Come January, 2011 Angarajyam is going to be the battlefield where an unlikely warrior defeats the evil sorceress to save the world and the whole of mankind. Hemanth Kumar unravels the behind the scenes action of the upcoming fantasy film Anaganaga O Dheerudu and it looks nothing like we have ever seen before.
Once upon a time, in a world where sorcery reigned supreme, when all hope seemed to fade away, an unlikely warrior took up the mantle to destroy all evil and save the world. The legend of Angarajyam – a tear shaped island reeling under the rule of an evil queen Irendri, resonates as the quintessential bedtime story about warriors and demons we have grown up reading or hearing from our elders. But what’s exciting now is that, this legend of Angarajyam narrated in Anaganaga O Dheerudu is going be the biggest onscreen spectacle ever made in Telugu cinema!
Telugu cinema’s infatuation with fantasy isn’t new. One of the first blockbusters, Pathala Bhairavi made in 1951 set the trend for hundreds of more films in this genre. Countless films starring NTR, ANR, Kantha Rao, Narasimha Raju were made from 50s till 70s. And then the genre took a backseat for quite some time until K Raghavendra Rao resurrected the genre in his cult hit Jagadeka Veerudu Athiloka Sundari, starring Chirajeevi and Sridevi in 1990. However it wasn’t a full-fledged fantasy film either. Singeetham Srinivasa Rao’s Bhairava Dweepam starring Balakrishna and Roja which released in 1994 was just a blip on the radar, although the film was a huge hit. The new wave of romance and family entertainers in Telugu cinema almost killed the fantasy genre over the next few years. And then came S S Rajamouli’s blockbuster films Yamadonga and Magadheera which gave the much needed thrust to this genre. Now, it is the turn of Anaganaga O Dheerudu, directed by Prakash Kovelamudi, son of K Raghavendra Rao. It is Prakash Kovelamudi’s second film as a director, the first film being Bommalata. The film has Siddharth in the lead role as a warrior named Yodha and also marks the debut of Shruti Haasan and Lakshmi Manchu in Telugu cinema.An IT Engineering grad and a theatre arts student from Lee Strasberg Institute, New York, Prakash Kovelamudi, started off his career as an actor in Neetho back in 2002 and then starred in a critically acclaimed film Morning Raga directed by Mahesh Dattani in 2004. Two years later, he made his directorial debut with Bommalata (A Belly Full of Dreams, in English) which was judged the Best Telugu Film at the 53rd National Awards. Now, in his first mainstream film he has helmed a Rs 35 crore project! He has written, co-produced and also directed the film. So, how did this leap of faith happen? “I wouldn’t say it’s a leap of faith. It’s what the script demanded. In my earlier film (Bommalatta), we had pushed the boundaries in terms of storytelling and you can expect something similar in this film too,” says Prakash, as a matter-of-fact thing, adding, “I like stories based on mythology and fantasy which give immense possibilities to explore in terms of story-telling.”
Having grown up in a family of legendary filmmakers like his grandfather Surya Prakash Rao and his father K Raghavendra Rao, who has more than 105 films to his credit as a director, Prakash agrees that they have had some influence at a subconscious level. “I love films like Jagadeka Veerudu Athiloka Sundari and Lord of the Rings,” shares Prakash as we try to delve deep in to the inspiration behind writing the story of Anaganaga O Dheerudu.
What was the biggest challenge while writing the script? “I was confident about the story; however the challenge was to not let my imagination run wild and stay within the budget limits.” Talking about the story of the film, not many know that it wasn’t a full-fledged fantasy film in the beginning. Prasad Devineni, who co-produced the film along with Prakash, reveals, “In the beginning, it was a socio-fantasy and half of the film was set in modern times. But then, Prakash and S S Rajamouli talked about it and in the end Prakash decided to make a full-length fantasy film.”
The film was launched in June, 2009 and then Disney came onboard, which took the project to a whole new level. Prakash reminiscences, ”The best thing to happen for us on the project was Disney coming onboard. Disney was involved right from the concept stage and they were actively involved both in story development and casting. It was on Disney’s reccommendation that I met Shruti Haasan for the role of a gypsy girl in the film. It, however, took couple of months before we could close the formalities.” Entering into its sixth year of operations in India, Walt Disney Pictures is the first ever Hollywood studio to co-produce a Telugu film. Interestingly, it’s also the entertainment giant’s first live-action film in India apart from marking its foray into Southern cinema. Family entertainment is in Disney’s DNA and it comes as little surprise that they were excited to co-produce a fantasy-adventure film in India.
