The stupendous success of Rangi Taranga, a low-budget Kannada film, in India and the US goes on to show how a well-made movie with a good storyline, visuals and music can attract cinegoers and rake in money at the box office. The film, which survived the Baahubali storm, is expected to open the doors for future Kannada films, say industry watchers, as people will flock to see a film with good content, screenplay and breathtaking visualisation. Now Bollywood director Ashutosh Gowarikar is remaking the film in Hindi.
Anup Bhandari, the director, script writer, music composer and lyricist of Rangi Taranga, says, “It has crossed 100 days. The film’s success has made it evident that there is a huge potential for Kannada films, but unlike Telugu and Tamil cinema, we still don’t have a dedicated set of audience. We have a thinking audience and need to bombard them with good movies and more importantly, promote them well so that there is enough demand prior to release.”
The film received rave reviews and finally made it to the New York Times weekend box office collection list. One of the biggest overseas releases, it was released in the US on August 13 in 35 centres and it made $215,800 in the first weekend. Overall, it played in 73 cities in the US with around 1,200 shows. The overseas collection of Rangi Taranga is reportedly more than the combined overseas earnings of all Kannada films, which is an indication of the kind of success the film has seen.
The creator of Rangi Taranga says the movie’s success lies in the combination story line, music, lyrics, performances, background score, but the most important factor of all was the underlying emotion. Hollywood cameramen David Williams and Lance Kaplan captured the beauty of Western Ghats, local flavour, customs and rituals. “Lance had worked with me previously in my short film Words, starring Russell Harvard of Oscar-winning film There will be Blood. Not only was he an excellent technician but we also shared a good chemistry. The American style of lighting and blocking is totally different from ours, so he was my obvious choice,” says Bhandari.
Rangi Taranga is set in Kamarottu, a fictional village in Dakshin Kannada, as Indu’s (Radhika Chetan) ancestral village. She and her husband Gautam (Nirup Bhandari) perform a ritual to ward off evil spirits. The story follows Gautam uncovering a mysterious trail of crime after his wife goes missing. The Bhootaradhane (ghost ritual) of Dakshin Kannada has added a touch of realism and mystery to the film.
The biggest challenge for the director was to find the right people to play the main characters. He says, “The three leads, new to cinema, were not new to acting. Nirup and Radhika had theatre background, and Avantika, a student of Anupam Kher Institute, was doing a lot of TV shows in Hindi. The fact that they were newcomers worked in favour of the movie.”
Even though the suspense story is what pulled the audience into the theatre, the songs were a major reason why the movie had a long run. A lot of people started coming to the theatres just for the songs,” the director says.