Rudhramadevi: La Reine Guerrière

though Anushka Shetty Allu Arjun Rana Daggubati is in star cast and maestro Illaiyaraja compose the music yet Rudhramadevi is a mediocre cinema .. total waste of time and money...... script is not compact , special effects are very ordinary , direction is messy .. little bit lengthy .. started watching this movie with great exceptions ,, but the movie not only get rid to full fill that but also very irritating .. Marco Polo concept is utter nonsense.. fight scenes are cartoon .. Allu Arjun under used ar Rana is also under used .. but there are some pros also Prakash Raj acted very natural and Anushka also acted very nice .. music is good ..

When A heroine oriented historical epic is announced in an otherwise sexist industry like Tollywood, all heads were bound to turn, and the only question was would Gunasekhar (the director) be able to pull off such a spectacle while the audience were still swooning over Bahubali. The answer is Yes, he did manage to pull it off with an excellent casting and a water tight screenplay making RUDRAMADEVI, one of the best heroine oriented movies to be filmed down south.

The advantage Gunasekhar had was that very little is known about this warrior queen apart from the fact that she was a great ruler, fighter and brought out innovative methods of agriculture and is also considered to be the pioneer of the rain water harvesting system we have today. This gave the director enough material and also a good cinematic liberty to weave a fantastic tale of epic proportions.

King Ganapathi Deva (KrishnamRaju) is faced with a difficult situation when is wife goes into labor. Those were the days when females where not expected to be heirs to the throne and enemies of the empire were waiting eagerly for the news of the newborn. People pray to the gods that the new born child should be a male and the enemies hope that it should be a female so that they can wage a war against a kingdom without a heir.

As luck would have it, a female child is born and on the advice of the wise minister Siva Devaih (Prakash Raj) announces that a male child is born and brings the child as a male child naming her Rudradeva.

Rudradeva becomes aware of her sexuality when she attains puberty but chooses to remain a male child to protect the kingdom. Moogambika (Nithya Menon) falls in love with Rudradeva (Anushka Shetty) and the emperor announces a marriage to lay any doubts to rest about his daughter's secret.

Rudradeva on one hand has to deal with outside enemies like Mahadeva Nayakudu (Vikramjeet Virk) as well as her cousins (suman and Anoop Menon) lusting after the throne. To make matters worse a new nemesis approaches in the form of her childhood friend Gona Gana Reddy (Allu Arjun) a dethroned prince turned robin-hood craving for the royal blood as he feels the emperor is directly responsible for siding with his father's killers.

To make matters worse Chalukya Veerabhadra, (Rana Daggupati) Rudradeva's best friend and brother in arms, chances to see Rudradeva in her feminine form and falls in love with her.

Soon things take a turn when the royal secrets are brought out of the closet all at a time and all hell breaks loose.

Anushka Shetty is at her best, be it as the sword yielding disguised prince or as the ravishing princess. Her performance is top notch especially in the battle scenes..

Allu Arjun as Gona Ganna Reddy chews the scenery and he manages to shift the attention from Anushka to himself in all the scenes he is present. The telangana dialect plus his poker faced approach to the role make it one of the best roles he has ever played.

Rana Daggupati holds his own among the ensemble cast, but he has very little to do what with Anushka and Allu Arjun hogging most of the limelight.

The surprise package is Prakash Raj as Shiva Deviah, with a very subdued performance but hitting the mark whenever necessary.

Nithya Menon is at her comic and emotional best, especially during the pre-nuptial scenes and the scene where she discovers her "husband"'s secret.

Background score of Ilyaraja takes the movie to all new level and often reminds us of the score of Hollywood greats like BenHur and Ten Commandments. The less said about the songs the better.

Voice over by Chirranjeevi lends the special touch and propels the movie forward.

Ajayan Vincent's cinematography is what makes this movie a cinematic wonder, the visuals are so good, and the actresses are captured in all their glory.