Both Prakash and Prasad can’t stop raving about Disney’s contribution while making this film. “Disney has a great history of story-telling. I have come across a lot of studios and producers, but they come nowhere close to Disney’s work culture,” says Prakash. Disney has quite a reputation for marketing their content. Comic books, mobile games, merchandise based on the film’s characters are soon in offing apart from other mediums of marketing and advertising, giving it a complete 360 degree approach. What’s more interesting is Disney’s involvement in production of the film. “Disney actually flew our art director, Bhupesh R Bhupathi to Disneyland, Hongkong to check out the themes, sets and costumes!” reveals Prasad Devineni. Another interesting aspect is how closely they follow the progress of the film. “Disney has an internal system known as PIX System. Every week, we would upload the rushes of the film on this system so that the Disney team in Mumbai and USA were aware of what’s happening on a weekly basis,” says Prasad who’s clearly impressed with the way things work with Disney. “It’s also a challenge to work with Disney. They don’t mind scrapping the whole film if they feel that something will dilute their brand,” he admits. “In the film, despite all the action, you won’t see a single drop of blood on screen. Everyone’s killing each other, but it’s all on a lighter vein.”
Talking about challenges, one of the major challenges was to create the right look for the film. The film was under pre-production for close to a year during which concept-artist Raj Golay and his team in Mumbai created close to 12456 pages of concept drawings. “The biggest challenge for us was the logistics part and getting the right look because it’s a fantasy film. The sets and costumes cannot resemble anything we have seen till now on screen,” muses Prasad.
If you thought that casting Siddharth, who’s usually associated with family dramas and love stories, was pure gambling then you are not alone. He’s certainly not the macho man and comes across as an unlikely warrior! “Well, even Johnny Depp (in Pirates of the Caribbean) doesn’t look like a warrior. Siddharth is a brilliant actor and that’s what I was looking for while casting. He’s going to surprise you all,” Prakash hits back. In the film, Siddharth plays Yodha, a brave swordsman, who is the guardian of the Kazi monstery. It took over fifteen iterations to get the right look for Yodha which Prakash had envisioned. “Before we began shooting, I took some time off and really built my body. I had around 16 inch biceps and we did a test shoot for a day,” recalls Siddharth. He further adds, “Prakash shook his head and told me that he wanted me in the film, not a bodybuilder. In a way, Yodha is more of Johnny Depp than Jean-Claude Van Damme!” Well, that’s something which a lot of people have to realize before they go to watch this film. “Sometimes, I would tell Prakash that had I directed the film, I would have cast someone brawny. And he would reply, “No dude! Yodha is funny, light-hearted and kids will like him.” I think that’s the keyword, we want a lot of kids and families to watch our film,” smiles Siddharth.
Siddharth also agrees that dancing and action is not his forte. “I have grounded my method acting on real life and we don’t dance and fight in our real life!” However, he went a step ahead and did ample homework for this film, including training himself in three different styles of Asian martialarts. "I got trained in free-hand Korean martial-arts and combined that with Japanese martial-arts, to create a specific style for Yodha's role. The hitch is Japanese martial-arts are very slow and specific and you can't do that in Indian cinema. In this film there's lot of rapid action and we had to make it all appear really cool," he adds.
'Cool' is not the word you would be using when you put Siddharth in an action role! "I really tried hard to enjoy the physicality of the action. Would you believe it, we shot for over 40 days on action scenes alone and most of the time I was suspended in mid-air because there were lot of flips and somersaults in the film! In a way, I believe a lot of stunts in this film are leaps of faith for me both literally and metaphorically!" reveals Siddharth.
Another challenge for him was performing action scenes with a long Katana, a Japanese Samurai sword. Remember the sword which Uma Thurman uses in Kill Bill? "It's heavy and sharp! Moreover, I was wearing an armour which was cast on my body and it was a single suit. You can't even remove it so easily to go to the bathroom. Sometimes I would wear it at 5 AM and not remove it till lunch. Having said that, I must also add that action, although physically challenging, is much simpler than acting. You either get the stunt right or wrong."
