Monday, July 20, 2015

Baahubali still
Here are the 22 facts about SS Rajamouli’s Baahubali that will completely blow your mind!
An approximate measure states that the VFX footage in certain shots of the film cost Rs 5000/second.
Baahubali is the most expensive movie ever produced in the Indian subcontinent.
Baahubali is the first Indian film that has successfully managed to transcend regional boundaries!
Baahubali has broken all possible records at the box-office. The film collected between Rs.60 and 70 Crore on the first day worldwide!
Rajamouli’s first choice for the roles played by Prabhas and Rana were Hrithik RoshanandJohn Abraham!
In a few action sequences, stunt choreographer Peter Hein had to control more than 2000 men and elephants.
To build the 20-acre kingdom for the film, 1000 workers worked extensively for 200 days.
A 100-foot statue of the film’s antagonist, Rana Daggubati, was placed at RFC, Hyderabad.
A new language called Kiliki was exclusively created for the film by writer Madhan Karky.
A sequence of the film required a maize field. And a maize field was naturally grown in Ramoji Film City for around 7 months.
Both Prabhas and Rana Daggubatihad a target of consuming 2,000-4,000 K calories a day.
‘Jurassic World’ and ‘Baahubali’ have a common factor – both films share the same special effects team.
One of the waterfall scenes of the film, also seen in the trailer, took close to two months of overall shooting time of the film.
Since the film has aggressive war and action sequences, trainers from Vietnam were hired to train Prabhas, Anushka, Rana and Satyaraj.
Baahubali also bagged a position in the Guinness Book of World Records for having the world’s largest poster (51,000 square feet).
Prabhas dedicated two years of his life to working on this one film.
Despite being a regional film, Baahubali became the biggest opener in Indian cinema beating the record ofAamir Khan’s movie PK!
A 20-minute battle scene from the film took four months to shoot.
Baahubali has 9.4 IMDB rating, making it the highest rated Indian film ever.
600 artists and 17 visual effects studios across India, South Korea and China were roped in to create the film’s 4,500 visual effects and computer graphics!
Baahubali is the only Indian film that managed to feature in the BBC documentary on 100 years of Bollywood. This happened even before the film was released.
The film was shot in 16:9 aspect ratio for bigger and better quality pictures!

Wednesday, July 15, 2015

India's Most Expensive Film 'Bahubali' Opens Strongly, Garners Critical Acclaim

 

The $40 million historical epic has been likened to 'Avatar' and 'Lord of the Rings' and looks set to rewrite box office history.

Bahubali (The One With Strong Arms), touted as India's most expensive film with an estimated budget of $40 million, showed some muscle at the box office, with local reports stating that the historical epic recorded the highest opening day take for an Indian film.
The Business Standard reported that Bahubali – The Beginning, the first installment of a planned two-part epic, collected a net of $7.89 million (500 million rupees). This figure surpassed the $7.11 million (450 million rupees) opening day take of previous record holder 2014's Shah Rukh Khan-starrer Happy New Year.

Directed by acclaimed south Indian director S RajamouliBahubali features superstars Prabhas, Rana Daggubati, Anushka Shetty and Tamannaah Bhatia. The film revolves around two warring brothers battling for control of an ancient Indian kingdom. Bahubali was released in the Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam and Hindi languages and was shot in Ramoji studios in Hyderabad.


According to the Business Standard report, a majority of the film's opening day earnings  almost 440 million rupees  came from the southern Indian states. The film was released worldwide in about 4,200 screens. “According to sources, the film made $1 million in the US, making it one of the most successful theatrical exports from India,” the report added.
Given its strong opening, observers reckon Bahubali could touch the coveted 1 billion rupee mark ($15.78 million)  the local standard for a strong performer  during its opening weekend as final figures become available.
Bahubali also garnered favorable reviews with most critics in praise of the film's VFX and visual appeal.
THR's reviewer Lisa Tsering praised the cinematography, strong performances and score as well as the epic scale of Bahubali, saying it was "possible to enjoy the film as pure entertainment even without being privy to the superlatives surrounding it."
“From the tropical landscapes of Avatar and the bloody battles of The Lord of The Rings films, to the images from [Indian epics] the Mahabharata and the Ramayana that it evokes, Rajamouli’s film hat-tips to its various influences without ever stealing from any,” CNN-IBN news network critic Rajeev Masand stated in his review.


