Silly Monks Network

Toofan’ – Storm in a ‘t’ cup 

(ZANJEER / TOOFAN)

by m k sinu

Prime time television today gives stars to schmooze their way to film publicity. Everything is well orchestrated. Promotion is not on-your-face. Studios have smartened up the act in marketing films. Smarter cousin, the ubiquitous Social Media gives you blitzkrieg of updates on the film. Be that as it may. We’ll start with another time when publicity was a scarce commodity and highly priced.

Circa1973. Amitabh Bachchan was at the cusp of being catapulted in superstardom status. The 70’s was a time of political turmoil. Anger on the street was the prevailing story of the times. It cut across other fault lines: Celluloid 1973 creation of an honest police officer fighting the corrupt system using crooked means found many takers ‘Zanjeer’ the movie was born out of that angst. Amitabh – the tall and lanky young man who thought of giving up on films got his place under the sun. For any one of our waking memory no star commanded this kind of hysterical fan following thru the mid 70’s till now. Publicity was organic to his films and stardom.

Forty years later new age film director Apoorva Lakhia after apprenticed with Hollywood directors and after on-off success in Bollywood; after courting controversies from the writer duo Salim-Javed, remade Zanjeer; backed by deep-pocketed studio and distributors. His economics was right make a bilingual. Choose a star from south. They zeroed in on a Telugu star, after all Tollywood rakes in INR 1200 Crores annually. Mount that on the Hindi market pegged at INR 20,000 Crores. Dub it into other south Indian languages minus the state with moratorium. So there, you have your maths.

Enter Ram Charan with ‘Toofan’ (Telugu version of Zanjeer). 2013 – Here again, we live in times of revulsion. Anger has become cliché for the common man taking everything with a stoical shrug. Our hero has a task cut out – to fight the oil mafia. Slippery turf, anyone?

Will it stir the same emotions in movie goers that did 40 years ago? You’ll get the answer this Friday (tomorrow). A star who is strictly wooden with his expressions. His DNA perfectly studded with Chiranjeevi’s dance moves. Who has had 1 super hit and other films of his concocted for no express purpose but to make mega-bucks. Ergo, by Tollywood standards you have an adjective laden ‘Mega Power Star’ Ram Charan. And to the merchants of Mumbai, they have a cash cow.

National channels have given prime time weekend TRP generating shows for publicity. A gleeful Ram Charan with spunky Priyanka Chopra did rounds. Priyanka painfully superfluous – may be that was the brief from the PR machinery. Ram Charan strictly monosyllabic, in English. Last heard, his voice in the Hindi version has been dubbed by impeccable Hindi speaking dubbing artist. Else imagine a dialogue with a caricaturized Telugu twang “Jab tak baitneko na kahe, sharafat se khade raho. Yeah police station hai thumare baap ka ghar nahi”. Nevertheless the explosive mix ready-to-take flight hero and an established female lead kept us engaged on TV. No one complained. For a change Ram Charan did not regale in caustic flourish he usually does with Telugu media. He actually can’t. The stakes are high this time. 

With 50% of Tollywood theatrical collection from the Nizam territory and the other half from CEDED and Andhra collectively. Factor in the tempers running high with the ongoing political turmoil - we’ll have to wait and watch if this ‘Toofan’ will kick up a storm or Zanjeer’d or set the cash registers ringing.