Khaidi

This article is about the 1983 Telugu film. For the 1984 Kannada film, see Khaidi (1984 film).
Khaidi
Directed by A. Kodandarami Reddy
Produced by Dhanunjaya Reddy
Written by Paruchuri Brothers
Starring Chiranjeevi
Madhavi
Sumalatha
Rao Gopal Rao
Music by K. Chakravarthy
Cinematography Lok Singh
Edited by Kotagiri Venkateswara Rao
Release dates
 28 October 1983
Country India
Language Telugu
Box office ₹15 million (US$220,000)(150 days)

Khaidi (English: Prisoner) is a 1983 Telugu film, which was the first major hit movie for Chiranjeevi directed by A. Kodandarami Reddy. Madhavi was the heroine. It became a major blockbuster and a turning point in Chiranjeevi's career winning unlimited fan following. It was remade into Kannada with Vishnuvardan with the same name.

Plot

Veerabhadraiah (Raogopal Rao) is a feudal lord presiding over a village along with his hench men which includes his assistant (Rallapalli) and the village sarpanch (Nutan Prasad). Veerabhadraiah lends money to Venkateswarlu (P. L. Narayana) who is a local farmer living with his widowed daughter (Sangeetha). His son, Sooryam (Chiranjeevi) is a hard working student living in the nearby city and falls in love with Veerabhadraiah's daughter- Madhulatha (Madhavi). Realising this Veerabhadraiah asks Venkateswarlu to ask his son to stop seeing his daughter to which Venkateswarlu does not agree. Veerabhadraiah kills Venkateswarlu and asks Sooryam to pay the money which he had given as a loan. Sooryam asks for some time and with the help of his elder sister raises crops to repay. Just as the crops are ready for harvest Veerabhadraiah and his hench men not only destroy the crop but also try to sexually abuse Sooryam's sister during which she commits suicide. Being the village head, Veerabhadraiah implicates Sooryam in the death of his sister saying that he was forcing her into prostitution due to which his sister commits suicide. Sooryam is arrested by the Police. The rest of the movie deals with how Sooryam escapes from jail and with the help of Dr. Sujatha (Sumalatha) avenges the decimation of his family.

Cast

Crew

Production

Dr. M. Tirupathi Reddy:Kodandarami Reddy also hails from the same place of ours, and we thought of doing a film together and worked on a couple of subjects in Chiranjeevi and Kodandarami Reddy combination. However, I liked the subject of First Blood, and I asked Paruchuri brothers to come up with a story based on that film. They gave a wonderful script for the film. ...The protagonist was just a villager in our initial script but we changed it to a student, and it clicked! The title Khaidi was my choice indeed!

Madhavi and Chiranjeevi were a hit pair, but Madhavi didn't work with Kondadarami Reddy before and thus I wanted to cast her in the film. Nitya already acted in a Tamil film. I liked her character in the film and we signed her in for the bubbly character of Rosy. Our banner name being Samyuktha, we rechristened Nitya as Samyuktha, and she continued to do more films such as sirivennela under the same name.

The film's shooting was started at Prasad Labs on 30 April 1983, with the muhurtam shot on Chiranjeevi and Madhavi. (It was the continuation scene of Menaka-Vishwamitra song vEdam, naadam..., where Madhavi asks Chiranjeevi about their love). The film was completed in three schedules. The number of shooting days were forty; forty film rolls were exposed for the movie.[1]

The movie was sold for 2.5 million rupees even when we just announced it! Chiranjeevi was paid Rs.175,000, Madhavi Rs. 40,000, Sumalatha Rs. 20,000, and the director Kondarami Reddy was paid Rs. 40,000 too. As we wanted to make the film a very prestigious one, we spent all our money and we had not made much profit in the film's first run. As the film's rights were sold once every five years to exhibitors, we made profit on this film after five years and through the following years. After five years, we made a profit of 2 million rupees, and some more during the subsequent years. We have not made much profit on satelight rights as we were not aware that it would boom so much today.

Most of the shooting was done in the village called Rebala near Nellore, while the climax was shot at Porur near Madras. The blasting of houses, and some other such scenes were done there at a specially erected set. The house set, indoors and minor patchwork of shooting was done in Madras. Madhavi, being a lady artiste, had an exclusive house in Talakona location, while everyone else adjusted in huts and houses in and around the village.[2]

The now famous costume of Chiranjeevi was his own idea! We first thought of doing it ordinarily, but he wanted the getup to be somewhat different. In the last minute, he got a black trouser and black t-shirt from the house, took off the sleeves of the shirt and had the belt above the t-shirt. The getup clicked so much that he became a Khaidi in the hearts of lakhs of audiences with this movie.

Director Kodandarami Reddy talks about the film: We initially planned the film with the story given by a Tamil writer, but it didn't work out. Tirupathi Reddy gaaru then gave the cassette of First Blood and suggested that we should develop the story based on the initial scenes of the movie. Paruchuri brothers gave wonderful story based on it. ...In those times, we never used to think that it could be risky to go out of the way to do something different! We always wanted to experiment on various things. The song ragulutOndi mogalipoda... and idEmiTabbaa...? were super hits at that time, because we did them differently! This was the first film of Chiranjeevi that crossed the ten million mark in collections, thus also giving him the star status.[3]

Remakes

The film was later remade in Kannada and in Hindi too. Vishnuvardhan did in Kannada while Padmalaya brought the rights for Hindi and made it with Jitendra there. Madhavi played the lead role in all three languages.

References

  1. ↑ http://www.telugucinema.com/c/publish/movieretrospect/retro_khaidi1983.php
  2. ↑ http://www.telugucinema.com/c/publish/movieretrospect/retro_khaidi1983_2.php
  3. ↑ http://www.telugucinema.com/c/publish/movieretrospect/retro_khaidi1983_2.php

External links

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