“I have to say that I dread long-drawn skirmishes between armor-clad armies (having suffered through Peter Jackson’s never-ending battles) because they turn so turgid and dull so fast, but the battle scenes in Bahubali are completely engrossing,” said the Indian Express newspaper'sShubhra Gupta.

The Hindu newspaper's Sangeetha Devi Dundoo, while impressed, still had higher expectations,Bahubali is several notches higher than a regular Telugu film. But it was meant to be a game changer, not a regular film. If a spellbinding saga is what you go looking for, some portions can leave you underwhelmed. The writing could have been better. Yet, there’s so much to root for. As for part two, bring it on!”

The film has also managed to impress international critics such as The Guardian's Mike McCahillwho gave Bahubali a four-star rating: “The eponymous hero (“The One with Strong Arms”) embodies several legends for the price of one. Plucked from a river, the infant Bahubali could be Moses; shifting a stone shrine several hundred feet, his teenage self is as hefty as Hercules; swinging from vines so as to climb the waterfall his village sits under, he’s as romantic a figure as Tarzan.”

Baahubali: Why India's priciest film has done well at box office

  • 13 July 2015
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  • From the sectionIndia
Baahubali still
Baahubali has successfully married the traditional Indian film template with state-of-the-art special effects
India's battle epic Baahubali (Strong Man), billed as its most expensive film to date, was released in cinemas on Friday. Sudha G Tilak explains why the film has caught movie-mad India's imagination.
With its song-and-dance idiom, Bollywood has long been the symbol of popular Indian cinema, both at home and abroad.
But a little known fact is that south India's Hyderabad-based Telugu film industry is much more prolific than Bollywood. It also routinely churns out more expensive films than its Mumbai counterpart.
A good case in point is Baahubali, a $39m (£25m) Telugu-language film, which has made headlines for being India's most expensive film.
Directed by SS Rajamouli, the film, originally shot in the south Indian language Telugu, and dubbed in a number of other languages, set the box office on fire when it opened on Friday.
So why has the film worked? One reason could be hype and scale.
In the run-up to its release, the film's producers set the tone for the epic scale of the movie with the release of a 51,000 sq ft (4,738 sq m ) promotional poster, which it touted as the "world's largest poster".
The massively publicised budget didn't hurt either.
But Baahubali has also successfully married the traditional Indian film template with state-of-the-art special effects.

Saga of Revenge

For one, Baahubali is lavish and spectacular with breathtaking locales and special effects. And secondly, the story strikes a chord with a traditional Indian movie-going audience.
The plot revolves around an Indian epic of warring princes, scheming aristocrats, loyal generals, valiant queens and lion-hearted kings. It is a cocktail of Indian mythological and familiar fairytale plotlines of revenge and good triumphing over evil, ticking all the boxes that are familiar tropes in Telugu mythology.
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The film, directed by SS Rajamouli (Centre), was originally filmed in the south Indian language Telugu
There is the lost prince Baahubali - thus named because of his powerful arms - and who grows up in obscurity in a tribal hamlet, completely ignorant of that fact that he is heir to the throne of a powerful kingdom across the mountains.
There is the powerful figure of the Indian mother whose impassioned love for her son forms the core of the hero's vendetta to avenge her humiliation.
There are angelic damsels whose marksmanship and serious sword skills are no match for the hero's charms in the romance department.
The acting is marked by glowering and comic book action with lengthy hyperboles that Telugu films are famous for.

Hollywood-style effects

The film's dazzling special effects have also drawn audiences to theatres, and are inviting comparisons to Hollywood's best.
The film has convincingly recreated magical kingdoms, thrilling bull fights, breathtaking flights across mountain peaks and gripping chases down icy slopes. A spectacular 40-minute war sequence comes as a fitting grand finale.
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The film's war sequence is spectacular
And this is not the first time Mr Rajamouli has successfully translated mythology on to the big screen.
His 2010 film Maghadheera (The Mighty Valiant Hero), based on historical fiction, was also a big success.
The film is made in two parts and the second part of Baahubali is set for release next year.
Clearly, its successful formula of fusing mythology with special effects could become the next big thing in Indian cinema.
Sudha G Tilak is an independent journalist and writer based in Delhi