And what good is action if it's not choreographed well? Four action choreographers worked on this film including internationally acclaimed stunt directors Dee Dee Ku and William Ong apart from Vijay and Selva. "Dee Dee Ku was unbelievable! He's world renowned and has worked with stars like Jet Li. He still has a child like enthusiasm on the sets," says Siddharth who can't stop praising the man who choreographed two of the most intricate fight sequences in the film. "He told me to not work as hard as I did. He taught me to look at action as an extension of my character."
Another fight sequence had him fighting with 15 people with a real Katana sword and safety was a huge concern. Siddharth, did in fact suffer minor injuries while performing all those stunts. "Dee Dee made me jump 60 feet on a single wire and there was no bed to land on. I think I trusted him blindly," he grins. "I don't care if I do another action film. I have got my fill." But that's not all. Siddharth shares another incident when he told Dee Dee, "I am not meant for this. I do love stories, propose girls and impress their families." And Dee Dee replied, "That's what Jet Li used to say!"
"Sometimes, you end up doing things you hate the most. I hope he was wrong," Siddharth confesses. Clearly, all the action seems to have token a toll on his body especially because he didn't use any body double in the film.
Shruti Haasan, the lead actress who's making her debut in Telugu in this film, plays the role of a gypsy girl named Priya. "There's a certain element of mystery about her face. You can't say if she's from the North or the South. The love story between Yodha and Priya forms the crux of the film," adds Prakash. The on screen chemistry between Siddharth and Shruti Haasan looks charming. How would Siddharth rate her as an actress? "We were blown away by her talent and the kind of understanding of cinema and music she has at her age. She brings in a rare quality which you don't often see in commercial cinema – a lot of intelligence and she understands what she's doing. She would ask us a lot of pertinent questions which we would have never thought of," Siddharth confesses. "She brings in a nice mix of outside perspective and she knows the craft and she's incredibly beautiful." And we nod in agreement.
Another actress who's going to make her debut is Lakshmi Manchu, the daughter of Mohan Babu. After a successful stint on small screen with Lakshmi Talk Show, the actress will be seen as Queen Irendri who is hell bent on conquering death in this film. How did she prepare for this role, we wonder? Lakshmi says, "I worked with my coach in America, Richard Lawson to bring life to this character, Irendri. Preparing for the role was a physical torture but after looking at it on screen, it was worth every second." The film's production unit tells us that to transform Lakshmi into Irendri it took over three hours of make-up everyday and one hour to remove it. Over thirty variations were drawn in the initial stages before the perfect look of Irendri was selected. Casting Lakshmi for this role required some effort for Prakash.
"Initially, when Prakash approached me, I didn't even read the script and even suggested some names whom I thought would fit into the role. But he was adamant and it took about few months by the time I got into the film. By then, they had already started filming and I was the last person to join the team," she recalls. Mohan Babu was of immense help to his daughter while dubbing for the film. "I used to call up my father if I didn't know how to work with certain dialogues. He would patiently note down everything and guide me where to stress and how to modulate my voice to get the right pitch."
At the heart of this epic story, there's a nine year old girl Moksha whose healing powers are the last hope for the people of Angarajyam. Yodha is entrusted the duty of safeguarding Moksha from Irendri and her army while Irendri has to kill Moksha if she has to conquer death. Harshita played this role, Moksha and she's an extremely confident actress for her age. She's in her sixth standard!
The film was under production for close to a year during which it was shot in Ramoji Film city, Hyderabad where most of sets were erected and some songs were shot in various locations across Turkey. Was it a deliberate choice to erect gigantic sets? "I couldn't find apt locations in real world so we had to create something totally new. So, our art director, Bhupesh built three huge sets - a monastery, a temple and a fort in Ramoji Film City. And they look classy," Prakash Kovelamudi adds. Another technician whom Prakash is full of praises is the cinematographer of the film – Soundar Rajan.
"Soundar was phenomenal. When you have set a fantasy film indoors, lighting becomes a huge problem because you can't use electric lights. Neither did I want too much of fire to light up the frame. The challenge was to make it as bright as possible despite the dark setting, especially inside Irendri's fort," reveals Prakash. The film also boasts of incredible visual effects. Four VFx studios worked on the film – Firefly, EFX, Pixelloid and Labyrinth.
"Hats off to Phani and his team at Firefly. The visual effects in the film is entirely their brainchild," Prasad beams with joy. The film boasts of more than 4000 VFx shots which cover close to 72 minutes of the film. Four music directors, Salim- Sulaiman, M M Keeravani, Koti and Mickey J Meyer composed tunes for this film. "I wanted different tunes for different settings in the film which is why we chose to work with different music directors," Prakash admits justifying his choice. Nikhaar Dhawan, Basha and Bhakthi Reddy created all the costumes for the film.
