Rakshasudu (2019 film)


Rakshasudu is a 2019 Indian Telugu-language psychological thriller film directed by Ramesh Varma. The film features Bellamkonda Sreenivas and Anupama Parameswaran in the lead roles and it is the official remake of the 2018 Tamil film Ratsasan. The music is composed by Ghibran, the film began production in March 2019. Movie was released on 2 August 2019.

Plot

The film opens with two old men discovering a corpse which happened to be a teenage school girl named Samyuktha, a 15-year-old school student who was found brutally murdered and wrapped in a polythene bag.
Arun Kumar is an aspiring filmmaker who wants to make a movie on psychopaths. After being rejected many times despite having a good script and due to pressure from his family, he decides to give up his dreams and become a sub-inspector with the help of his brother-in-law, Prasad, a police officer himself. He moves and stays with his sister Sapna, Prasad, and their daughter Siri. Siri gets into trouble when she makes Arun forge her father's signature in her report card as she failed in two subjects. Her class teacher Krishnaveni figures this out and thinks that she signed it herself. Siri brings Arun to her school to act as her father. Later, when Siri is caught by her parents, this leads them to transfer their daughter to another school. Later, Arun meets and befriends Krishnaveni and her niece Kavya, who is speech deprived.
A teenage school girl named Amrutha is abducted on her way back home. Her parents then find a mutilated doll's head in a gift box attached to their dog's collar. Arun finds a similarity between Samyuktha, who was murdered a few days ago, and Amrutha, both of them being 15-year-old school students who were kidnapped while returning home from school. Just like Samyuktha, the hair on the doll's forehead is uprooted, the eyes are drilled, and her mouth is damaged. Apart from that, in particular, there is a knife mark on Samyuktha's forehead, ears and nasion. The same marks were found in the doll's face. He tries to convince ACP Lakshmi, his superior egotistical officer, that this was a psycho at work, but his theories are brushed off as fake stories.
Later, Amrutha's corpse was found brutally mutilated. The killer drilled out Amrutha's eyes, broke her teeth, and uprooted her hair in patches. On top of that, Amrutha's body was scarred all over with a knife while she was alive. Arun suggests the corpses be hidden from the public to prevent the killer from gaining public attention. Initially, the officials opposed this idea owing to breaking protocols, but they eventually give in, moving the bodies to a secret facility under Dr. Kishore. Soon after, another school girl named Meera is abducted. She happened to be from Siri's ex-school. The search leads to a teacher named Somaraj, who works at Siri's current school and is revealed to be a pedophile who is preying on schoolgirls. Arun encounters Somaraj trying to molest Siri and beats him up before detaining him. Somaraj admits to being a sexual predator but denies having anything to do with the murders. In a bid to escape, he holds Venkat, a policeman, at gunpoint. Arun manages to gun Somaraj down inside the lift thereby saving Venkat.
Meanwhile, Siri is abducted during her birthday party at home. Arun and Prasad try to find her but they were too late. Arun discovers her mutilated body in their own car trunk, implying that she is also killed. Meanwhile, things get worse for Arun, as he gets suspended for his negligence on shooting Somaraj. Dejected and angry, Arun investigates the case by himself, with the help of a few policemen. Finding an audio clip from the hearing aid of Meera, he traces it back to an old lady magician named Annabella George's performance at the victim's school function. The lady used her magic show as a tool to kidnap the girls since she impressed all the students with her magic tricks. She invites one student to perform an act and then interacted with the selected student to get closer to them. Then, she started to stalk the selected student leading to their kidnapping exactly on the second day after meeting them, without any hassle. This leads him to the next potential victim, a schoolgirl named Sanjana. Arun realized that he was following the wrong girl due to Sanjana having a twin sister. Sanjana was abducted, even though she was under surveillance. Arun tracks her location to a house in the city, where he narrowly saves Sanjana from being murdered. The perpetrator escapes, but her identity is revealed to be Mary Fernandez, who was involved in a killing a long time ago. Arun finds more about the case from the investigating officer, Jaya Prakash,, a retired cop.
Mary's son Christopher had been afflicted with Werner Syndrome, a hormonal disorder that caused him to look aged. He was an outcast at school, but a girl named Sophie took pity on him and befriended him. Christopher soon began to develop feelings for Sophie, but unfortunately, he is heartbroken when she turns down his love and is soon ridiculed at school. The next day, Mary asked Sophie to become friends again and handed her a gift. When Sophie opens the gift box, she found a mutilated doll's head, which was what Sophie gave Christopher as his birthday gift. Sophie was brutally murdered by Mary, and both Mary and her son were arrested.
It was then told that both Mary and Christopher died in an accident, but she is still alive and murdering with the same vengeance. Jaya Prakash finds a clue in the files but is killed by Mary before meeting Arun. On finding him at the scene of the crime, Arun is detained and kept handcuffed at the station. He discovers that Jaya Prakash was trying to reveal that the person who had been performing the magic show in the school had six fingers on the left hand and by a piece of photo evidence, it is known that it was Christopher who has six fingers. Since only Mary died in the accident, the psycho is not the lady; it is her own son Christopher, who has taken advantage of his aged appearance. Before Arun can act on this, Christopher attacks Krishnaveni and abducts Kavya. While trying to apprehend Christopher, Venkat is killed. Kavya escapes and is found by Kishore, who tries to hide her in the facility, but Kishore dies trying to protect her. Arun tracks down Christopher to the facility, and after a prolonged fight, manages to kill him and save Kavya.
The movie ends with the media reporting the chain of events and an end to the murders done by the psychopath. It is then revealed that Arun gets a chance to make a movie about a psychopath fulfilling his dream.

