Desamuduru

Plot

Bala Govind (Allu Arjun) is a program director in MAA TV. His fights for justice regularly get him into trouble. During one of these incidents, he saves a person (Raja Ravindra) from goons while severely thrashing Murugan (Subbaraju), son of the notorious smuggler Tambi Durai (Pradeep Rawat). Fearing retribution from Tambi Durai, the MAA TV crew sends Bala's team to Kullu Manali to shoot a travel episode instead of another team.

There, Bala sees Vaishali (Hansika Motwani), who is a sannyasin. It is love at first sight for Bala. Vaishali, though initially apprehensive of Bala falls for him. The head sannyasin of the ashram Rama Prabha (Rama Prabha) unites the couple. However, before Bala is able to return to Hyderabad with Vaishali and marry her, Tambi Durai's henchmen kidnap her and take her his home. Bala returns to Hyderabad and finds that she is with Tambi Durai. The person who was saved by Bala reveals that Vaishali is the daughter of Narayan Patwari (Devan). In order to grab Patwari's property, Tambi Durai killed her parents and his wife (Telangana Shakuntala) performed the marriage of Vaishali with Murugan in front of their dead bodies. However, Vaishali escapes and reaches Kulu Manali. Bala takes the help of Inspector Prasad (Ahuti Prasad) to save Vaishali from their clutches and eventually succeeds in his attempt and marries her.

Crew

Production

After the release of Happy (2006), Allu Arjun was reported to be keen to act in the Telugu remake of Sivakasi (2005) starring Vijay and Asin in the lead roles. He later accepted to act in a film directed by Puri Jagannadh and produced by DVV Danayya under the banner Universal Media. The title was confirmed as Desamuduru. Puri Jagannadh worked on the film's script at Bangkok and returned to Hyderabad on 16 June 2006. The film had its official launch at the office of Puri Jagannadh's production company Vaishno Academy on 19 June 2006.

Allu Arjun played the role of a crime reporter working for MAA TV in the film. For his role, Allu Arjun sported a long hairdo and built six pack abs. Hansika Motwani was selected as the female lead which marked her debut in Telugu cinema as an actress at a very young age of 16. She played the role of a sanyasin in the film. Rambha was selected for an item number in the film, despite initial reports stated that Charmee Kaur would dance in the song.

Filming

Filming began on 28 July 2006 at Hyderabad where the film's first schedule was shot. Tne next schedule began in Himachal Pradesh. Few action sequences were shot at Manali in early September 2006. Weeks later, few scenes between the lead pair were shot in Uttaranchal and Himachal Pradesh. This schedule was planned to be wrapped up on 5 December 2006. However the schedule was completed on 10 October 2006. Some crucial action sequences were shot at Aluminium Factory in Gachibowli in early December 2006.

Soundtrack

The film has six songs composed by Chakri. Music of the film was launched on 25 December 2006. The song Ninne Ninne was the most popular song in the soundtrack among music lovers.

Accolades

Release

The film was released on 500 screens, including 424 in Andhra Pradesh, 32 in Karnataka, 8 in Orissa, 2 in Chennai, 3 in Mumbai and 31 overseas.

Box-office

Desamuduru ran for more than 365 days. The film grossed 125.8 million and a share of 95 million. worldwide in the first week of its release.

The film grossed 300 million in four weeks.

Desamuduru grossed 350 million (US$5.5 million) in 6 weeks, later on the film ended up with a final figure of 410 million (US$6.4 million) in 200 Days worldwide delivering a Share of 250 million (US$3.9 million). The film is one of the blockbusters in Allu Arjun's career and the highest-grossing film of 2007. The film surpassed the records set by Indra (2002) and became the second highest-grossing film after Pokiri (2006). It is one of the highest-grossing South Indian films adjusted for inflation.

Trivia

With this film, Allu Arjun became the first South Indian actor and the third Indian actor to have six-pack abs after Shahrukh Khan and Hrithik Roshan.

Dubbed version

Desamuduru was dubbed into Hindi as Ek Jwalamukhi and Tamil and Malayalam as Hero: The Real Hero. All the versions became blockbusters.