Simha Rasi (Telugu)

Simha Raasi, a lesson to learn from

Simha Raasi is a film that has taught a bitter lesson to the Telugu industry, especially those who are into remaking movies that were successful in other languages. It surprises the audience as to how a successfully cool going Super good film's remake turns out into a film that is miles away from naturality.

The movie was a remake of the successful film ‘Maya’ in Tamil. While Sarath Kumar was successful in portraying the character in the original, Dr Rajasekhar’s efforts went down the drain. The reason behind this was that the Tamil audience might have received the story comfortably. However in Telugu, every bit of the film is taken as an extreme, unnatural and aggressive movie, which would never be received well.

Hero of the film named Narasimharaju (Rajasekhar) is narrated to have taken birth in the zodiac sign of Leo (Simha Raasi). The characterisation of this role is with mannerisms and aggressive response to every situation. For example, Narasimharaju cuts off the tongue of a legislator, who could not keep up his poll promises. It is definitely an unnatural reaction of any character. The Law of the land never excuses such person, who ever it might be, for doing so. Such scenes could hardly be found in any other movie. Almost all the frames, including the action are dealt without any logic or relation to each other.

A flash back, which is also unnatural, is framed to recount the hero’s actions as justified. Hero is born to a leprosy patient. His father assuming leprosy to be contagious takes away his son. The mother, unable to bear the heartbreak of being separated from the child commits suicide. All of a sudden, hero born in sheer poverty turns wealthy. His father bestows a luxury car upon him.

The ‘truth’ of his father’s affair with another woman and the birth of a girl child comes to the attention of the hero (it is shown that the villagers knew it all along) and he tries to kill his father. His father unable to face his son commits suicide. This twist, may be pleasing to the director, pulls the strings of anger and confusion in the audience.

The entire villager opens its arm and gives the hero’s sister a red carpet welcome when she is brought home. Suddenly, hero recognises the mother and sister in every female of the village.

This flash back is explained to the heroine, who chases him for love.

Farthest and aberrant mannerism can be seen in the hero’s life style. Being a rich man, he lives in a hut, sleeps, and sits on the floor. Uhh! What a movie!!!

Story in short is how the hero teaches a lesson to the political villains.

Rajasekhar excellently performed and lived the character, but in vain, as there is no depth of the story for his role. Earlier notes were repeated by the music director S A Rajkumar. Hence nothing much to take note of. V Samudra’s maiden attempt as director might be buried deep down under pages of Telugu cinema history.

Starring: Rajasekhar, Sakshi Shivanand, Giribabu, Shivaji Raja, Ananth Raj, Vijaya Kumar, Brahmanandam, M S Narayana, Narra, Ponnambalam, Sangeetha, Ramaprabha, Manorama, Kovai Sarala and others.

Crew: Story: Surya Prakash, Dialogues: Paruchuri Brothers, Music: S A Rajkumar, Lyrics: Sirivennela, Venigalla Rambabu, Chirravuri Vijaya Kumar, Photography: Shyam K Naidu, Producer: R B Choudhary and Direction: V Samudra.