Of Telugu Movies

On Friday, the Google Maps team treated itself to a movie. First day first show of a Balakrishna movie called Okka Magaadu, which translates into - One Manly Man.
To say that the movie entertained would be an understatement. The movie was a crude rehash of various Tamil movies, coupled with extremely shocking (for me) camera angles, and ridiculous but fascinating fight sequences, 'electric' special effects, and many an item number. Oh, yes, and it was definitely porn too. It was quite shocking for those of us who were seeing a Telugu movie for the first time. Absolutely crude symbolic porn.

Example - Screen is split into 3 horizontally to show three characters, two girls and the hero - talking on the phone. Very distinctly, these three are positioned (and they change positions) to mean sex. The boys in my team thoroughly enjoyed these, and well, I guess I was fascinated too.

Politics, murder, good versus bad, sex, the Indian Freedom struggle, sizzling action, double roles and double meanings, Samurai swords, etc were mixed in equal proportions. What more can anyone think of adding into a film?

Story is as such - A peaceful doctor during the British era sees his family get murdered over nothing by the British, and then in fury becomes the revolutionary freedom fighter - Okka Magaadu. We learn that India's freedom was only granted to us on one condition - that Okka Magaadu surrenders to the British as Prisoner of War. After many year of torture, he returns to India, expecting to find his country unchanged - but instead finds corruption everywhere. That's when he gets into a frenzy and starts murdering the corrupt ones. (As an old man with waxy make up on his face, electricity pulsating out of his sunglasses and what-not, and a samurai sword.)

Meanwhile, there's a younger Balakrishna, who's the beloved leader of the masses and the heart-throb of the two women in the movie, and he gets suspected as the murderer. The plot then goes to climax and finishes off. I'm not sure what happens, except that everyone's supposed to live and love happily ever after.

The screen was huge, the audience was going insane, I roughly understood 60% of the plot and I got home with a headache. I'm not sure I'll be doing this again soon, but while it lasted, it was a unique experience.