After his success with Raja Huli in 2013, director Guru Deshpande seems to be treading the safe path by choosing a similar strategy for his latest film. While Raja Huli was a remake of the Tamil film Sundarapandian, Guru’s latest venture, Rudratandava is a remake of another Tamil film called Pandiya Naadu.
The director, however, is clear in his conscience that the effort put in to these films is no less than the work that goes into an original idea as everything starts from scratch. “Though the story is available, I do a lot of research to represent the local context in the storyline,” he says.
Guru has also gone into the plot in some detail and is choosing the locations carefully according to the various characters. “The villain plays a vital role in the film and based on his character, we have chosen Kolar as the location. There will be bits of Telugu spoken in the film, because there are a lot of people who speak the language in Kolar. When people watch my film they should feel that they are looking at a new subject,” he says.
Talking about the film which will hit the screens this week, the director says, “There are many films which strike an emotional chord between mother and son, but there are not too many which explore a father’s sentiments. I have tried to capture that aspect of paternal love in Rudratandava and have added a whole lot of entertainment to it.”
He has also roped in a huge star cast for the film including Girish Karnad, Chiranjeevi Sarja, Radhika Kumaraswamy, Madarangi Krishna, Chikkanna, and Kumar Govind, all of whom play prominent roles. “When I first thought of making Rudratandava, I had Girish Karnad in my mind for the father’s role. Luckily, he agreed and dedicated 25 to 30 days of his dates to us. Even at his age, he continues to prepare himself for a role and stays in that frame of mind till he completes all the sequences,” says Guru.
Guru also states that the film will be Chiranjeevi’s best yet. “As for Radhika, she is quite convincing in a teacher’s character,” he says.
The director also has a host of technicians like cinematographer Jagadish Wali, dialogue writers Guruvendra Shetty and Jadesh along with with KM Prakash on the edit desk. The music will be by V Harikrishna. “I am confident that we will see some records being broken with this film,” he says.