In the past, we have seen that in films which had incredible visual effects, quite often people rave about the visual experience rather than talking about actors. We asked Siddharth if he had to do something more to stand out when every inch of frame is craving for attention. Siddharth counter-attacks this perspective saying, "If I start vying for people's attention either I will become a very artificial actor or most importantly, I'll lose focus of the process of what I'm doing. It would be stupid on my part to expect individual glory in this film." He's all the more excited about working in a Disney's film. "Apparently, I have a Disney character number 3704 or something like that. Sometimes, a little thing like that is worth everything. It will be really cool to go have a beer with Aladdin because we are peers now."
The film is going to release on January 14 along with bunch of other bigticket Telugu films which are lined up for release. Isn't that a huge risk, especially when two actresses are debutants and even for Prakash, it's his first mainstream film? Prasad Devineni, who's extremely confident of the final product, dispels the doubts. "It's certainly a big risk with no big stars and three debutants. But after seeing the final product, we are quite confident about it. After the trailer launch, there were so many offers, but we decided not to sell the film. I hope couple of films will drop out of the Sankranthi race after seeing our trailer. Hopefully better sense will prevail on the other producers," he says in a lighter vein. "There's no competition at all. We fall under a completely different genre and there's an audience for everything," adds Prakash.
After creating this epic fantasy, it's natural to expect that all the cast and technicians who worked on the film are poised for greater things. Prakash Kovelamudi is unperturbed about the pressure to deliver at the box office right from the beginning. "There's no pressure as such. I am glad that I have a great platform thanks to my father and his legacy. I am confident about my storytelling," he says. "Prakash Kovelamudi is a brilliant director to work with," says Prasad, adding "he visualizes pretty well and you cannot expect him to make a regular Telugu commercial film. All his films in future are going to very radical, big budget and path-breaking. You just have to believe in him and go ahead." "I always tell Prakash that we have found the vision of the film over the past one and a half years. I just hope all the hard work pays off," Siddharth prays. So, what's next for Siddharth? "It's very important to be part of important films and this film was a great learning experience." Are we going to see him in more action films? "I don't know. If it's action for action sake, then maybe not but if it gives me an opportunity to explore beyond just action, then why not? Right now, I have conquered one frontier – action and next I have to work hard on my biggest mortal fear – dance. But quite frankly, thank god for love stories!"
"We are ready to rock. And I am confident that we are going to sweep national awards next year!" Prasad Devineni's confidence is unflinching. We hope so too. For now, the film is set to release on January 14 in Telugu and Tamil. Prepare for awesomeness.
The DISNEY ConnectionSwati Shetty, Executive Director of Disney tells us more about the collaboration between Disney and ABODE production
It's your first live production in India. What attracted you so much about the film?
Anaganaga O Dheerudu is a beautiful 'good over evil' story that is true to the Disney brand. Storytelling is at the heart of all that we do at Disney and Prakash's vision for this film got us excited about this project.
The trailer of the film looked fabulous and it looks like a film made with Rs.30-35 crores! But there are three debutants in this film. Are you worried about the risk component?
At Disney as you know, we believe in giving value to our audiences and there is never a compromise. Although the film is introducing Shruti and Lakshmi, the fact is they are accomplished individuals in their own right even before this film. Prakash has won a national award for his first film, Bomalatta. We are only providing a larger platform to a storyteller who is passionate and believes in his story. And Siddharth is an extremely popular actor. We are proud to have a talented actor like him in our first Indian production. As far as the risk is concerned, I am never worried about a great story, it will find its way to the hearts of millions.
Are there more live action films under consideration in India? Will the success or failure of Anagananga O Dheerdu have a major impact on your plans?
Disney is committed to entertaining its audiences with globally original and locally relevant films in India. We are at this point focused on building our live action portfolio across genres and markets. We have a few interesting films in development with some great filmmakers and you will see us unveiling them soon.
We have our heart in Anaganaga O Dheerudu, it is our first production and we are very sure it will win over audiences across markets. Success or failure can be very relative, the audience and media response to our trailer gives us great confidence in our plans ahead in this country. For us at Disney, it's no sprint…it's a marathon!
By Hemanth, Southscope, on 13 January 2011
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