14th September 2004

Gudumba Shankar - Daringly Different

I knew Pawan Kalyan though he does not know me. I saw him for the first time during the shooting of Chiranjeevi's "Mugguru Monagallu". He was the joint producer of this movie along with K Naga Babu. My first feeling after seeing him was that he got star presence and one day he would become a big star like his elder brother "Mega Star - Chiranjeevi". Subsequently I wrote a story keeping his personality in view and approached K Naga Babu. However nothing materialized. Subsequently I left to US and returned to India recently.

I watched Gudumba Shankar last night and I felt that I should write this article to express my opinion on the film. I felt Gudumba Shankar speaks about the personality of Pawan Kalyan. After giving 4 super hits in a row (Tholi Prema, Badri, Thammudu, Kushi), a miserable film (Johnny) followed. That the star failed in his directorial debut was evident from the way this film was received at the Box-Office.

After such a horrifying experience the actor planned his next movie "Gudumba Shankar". With the rough look the character had and with the immense star power that the actor had and with the mass title that the movie had, I was indeed pleasantly surprised. I felt it called for lots of guts and a whole deal of self-confidence to make the film in the manner in which it was made. What I liked immensely about the characterization of Gudumba Shankar was the attempts made by this character to use brains rather than the body to solve his problems. Of course there was a fight sequence in the end, wherein the Hero bashes the villains with the aid of log. However I was very impressed behind the thoughts that might have gone into choreographing the two fight scenes in the film. The fight compositions made me feel that that is the way in which any common man would react in such situations. Pawan Kalyan the star need not fight or act in this manner. But Pawan Kalyan as an ordinary man might behave exactly like this.

Success in films is all about meeting or exceeding the expectations of the audience. Some of his fans expressed disappointment at this film; (they expected a ferocious characterization in Gudumba Shankar…some one even commented…why? The Hero did not even sell one single packet of Gudumba) but I would like to tell them not to get disappointed and in fact encourage such characterizations played by their favorite Hero. Surely the characterizations like that of Simhadhri, Okkadu and Narasimha Naidu were very good elevating the Heroism of the star. But such elevation of Heroism will increase the expectations of the Hero in his subsequent film, which is very difficult to meet. This is very much evident in the form of Simhadhri followed by Andhra Wallah, Okkadu followed by Nijam, Bale Vaadivi Basu, Seema Simham followed by Narasimha Naidu. So films like Naani and Gudumba Shankar will help the fans of these actors in lowering the expectations on their Heroes.

Probably the title, the promos, and the posters the frequency with which Pawan Kalyan's film is released all contributed to raising the expectations of the film. For some one like me who ignored the hype around this movie and tried to evaluate the movie by just the merits in the movie, I thought the movie was a good one.

Of course they were certain minor weaknesses in the film that the filmmakers could have taken care of to make this film more acceptable to a wider variety of audience.

While it is too early to comment about the overall success of this film at Box-Office, what I would suggest to the actor is not to quit trying to be different and take care in setting the right expectations for the movie. I would also suggest to the actor to try to reduce the gap between his subsequent releases as this might also help him give more opportunities to experiment.

Finally I would like to say just one thing "Hats of to you Pawan Kalyan" for trying to be daringly different.

Sriram T
[email protected]

More My Movie experiences:

Purnesh - Gharshana
Purnesh - Lakshya
Purnesh - Yuva
Leenesh - Yuva
Kis - Lakshmi Narasimha
Indian Pride - Tagore
Raj - Boys
Phani - Gangotri
Phani - Khadgam
Vikram - CKR
BKR - Indra (Singapore)
Ram - Indra (Dubai)
Ranjeet - Idiot
Rahul - Indra
King Koduri - Indra
Srilakshmi Katragadda - Mitr: My Friend