Raja Movie Review

Banner: Super Good Films

Cast: Venkatesh, Soundarya, Sudhakar, Chandramohan, AVS, Brahmanandham, Abbas, Y Vijaya, Sana, Tanikella Bharani

Music: SA Rajkumar

Cinematography: Shyam K Naidu

Editing: Marthand K Venkatesh

Art Direction: Chinna

Dialogues: Rajendra Kumar

Story: Vikraman

Remake of: Unnidathil Ennai Koduthen starring Karthik and Roja

Screenplay - Direction: Muppalaneni Shiva

Release Date: March 18th, 1999

Interesting Facts

When he doing Subhalekalu with Srikanth they were filming a song, director Muppaleneni Shiva got a phone call from Suresh productions. He took Srikanth’s car and got there. Suresh babu said Venkatesh likes this movie Unnidathil Ennai Koduthen and watch it tomorrow and gave him the Tamil script ready to go. Siva had tried to make a movie with Venkaetsh for a long time and even tried making Preminchukundam Raa and had readied the story with Deenaraj but he was busy during that time and it went to Jayanth. He felt really bad about it.
Suresh Production then arranged the movie for Siva to direct and Venkatesh to star with original movie producer RB Choudary on board. Then he watched the movie and got scared because the entire first half he’s stuck in a room, and then Soundarya carried the 2nd half. But sensibilities are different between Telugu and Tamil audiences.
Then they started to work on the script and set the music director SA Rajkumar who composed 2 new original songs such as Kavvinchake O Prema and then dialogue writer Ranjednra Kumar, and comedy lunches were written by Satish Vegesna director of Satanaman Bhavati.
Director Siva said it was a great experience to work with Soundarya and all the actors. They made a set for the kitchen and the apartment set.
director Siva wanted to shoot the songs nicely so they went to New Zealand and Australia to shoot 4 of the songs.
The designed a gold frame for Eco Oka Raagam and brought it to New Zealand airport. People were throwing out around as they pleased and the producer said let’s remove it, director said no we have a lot of work with it. Don’t throw it around as you wish, it’s made of light wood. Then they put it in the shot and it’s now iconic on the beach.
Edo Oka Raagam was filmed in New Zealand and it became a super hit due to the beauty of the New Zealand locations. They filmed part of Kavvinchake O Prema in the christ church in New Zealand.
Then they went to Brisbane and Sydney and then shape choose mokku there.
Director Siva said there is a great amount of sentiment in the movie and the situations that happen in the movie are key for the movie and it turned out to be gripping.
Soundarya was actually filming Narasimha at the same time, Siva shot 40% of the movie without her, then whenever he got her dates, he filmed her scenes. His guru is Kondandi Rama Reddy who taught him how to do make a film without some resources, heroine to be specific. Helped a lot to make this movie.
Box office wise, it made 14 crores share at the box office and was a blockbuster. was 2nd highest grossing telugu movie of all time after Samarasimha Reddy. Ran for 100 days in 71 centers, and then 175 days in 4 centers.
Made more money in Nizam than Samarasimha Reddy and then was the highest grossing movie ever in Nizam ever at the time of it’s release.

Revisiting Raja (1999): Review + Interesting Facts