Yamadonga Movie Reviews

Yamadonga - NTR-Rajamouli combo is a big hit again

Director Rajamouli is known for his commitment. Since his debut film, Student No. 1, he has no looking back and all his five films were proved hits. After gaining confidence on himself, he chose to bring out a film, different from routine.

He took up a socio-fantasy subject for his latest project. He knows very well that the success of this movie would give him a double hattrick and he made it. Rajamouli reportedly told Tarak (NT Rama Rao) that he should shed his weight for the film and the latter strictly followed his advice and turned an altogether new NTR for the movie. Rajamoulis experiment really did wonders and made the audiences watch an extra-ordinary film that was beyond the expectations of all the audiences in general and NTR fans in particular. It is like a home production for Rajamouli.

Keeravani supported him with excellent music, while Cherry and Urmila coordinated with him with financial support, while his wife Rama Rajamouli acted as the presenter of the film. After giving two blockbusters like Student No. 1 and Simhadri, the combination of the director and hero repeated the history that the two could do wonders on the celluloid.

Raja (NTR) is a petty thief. He loses a big amount from a contract for stealing a gown as the one who employed him dies suddenly. So Raja chides Yamadharma Raju (Mohanbabu) for the loss. Incidentally, Yama was in a conference of devatas and they laugh at the chiding of Yama by an ordinary man. So Yama bores a grudge and gets him to Narakam. Unable to bear the mischief of Raja, he sends him back as he has some more years of life. But the grudge remains with Yama and he is out to take a revenge by bringing him back to Narakam. Meanwhile, Raja falls in love with Mahi (Priyamani) who was a millionaire, but gets ill-treated by her relatives, who were guardians of her property. Whether Yama was able to take revenge or not? What happened to the love between Mahi and Raja forms part of the climax.

Artistes performance :

NTR looked in a different way in a very slim personality. He improved a lot in the body language and as dances is his forte, he enthralled the audiences with his extraordinary dancing skills and also in action scenes. He was able to show fantastic expressions in sentiment scenes as well. Especially, his get up as Young Yama, reminded the late NT Rama Rao. The moment he appears on the screen in a mythological get up, for a moment, the audiences would remain spellbound and feel as if the late NTR again appeared on the screen. Surprisingly, after a couple of minutes, really the late NTR appears on the screen and encourages NTR. While coming to comedy, NTR maintained superb comedy timing and there is no need for a special mention that NTR excelled in every sphere on the screen.
Priyamani, the main heroine of the film, looked gorgeous in songs. She competed with NTR in dancing and really their combination looked very apt, especially in the wake of NTR becoming slim. The selection of costumes for song sequences was also good. The costumes did not give scope for exposing and at the same time made the heroine appear romantic in those clothes.

Mamata Mohandas character was kept to prolong the story and also to give a twist to the story before the climax. She also looked romantic but the director moulded it with a little rough nature. She had put up brilliant performance and also rendered a song along with NTR which was a remix of the late NTR.

Mohanbabu enthralled the audiences as Yamadharma Raju. He did complete justice to the role and showed perfect comedy timing and also elevated the image of the character. His body language, dialogue modulation, show of expressions, comedy timing once again proved that he is a versatile artiste. Director Rajamouli, keeping his image in view, ensured that his role is equally important with the hero.

Senior artiste Khushboo played opposite Dr Mohanbabu as the wife of Yama. However, she did not have much scope for performance.

Apart from this, the film has four more heroines €” Rambha, Preethi Jhangiani, Navneet Kaur, Archana. While Rambha did an item song with NTR, the other three shook their legs with NTR in one song.

Brahmanandam, Ali, Narendra Jha did justice to their respective roles.

Technical excellency:
Music director Keeravani walked away with honours by scoring excellent music for the movie. While all the songs are worth listening and have foot-tapping music, he took several precautions in the re-recording to elevate the scenes. All the songs were soul-stirring and the picturisation of all the songs was also worth mentioning. Another speciality of the film is that Keeravani made hero NTR to render a song for the movie along with Mamata Mohandas, while Daler Mehendi, for the first time rendered a song for a south Indian film, especially in Telugu.

Cinematography by Senthil Kumar is worth mentioning. He mixed all his past experience in giving a visual treat to the audiences. A team of 80 professionals spread over three outsourcing houses spearheaded by EFX worked on the graphics and the producers effort to ensure the most impressive visuals borne fruit. Mr. adel adili, a professional from Iran, who has contributed heavily in the Hollywood films too, handled some important scenes. The graphics of the film were also said to be a visual treat for the audiences. The banner ensured high quality graphics and the graphics are on par with Hollywood movies.

Another highlight of the film is the sets by Ananda Sai, the art director. It was said that the art director was given a free hand in building extraordinary sets and to light up the sets in a tasteful way. Though the cost of the film had gone up substantially because of his excellent lighting schemes, the producers have no qualms about it as it enhanced the richness of the film.

Another speciality of the film is that it has the biggest-ever indoor set erected so far in whole of Asia and incidentally it is the costliest individual set. At least 300 workers worked on the set day and night over period of 90 days to erect the mighty Yama Lokam set in Ramoji Film City. Apart from this, a few other sets were erected for canning of four songs, the set of the Hero House and the Heroine House are also done with a lot of grandeur.

As a whole the film is a visual treat and is worth watching by all classes and ages of audiences.

Cast : NT Ramarao, Mohan Babu, Narendra Jha, Priyamani, Mamata Mohandas, Brahmanandam, Ali, Raghubabu, Jayaprakash Reddy, MS Narayana, Naresh, Rajeev Kanakala, Khushboo, Rambha, Navneet Kaur, Preethi Jhingania, Archana.