The Young Tiger Showcase

It's been a few years since I was introduced to the magic of Indian Cinema. Over time it was apparent that the totality of Indian Cinema does not equal just Bollywood. Many thriving (and actually, larger) industries exist all over India, whose diversity of languages lead to different movie industries.

I've said before that these industries often remake and/or redub their films to market them to other parts of India. A number of action films that you see in Bollywood are often remakes of these very films. 

While Bollywood may be the most known film industry outside of India, it's not the largest in terms of output. The Tamil and Telugu film industries (Kollywood and Tollywood, respectively) make far more movies per year than their northern counterpart. These industries are known for their flashy, over the top action films (although, on closer inspection, their lineup of films has become more diverse over the years). I personally love them; they're escapist to a fault and generally a good way to spend a couple of hours (or three) every afternoon.

Today I am going to talk about one of the stars of the Telugu film industry, pictured above. He is Nandamuri Taraka Rama Rao Jr., otherwise known as Jr. NTR. He is a part of a great movie family (movie dynasties being quite common) headed by his namesake, N.T. Rama Rao. You might remember Jr. NTR from this video:

Yeah, that's him. Aside from being a good actor, he is one hell of a dancer. In fact, he is trained in Kuchipudi, a type of classical Indian dance from that region. So I guess you can say he's classically trained. Fans call him "the Young Tiger."

He tends to get cast in my favorite genre: the South Indian Action Film (tm). While his films are not always financially successful, they are almost always (in my eyes, anyway) entertaining. Here is a selection of four films by Jr. NTR that I watched recently.

Shakti (2011)

Shakti is the movie where the above video comes from. Describing the movie is a challenge in itself: it's basically a road movie that turns into a thriller that turns into a fantasy movie. The villains are people who act like ancient Egyptians and live in the Pyramids, who have lived there at least as early as... around 1984. Yes, in this movie, our villains lived (and apparently still live) in pyramids in the early eighties. Why they weren't spotted by any tourists or archaeologists is unknown.

Jr. NTR plays (at first, anyway) a tour guide with a number of secrets that are revealed one at a time. These revelations come so far out of left field that it hits harder than an M. Night twist. Here he is partnered with Ileana D'Cruz (I wonder where the name came from!) who he starred with in another film that I don't remember.

He also gets this badass introductory sequence on an elephant, which lasts like a minute and a half.

Shakti was not taken well by the critics because of its rather implausible story. While I agree that the story is a bit far fetched, I enjoyed the heck out of it, although the ending dragged the movie a bit more than I would have wanted.

Baadshah (2013)

Baadshah (Emperor) is probably Jr. NTR's best known film outside of India, and one of his top grossers. At first it seems to be about two completely different stories, a love story on one hand and a story about a gangster's rise to the top of the criminal underworld on the other.

The intro also features a gun firing diamonds.

As the plot twists play themselves out (though to be honest there actually is just one big twist in this film) the two storylines connect. Jr. NTR's Baadshah is larger than life, and true to formula he kicks butt with style and with bodies flying with no heed to gravity or even common sense. But it's fun as fun can be. His co-star in this film is Kajal Aggarwal, who we  may remember as the person who played Kavya in Singham. Her base was always South Indian cinema, and her pairings with Jr. NTR are often the most successful.

The soundtrack to the movie is quite impressive and has lots of good songs, notably the title song, "Baadshah," which we don't see until 1/4 into the movie. There's also a rather lengthy dance sequence near the end which is more or less a tribute to the original NTR and his movies.

Rabhasa (2014)

Rabhasa is probably my favorite out of all the movies I'll be talking about today. To put it in its simplest terms, Rabhasa is one man's quest to get married to his cousin at his mother's request. To tell the story would involve me explaining the movie comprehensively so as to spoil the entire thing. The magic of this film is the web of (well intentioned) lies and deceit that Jr. NTR's character weaves to get the girl. Everything seems to have plans within plans within plans, and even though this film is not as action packed as other Jr. NTR films, I really dug it. The connections between the characters are also quite convoluted, but in my case it was not enough to make it confusing.

Here Jr. NTR contends with Samantha Ruth Prabhu (heroine of the landmark Telugu film Eega) and Pranitha Subash in an extended role. The chemistry between the Young Tiger and Samantha is unique from his other pairings and I liked how their relationship in this movie evolved over time.

The intro sequence has NTR jump on top of a car, which would be more badass had it not been ripped off from Dabangg 2.

Near the end of the movie I still had absolutely no idea what was going to happen to our protagonists and the families they were involved in. I hadn't been that excited to see the conclusion of a movie in quite a while, so it was a genuine rush. The story wraps it up a little bit too quickly in the end, but is adequate enough to resolve most of the plot threads.

Ramayya Vasthavayya (2013)

And finally we have this film. It's more or less a film for Jr. NTR fans only as the plot is your standard South Indian action revenge plot with a huge twist in the middle. For regular movie goers there isn't a lot to keep attention. What makes it stand out, however is the number of good songs and some decent action.

While the first half plays out much like Rabhasa, there is a huge twist just before the intermission and everything goes to hell in a handbasket. The rest of the second half is mostly one huge flashback to try to connect everything into one package. The result is only somewhat successful.

There isn't really an intro sequence, but there is this costume thingy and a DDLJ reference shortly after.

Like in Rabhasa, Jr. NTR is paired with Samantha Ruth Prabhu in this one, although he is also paired up with Shruti Haasan, which in my humble opinion is the prettiest of Jr. NTR's co-stars so far. The antagonist is portrayed by P. Ravi Shankar, who was the villain in the Kannada remake of Singam, Kempe Gowda.

Again, the one thing I liked about the movie was the super catchy soundtrack, most notably "O Lailaa" which is kinda cute and stalky-ish at the same time thanks in part to the two main actors selling it like pancakes.

That's it for my roundup. You can probably find copies of these films on the net or online stores. Jr. NTR just had a movie come out, called Temper, reuniting him with Kajal Aggarwal, and reports say it was a blockbuster exceeding Baadshah;s box office take. I'm personally excited as frak.