The biggest letdown are the visual effects which are like as if they have been borrowed from a bad sci-fi channel movie, but the performance of the cast, lets us forgive the herculean blunder.

Screenplay and Direction by Guna Sekhar are excellent, trying to make a movie on queen revered as a goddess in most parts of telangana is very risky effort especially when themes like sexuality, and same sex marriage are involved and at the same time making it reach out to a family audience. Kudos to the filmmaker for achieving the impossible and forgiving him for the dumb visual effects, we just need to give him a pat on the back for braving all odds to make and bring a Heroine Oriented war Epic.

I would recommend it to anyone looking out for a different fare in tollywood.

Despite being littered with cartoonish CGI, amateur wirework, poorly choreographed fight scenes, pointless and unnecessary songs, and terrible editing, the compelling story is told in such a way that, if one is able to overlook the many shortcomings, Rudhramadevi ends up being an enjoyable movie to watch.

The story wasn't seamless and seemed to be multiple patches stitched together. The songs were the worst I heard or seen in years. If Gunashekhar wants to be recognized for his skills, he needs a clear vision. Almost all through the movie, it seemed like the director wasn't clear about what he wants or that he couldn't extract it from the actors and the other artists. I hate to compare one director with other but I feel justified to compare any director with Rajamouli. That is because I am not comparing their skillset but their commitment. Rajamouli doesn't sleep till the gets the shot to his 100% satisfaction(At least to his satisfaction, may not be to audience's satisfaction). Looks like Gunashekar needed only 70% in most places to okay a scene.

3D was very good for the 1st Telugu film and VFX was good in parts but felt they could have been avoided in some places.

The movie felt like a 80s movie made with modern technology. The screenplay needs to be tight and logical.

The fight sequences though showed promise in some places, were too gross and ugly in others. Especially where Rudramadevi keeps on fighting standing on the spears amidst the Snake formation. Simple question, will not the enemy soldiers retract their spears at least to protect themselves?

The fate of the fight between the enemy king and Chalukya Veerabhadrudu was inconclusive. This shows how patchy the editing was.

Allu Arjun was, as expected, flawless while the story was far from b being such.

For those who think that the move was a spectacle because it had to be made within the contours of history, I disagree such a view because the story quite liberally removed every contour except the names of the historical characters. The story was COMPLETELY FICTIONAL. We can find from history that Rudramadevi was brought up as if she was a boy and that she ruled with the name 'Rudradeva' but not that even she was unaware of her physiology or that everyone else was fooled to believe that a girl was a boy and worse that a woman was a man. The disappointing part was that most part of the story was focused on this transformation between boy and girl and how she swaps roles. History never said that Gona Ganna Reddy was a Bandit. He was a revenue collector i.e a designated official and feudatory of Rudramadevi. These are very crucial aspects that help understand the history of the period. With this movie the history has been twisted beyond the red line. History doesn't agree that Rudramadevi built a multi-phase city walls. I think the Gunasekhar's city walls were inspired from Chanakya's Arthashastra.

I personally feel that a director has to be very responsible with his story when they are presenting a historical narration especially when the genuine one is not really popular. We can twist and turn Mahabharata because people can make out which part is fiction. But in case of Rudramadevi, very few people know the history. Such fictional movies will be considered history. Some of the reviews and comments is the proof.

Gunasekhar surely has talent but he just lacked the vision and clarity in this movie. Looks like he was very complacent.

Since it starts with 1, I selected the least.. plz friends don't waste ur money n time.. already I wasted 150 mins.. N I think if I write even a word more for this movie review am wasting more time. Really can't sit watching d movie for 30 mins.. it's hell. a typical drama set creased by amateur kids in the name of vfx n 3d. Spoiled the latest tech meaning. it takes me back to the days of 1990s wen the cinema industry learnt Wat animation s.. really I feel I wasted my day..I can't even imagine comparing this movie with bahubali. Obviously I never came imagining this will move will b better than that, but can't even consider this as a movie. Just a stage drama shown in big screen. Nothing more to tell.