Cast

The success of the film Ratsasan put high expectation amongst audiences. Due to this reason the remake rights price for this film went high. After stiff competition, Koneru Satynarayana, the chairman of the educational university KL University Vijayawada bagged the Telugu remake rights of the film. The makers started this remake on Feb 2019 and completed it in June. This remake is directed by Ramesh Varma Penmetsa who has been previously directed films like Ride, Veera, etc., music by Ghibran and produced by Koneru Satynarayana under the production of A Studios Havish Koneru. This movie was distributed worldwide by famous producer Abhishek Nama under Abhishek Pictures.

Soundtrack

The film's score and soundtrack are composed by Ghibran and released on Aditya Music label.

Release

Rakshasudu was initially scheduled to release on 18 July 2019, but was pushed to August release. The film was awarded with 'U/A' Certificate by Central Board of Film Certification on 1 August 2019, and was released on 2 August 2019.

Reception

Box office

Rakshasudu collected 3.9 Crores gross and 2.3 Crores share worldwide on the opening day.
In the first weekend movie collected 8.76 Crores gross and 5.48 Crores share in the Telugu speaking states and 13.6 Crores gross and 6.8 Crores share worldwide.
In the first week movie collected 17.1 Crores gross and 9 Crores share worldwide.

Critical reception

Rakshasudu positive reviews from audiences and critics,
The Times of India gave 3.5 out of 5 stars stating "Rakshashudu keeps viewers on the edge of their seats. The screenplay is spot on and adds to the intrigue of watching the film and makes sure the suspense is impactful. Director Ramesh Varma avoids the temptation to over indulge. Bellamkonda puts in one of his best performances till date".
Firstpost gave 3.5 out of 5 stars stating "The biggest strength of Rakshasudu lies in its staging and how well-knit the whole narrative is. Editing by Amar Reddy is another major asset and there is hardly a boring moment in the film. For Sreenivas, film is a major shot in the arm and huge improvement compared to his recent performances".
India Today gave 3 out of 5 stars stating "Bellamkonda Sai Sreenivas's Rakshasudu is a frame-to-frame remake of Tamil film Ratsasan. While the cop-thriller shows lazy film-making in parts, it still keeps you engrossed in the proceedings. Ghibran's haunting score, which speaks volumes".
Jeevi of Idlebrain.com gave 3 out of 5 stars stating "Plus points are performances, story and screenplay. On the flipside, there is a bit of Tamil flavour in casting some of the actors and in some of the scenes. The dark approach of describing gruesome nature and killing techniques is not recommended for everybody".
Great Andhra gave 3 out of 5 stars stating "Rakshasudu is Sreenivas's better act among all his movies. Musical background score by Ghibran and the sound design have actually elevated the movie. The sound is terrific. Production values are perfect".
Sify gave 3 out of 5 stars stating "Rakshasudu is a fairly captivating serial-killer thriller with some edge of the seat moments. Aided by Ghibran's music and sound design, the film provides enough thrills".

Home media

The Satellite and Digital rights of the film were sold to Gemini TV and Sun NXT for 6 Crores, and Hindi dubbing rights were sold for 12.5 Crores.