Okkadu

Okkadu (2003)

ఒక్కడు

Ajay, a fiery Kabaddi player from Hyderabad, visits Kurnool for a tournament and rescues Swapna from a faction leader Obul Reddy, who wants to force her into marriage. He secretly hides her in his home and assists her in planning her escape abroad for her higher studies. But, fate has other plans.

Date of release
2003-01-15
TMDB
7.7 / 10 (54)
Runtime
2h 50m
Genres
Romance, Action, Drama
Director
Gunasekhar

Casting

Interesting facts

Okkadu is a 2003 Indian Telugu-language romantic sports action drama film co-written and directed by Gunasekhar and produced by M. S. Raju. The film stars Mahesh Babu, Bhumika Chawla and Prakash Raj. The music was composed by Mani Sharma, while the cinematography and editing were handled by Sekhar V. Joseph and A. Sreekar Prasad. In the film, Ajay, a fiery Kabaddi player from Hyderabad, visits Kurnool for a tournament and rescues Swapna from a faction leader, Obul Reddy, who wants to marry her by force. As Ajay hides her and helps plan her escape abroad, a violent feud erupts, leading to love, loss, and a final showdown.

Production

During his days as an assistant director in Madras (now Chennai), Gunasekhar dreamt of directing a film with the backdrop of Charminar, a monument and mosque located in Hyderabad. After watching West Side Story (1961), he took inspiration from the war between two gangs and wrote a script choosing Charminar and Old city area of Hyderabad as the film's backdrop.

After the release of Mrugaraju (2001), Gunasekhar resumed work on the film's script. After reading an interview of Pullela Gopichand who pursued a career in badminton against his father's wishes and faced many hardships, Gunasekhar made the protagonist a person who aspires to be a kabaddi player against his father's wishes.

Ramoji Rao walked out for unknown reasons and Mahesh Babu, along with Gunasekhar, met M. S. Raju at Padmalaya Studios office. Mahesh Babu asked Raju to permit them to erect a Charminar set as they cannot avail police permission to shoot at the original after a person committed suicide by jumping from the top. Raju agreed to do so after listening to the script narration and the project was subsequently announced.

Gunasekhar wanted to name the film as Athade Ame Sainyam (transl. He is her army), but the title was already registered for another film which made Gunasekhar name the film as Okkadu after considering Kabaddi. The film was produced under the banner Sumanth Art Productions with a budget of ₹8–9 crore.

Impressed with her screen presence in Yuvakudu (2000), Gunasekhar chose Bhumika Chawla as the film's female lead to be paired with Mahesh Babu. Mukesh Rishi and Geetha were signed to play Mahesh Babu's parents in the film. The former called it a character close to his heart, calling it is a "soft role after a string of ferocious roles that I have played".

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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