  let me just say that for me personally, Endhiran and Khaleja were fabulous opening acts for what has turned out to be a superfantastic (yes that is one word) October.
I saw Brindaavanam in a very packed theater (the most I've seen in the theater and lining up for the later show since Om Shanti Om). Since I was going to be seeing a movie without subtitles, I did my usual peeking at reviews so I can get an idea of the basic story going in, so I knew that the first 15 minutes would have a fight and a song. I had my friend Marcia with me who is a newbie to Tollywood and had become a huge Jr. NTR fan after only one viewing of Yamadonga and some dance videos. I was on the edge of my seat waiting for the Hero Introduction and it was so cool to see the theater erupt and Marcia almost fall out of her chair. (I of course remained quite composed, I am from Minnesota after all) Ha-Ha! Such fun!

Jr. NTR plays Krish, a millionaire's son, who has a girlfriend Indhu, played by Samantha. She tells him about her friend Bhoomi, played by Kajal who needs help getting  out of an arranged marriage. Prakash Raj plays Bhoomi's Dad. He is wonderfull as the stern Father. He has lots of stoney stares and glares. I wasn't able to figure out why the heck he would push Bhoomi into an arranged marriage with the evil looking goonda played by Ajay, I mean couldn't he tell by looking at him he was bad news? Anyway Indhu convinces Krish to pretend to be Bhoomi's boyfriend in order to help her get out of her predicament. While traveling with her to her rural home (named Brindaavanam)she fills him in on her family which seems to be a very miserable and dysfunctional bunch. Once Krish arrives he is able to win them all over and resolve some of their problems. The supporting cast is excellent and features what seems like almost all the main supporting stars of Telugu films.

Kota Srinavasa Rao plays Bhoomi's grandfather, he tells Krish about his other son played by Srihari. It seems Prakash Raj and Srihari are step brothers who have been feuding for a long time. Someone in the theater was kind enough to tell me the feud was over a lack of respect exhibited at a wedding, not sure whose, maybe Srihari's. When the grandpa leaves to visit his other son Krish goes along.
     Srihari was great! Seemed like all his dialogs started with "Rey!" and were said in an echo chamber. (I just love the Tollywood sound effects during fights and speeches and funny moments. Such a wonderfull part of the ride, puts a smile right on my face!) Krish manages to bring the two Brothers together and Prakash Raj is happy now to let Bhoomi marry Krish. A bit of a problem because Indhu is really Krish's girlfriend. Not only that but it turns out Indhu is Srihari's daughter. Indhu comes up with another plan to play along with the engagement by bringing in  Brahmanandam in as a pretend Father for Krish. At the same time Srihari finds out Indhu has a boyfriend and  brings Krish's real parents to Brindaavanam.
       The rest of the film is a series of comical escapades as they try to keep the charade going. The audience was in stitches during the scenes between Tarak and Venu Madhav and Tarak and Brahmi. Brahmi's entrance caused almost as many cheers and whistles as Tarak's entrance. I enjoyed Venu more I think primarily because his comedy scenes were much more physical and so the lack of subs didn't deminish my enjoyment of him.

    Samantha and Kajal did fine with their respective roles. I liked Samantha's charactor better maybe because I think she is a better actress. It's not an easy task to keep up with Tarak, and I have to confess I was mostly watching him, but I thought they both did an excellent job in the dances.

The movie's climax had Krish confessing to Srihari and Prakash about his deceit. That doesn't go over very well, but then Bhoomi needs rescueing so when Krish saves her all are happy again. In the end Krish has to decide who to marry and like in Simhadri it is implied he ends up with both. 

Brindaavanam can really be summed up in one word: Tarakariffic! (Hee-hee I made that one up!) Tarak was his usual awesome self. The audience cheered during his dialogs, especially the Racha Racha speech (not me though I *ahem* remained quiet and ladylike throughout) The fights were great! I loved some of the funny details like when he wrapped his fist in the towel and helped all the rowdies he pounded land on the ground quietly so he could sneak up on more of them. I loved the tree breaking apart and cutting the other tree in half during the climax fight. The variety of looks on his face when he was in Brindaavanam trying to keep his charade going were priceless. His dialog delivery was fun to watch. I can't wait for the dvd to get the full benefit of the comedy and the emotional scenes. 

The music by S.S. Thaman is very good and Tarak's dancing proved once again that he is the best. There aren't video clips sufficiently long enough to post the songs, so that will have to wait for the review with screencaps I'll probably do whenever the dvd with subs comes out.   I loved Yuvakula, the first song picturisation right after the Hero Intro scenes. What a great way to start the movie! I also loved the the picturizations for Eyi Raja and Chinnadho. In all the songs I was really glad they weren't over edited. I hate it when there are too many cuts like in Adhurs. It takes away from the enjoyment of just watching the man move.

All in all Brindaavanam had everything I love about Tollywood movies. It was definetly worth seeing in the theater even without subtitles. But for me I think the hero made it Tarakariffic!