Tollywood Kaburlu

Revisiting Varsham (2004): Review + Interesting Facts

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Youtube Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nchk_PqQ2rk&t=1339s&ab_channel=TollywoodKaburlu

Credits

Banner: Sumanth Arts

Cast: Prabhas, Trisha, Gopichand, Prakash Raj, Sudha, Chandra Mohan, Shafi, Sunil, Rajesh, Jaya Prakash Reddy, Venu Madhav, Paruchuri Venkateswara Rao, Gundu Hanumantha Rao, AVS, Vamshi Paidipally,

Music: Devi Sri Prasad

Dialogues: Paruchuri Brothers

Cinematography: S Gopal Reddy

Art: Ashok Kumar 

Lyrics: Sirivennela Seetharama Sastry 

Stunts: Peter Hynes

DTS Mixing: Madhu Sudhan Reddy

Editing: KV Krishna Reddy

Story: Veeru Potla

Direction: Sobhan

Screenplay - Producer: MS Raju

Release date: 14th January 2004 


Context: watched it on VHS in some Mfers house in Cleveland Ohio of all places, just remember the trains sequence very well and songs specifically Langa Voni then rewatched it in middle school and it was good, then pandemic time rediscovered the songs and realized it’s value. Easily one of DSP’s top 5 albums pack, BGM is next level and overall it’s just an outright classic. Pacing, music, story, entertainment, everything is so just well done. One of the best movies of Prabhas. 


Interesting Facts: 

  • Prabhas father Suryanarayana Raju called MS Raju after Okkadu and said please give my son a good film and story and MS Raju promised I’ll get him a hit movie and make him a star 
  • MS Raju asked Veeru Potla who used to work for his banner for a story. Veeru Potla narrated a scene similar to Ramayanam and asked what is a Ravana like villains captured a Seetha type character how will the hero fight back and save her is the concept 
  • MS Raju liked it and asked to develop it into a full story and director Sobhan who just directed Mahesh Babu bobby was also involved in script discussions. 
  • Seeing his talent, MS Raju asked Sobhan to direct the movie. Coming the villain who can give competition to Prabhas, it was Gopichand and he got selected 
  • Hindi movie Tezaab is Ione of the nspiration of Varsham story and Prakash raj played father character in Telugu from that film, based on that 
  • First they wanted to select Gangotri heroine Aditi Agarwal but at that time MS Raju was I Chennai and saw a poster of Trisha in Saamy and selected her 
  • Movie was set and launched on March 14th, 2003 same date when Okkadu was launched 
  • Filmed in Tirupathi, Araku valley, Old City, and Warangal 100 Pillar Temple and Warangal was chosen as the backdrop to give a fresh and never seen before feel on screen. By then too many faction movies and Godavari districts village stories were being explored but not Warangal 
  • 140 working days and budget was 5.5 crores 
  • VN Aditya already registered the title Varsham for a Nagarjuna film but MS Raju kindly asked for the title and VN Aditya gave it to him 
  • January 14th, 2004 it released for Sankranthi with 100 prints with Anti and Lakshmi Narasimha, everybody thought the movie would, flop but Varsham made more money than both of those movies and became a blockbuster at the box office 
  • Prabhas got a breakthrough and became a star after this movie 
  • 18 crores share at the box office and was in top 3 highest grossing movies that year and made 7.5 share in Nizam which only 4 movies had done before and gave Prabhas a solid market in Nizam 
  • 50 days in 125 centers, 100 days in 68 centers, and ran for 175 days withs silver jubilee celebrations with Chiranjeevi as chief guest 
  • Other interesting facts are Suma Kanakala plays Prabhas’s vadina, Ajay and Satyam Rajesh are part of Prabhas friend group, and if you remember the bus scene in 2nd half one of the passengers is Vamshi Paidipally he worked as an assistant director for this movie 
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