Well from young age we do hear many stories from our parents that once upon a time there lived a king who thought about people this way, who saved country like this, who made us all proud in such manner. In such legendary tales, we find our own inspiration for a grand success and total greatness. Such stories could be fictitious but some are inspired from real people who created history! One such great warrior kings story was Gautamiputra Satakarni.
PLOT : This part of history cannot be differentiated as a plot but as the movie goes by the rules of a starting, middle and end. This movie is a semi biopic of Gautamiputra Satakarni. He ruled Satavahana Empire, with Amaravati as his capital and given himself the title of Andhra King, which is equivalent to being a Telugu person during his time. He was known as Dakshinapatha prajapati, meaning the ruler of whole of South, he started to regain all the lost kingdoms and in his peak united entire popular Indian Kingdoms of that as one and had many subsidiaries accepting his prominence and as their ruler. He was the third King from India who restricted the aggression of Greeks, Demetrius as King of Greeks was defeated by him. So all this has been articulated and made as a movie by Krish. Watch the exciting battles and performances on screen!
Performances : Nandamuri Balakrishna, as Gautamiputra Satakarni, even though his age was showing and body was bit out of shape, his talent as an actor and aggression in the voice helps him to successfully portray the best role of his career thus far. He as a sword wielding warrior was completely in sync with the times the film was trying to present and brilliant in the way he carried the proceedings.
Shriya Saran was utilised very well by Krish and she looked extremely vibrant on screen. As the mother and queen of a great warrior she was on point throughout the movie. Hema Malini had a lot of trouble in lip sync still she proved that she fits the character of Gautami BalaSri, mother of the warrior King, very well. Subhaleka Sudhakar gets a delightful cameo after a long time and his line, “Bandhisthe varostharu, veera vishram chesi mimmalni samharistharu, nenu garvam ga eduruchusthanu, Champesthe, meerostharu kati lo meekosam naa pakkana sthanam unchi eduruchusthanu”. He nailed it.
Tanikella Bharani did go over board, Vinod, Kabir Bedi, Shiva Raj Kumar and many others were good in their roles and made the movie look like what it does.
Technicalities : VFX work done by several companies along with the art department for practical effects should be given huge credit for allowing the makers pull off a Marvel in the given 90 to 125 days for the post production and production of the movie. Krish was very clever in selecting the locations and shots as well. He did not for ambition like Bahubali rather tried to show the same style of spectacle in the limited budget. He succeeded very well.
The sound department was the next best contributors for the movie as they gave the movie necessary pep and ambiance for the believability. Cinematography by Gnana Sekhar needs to be credited as the best in recent times. In his way, he helped the ambition of Krish the best and his creation of visuals in few scenes were exceptional. Back ground score of the movie was one of the best as well. Even though his songs were speed breakers his score more than made up for it. Chirantan Bhatt coming in at the later stage of production, did his best work. Sai Madhav Burra showed that he understands the sentiments of masses quite well. His dialogues gave life to ambition of the team.
How could the team pull such a miracle? In 79 days, they made such a big production which doesn’t look like a TV movie. Many were afraid of this accept and the producers should be credited for this. There were several repeat shots that could have been avoided but that is just a minor glitch. Last but not least, Krish Jagarlamudi did his best work in writing exciting war sequences, especially the introduction and the following war sequences. He was very good in carrying the emotion further. He could have easily tried to infuse more glamour into the story but he looked highly inspired by many war epics of Hollywood. He did what best he could to bring his ambition to life.
Analysis : The major aspect for any historical movie is in making it the best way you can without destroying the facts. Krish Jagarlamudi made his best effort till date in showcasing the heroic warrior that Satakarni was but he did miss out on showing how good ruler was he. He just made a movie that looked like a War movie rather than a biopic. Keeping this small but important glitch aside, as a film this needs to be encouraged and watch by Telugu audience at least once.
Rating : 3/5
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