At the start of this year, there were only a few people around the world who recognized the existence of Tollywood, aka the Telegu film industry. Then came RRR (short for Rise Roar Revolt), which single-handedly put Telegu films on the global map, along with celebrated director S.S. Rajamouli and the movie’s leading stars Ram Charan and NT Rama Rao Jr (better known as Jr NTR). For many people on the internet, the movie is synonymous with an emotion that describes opulence and celebration of cinema.
The movie is a fictional retelling of two real-life Indian revolutionaries, Alluri Sitarama Raju (Charan) and Komaram Bheem (Rama Rao), and their battle against the British Raj. It follows the heroes in the undocumented period in their lives, in the 1920s when both of them chose to go into obscurity before they began the fight for their country. Speaking to Empire, Rajamouli revealed that the success of the movie “surprised” him. “India has a huge diaspora around the world, and I thought the film would do good wherever Indian audiences were. But then the reception started coming from Westerners. I didn’t expect any of this,” he said.
Netflix should get its due for some of the breakout success of RRR. While the streamer chose to leverage some projects with massive marketing budgets, there are always surprises like the Telegu hit and Hwang Dong-hyuk’s South Korean survival ordeal Squid Game that take fans by surprise and become a sensation. Mulling over the reason for RRR’s breakout success the director thinks, “Covid I’m sure was a factor.” Adding, “When everything got shut down, the whole world started looking into different cultures, absorbing content from different countries, in different languages.”
And it could be, the movie is in parts inspired by Indian epics Ramayana and Mahabharata – stories that resonate with everyone, across time, age, or gender. Be it Raju’s Lord Rama-like sincerity and devotion to duty (also the costuming he dons in the climactic battle of the movie) or Bheems’ brute strength that reflected his namesakes in Mahabharata – just like the Indian epics RRR resonated with its audience across nations and genres. Rajamouli too, thinks so as he suggests, that it might be “RRR’s unapologetic action sequences; its unapologetic heroism” that might have enchanted the audience. The magic of RRR lies in Rajamouli’s strength to give the audience a spectacle while keeping the emotional core of the story intact, in this case, Raju and Bheem’s friendship, which is a reflection of the friendship between Prince Duryodhana and Karna in Mahabharata. There’s no wonder that the movie has garnered much Oscar buzz this season, guess everyone can afford to do a step or two of ‘Nattu Nattu’ if the movie indeed bags an award.
RRR is streaming on Netflix. You can check out the trailer below: