My Year of Prakash Raj

Some people spend a year
cooking Julia Child's recipes, or following all of the rules in the Bible, or reading books by people who spent a year doing something. My quest is to watch the 200-some films of South Indian character-actor-extraordinaire, Prakash Raj. (It'll probably take more than a year... and I'll post about some Prakash-less films here as well.)

Saturday, January 31, 2015

Round-up August 2012-December 2013

Monthly Prakash Raj Movie Total: (5)
 *August 2012 - 1
 *September 2012 - 1
 *December 2012 - 1
 *May 2013 - 1
 *July 2013 - 1

Overall Prakash Raj Movie Total (as of December 31, 2013): 206

Adavi Chukka, Nandhini, Wanted, Rajadhani,  Seethamma Vakitlo Sirimalle Chettu

These are all movies I watched after I started getting into K-dramas. I have very little memory of most of these (my file folders full of screencaps are evidence that I did watch the films), so I blame Hyun Bin and Lee Min Ho for distracting me.

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Adavi Chukka (Telugu, 2000)

Date Watched: 8/18/2012
Role type: Prakash Revolutionary
The story: From youtube (where you can watch the full movie):  The story revolves around a wronged tribal woman's revenge against her adversaies. Chukka (Vijayashanti) is a naive tribal girl who witnesses her sister\'s death at the hands of the local zamindar's son. Now grown up, she seeks vengeance and kills the zamindar\'s son. It is the trun of the zamindar to be after her throat now and she is forced to go into hiding. The zamindar, who is after Chukka, kills her husband Suman, a forest officer who empathizes with the tribals. It is then that she dons the avataar of Adavichukka and kills him.

Thoughts on the film: (watched without subtitles) I enjoy the genre of female-revenge films in Telugu cinema, and it's always fun to see an actress get the full on action treatment. There's a great scene when Chukka hunts down the zamindar's son with her bow and arrow, Katniss Everdeen-style, and the final scene when Chukka goes full revolutionary and leads the villagers with rifles and songs against the bad guys.



Thoughts on Prakash Raj in the film: He plays the revolutionary (Naxalite?) lawyer who advises the young Chukka on your path for revenge, defends her in court and cheers her on in her final transformation into a bad-ass revolutionary.
Favorite Prakash Raj Scenes: The big final set piece, where Prakash Raj's character sings and drums as Chukka leads the villages to final battle. (starts at about 4:30)



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Nandhini (Tamil, 1997)

Date Watched: 9/29/2012

Role type: Prakash Dad
The story: Raji (a college student) is in love with Suresh, but is troubled by stories of her mother, Nandhini . Suresh and Raji discover the love story of Raji's parents (played by Suhasini and Prakash Raj), which allows Raji to come to terms with her mother and her own love story.
Thoughts on the film: (watched without subtitles). I really missed a big chunk of the drama that was set up in the beginning and resolved at the end, so I'm not sure what exactly Raji thought was going on with her mother.  Suhasini is so great, both in the sweet love story with Prakash Raj, and at the end as the older mother who has found resolution and happiness.
Thoughts on Prakash Raj in the film: A nice, sweet, everyday guy who romances his wife, loves his daughter, and meets an unlucky end when he looses his balance on a construction lift.
Favorite Prakash Raj Scenes: Lots of happy "I'm so in love" scenes.



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Wanted (Telugu, 2011)

Date Watched: 12/31/2012
Role type: Prakash Bad
The story: From 123telugu.com: Rambabu (Gopichand) is a happy go lucky chap who does nothing for career, and doesn’t mind a ‘fight’ for the heck of it. Inspite of this, his parents love him completely because they think they have earned enough for him. Rambabu comes across Nandini (Deeksha Seth), a house surgeon. When the girl saves his mom’s life, Rambabu falls for her and chases her. After almost following her everywhere, saving her from goons few times, Rambabu gets frustrated and asks her what she wants him to do to prove his love for her. The girl asks him to kill Basava Raju (Prakash Raj) and company, as a revenge for killing her honest cop father (Nazar) and her entire family. Rambabu goes after the goons and kills them one by one.
Thoughts on the film: As I recall, a pretty standard Telugu revenge-action movie, with lots of action and blood.
Thoughts on Prakash Raj in the film: The usual over the top, evil bad guy.
Favorite Prakash Raj Scenes: Menacing, alarmed, reaching for a weapon, and the bonus: in a car and on the phone!



 
 


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Rajadhani (Kannada, 2011)

Date Watched: 5/4/2013
Role type: Prakash Cop
The story: The story of five youthful friends (played by Yash, Sathya, Sandeep, Ravi Teja and Chethan Chandra) who become criminals. Despite the best efforts of a kind-hearted police officer (Prakash Raj), the story ends tragically.
Thoughts on the film: (Watched without subtitles.) ot many, I lost interest when  Prakash Raj's character wasn't on screen, and I didn't have much interest in the downward spiral of the five friends. I suspect the moral underpinnings would be more interesting if I could follow the dialogue.
Thoughts on Prakash Raj in the film: Another upright, good cop.
Favorite Prakash Raj Scenes: 





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Seethamma Vakitlo Sirimalle Chettu (Telugu, 2012)

Date Watched: 7/5/2013
Role type: Prakash Dad
The story: From IMDB: Relangi Mavayya (Prakash Raj) is a gentleman from a small village Relangi and he believes in human values and relationships. He has two sons Peddodu aka Mallikharjuna Rao (Venkatesh) and Chinnodu aka Seetha Rama Raju (Mahesh Babu). Peddodu is an emotional guy and his maradalu Seetha (Anjali) is in love with him since her childhood. Whereas Mahesh Babu is a witty and charming young man and he falls in love with Geetha (Samantha), the daughter of Rao Ramesh. But Rao Ramesh ridicules Prakash Raj for his low wealth and this strains the relationships between both brothers. In the end Seetha's marries Peddodu, Geetha's marriage is planned with Chinnodu and Geetha's father apologizes to Relangi Mavayya.
Thoughts on the film: I really enjoy every one of the actors in this film, and the interactions of the different characters was fun. Venkatesh's character had potential, but I didn't really see the arc for that character. It was a nice family sentiment movie, but I'm sure a lot of the nuances were lost on me. The big finale with the downed power wires at the temple worked for me.
Thoughts on Prakash Raj in the film: Just an all around, caring, sweet father, husband and family man. He got to interact with almost all of the different characters in the film, and had some nice speechifying.
Favorite Prakash Raj Scenes:
The many scenes with Jayasudha.
Gently and laughingly scolding the pompous MLA.

5 comments:

  1. Yay! More Prakash Raj. Be sure to watch for his next one with Tarak. Temper releases in a couple of weeks!

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  2. Hey! Maybe I'll get motivated and see it in the theater. I think this must be the first film PR and Tarak have been in together since Oosaravelli,maybe?

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  3. This comment has been removed by the author.

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