Sita Ramam is a 2022 Indian Telugu-language period musical romantic drama film written and directed by Hanu Raghavapudi and produced by Vyjayanthi Movies and Swapna Cinema. The film stars Dulquer Salmaan, Mrunal Thakur (in her Telugu debut), Rashmika Mandanna and Sumanth. Set in 1964, Lieutenant Ram, an orphan army officer serving at Kashmir border, gets anonymous love letters from Sita Mahalakshmi. Ram is on a mission to find Sita and propose his love.
Principal photography commenced in April 2021 and took place in Kashmir, Russia and Hyderabad. The film has music composed by Vishal Chandrasekhar, cinematography by P. S. Vinod and Shreyaas Krishna and editing by Kotagiri Venkateswara Rao. It was released theatrically on 5 August 2022.
Plot[]
 | This article's plot summary may be too long or excessively detailed. (August 2022) |
In 1964, Mujahideen, a Pakistani extremist, does not approve of the brotherly relationship of Kasmiri Muslims and Hindus. He plans on severing the bond and separating them. He strongly believes that the Indian Army is the reason for the unity. He resorts to brainwashing teenagers in Pakistan and sends them to Kashmir. He advices them to live in disguise to make his plans work.
In 1985, Afreen is a fierce Pakistani-based rabble-rouser in London, who dislikes anything about India. She sets fire to the car of an Indian philanthropist, Anand Mehta, in retaliation for burning Pakistan's flag. The management board of her university asks her to apologize to him. As Afreen does not like to say sorry to Indians, the philanthropist gives her two choices: either to give him 1 Million (10 Lakhs INR) as compensation or go to prison. Being a stubborn and unapologetic patriot, she decides to compensate him and goes back to Pakistan to meet her grandfather, Pakistan Army Brigadier Tariq, for giving her the money to compensate him. However, upon her arrival in Pakistan, she finds out that her grandfather passed away. In his will, he asks her to deliver a letter, which he could not, written in 1965, by Indian Army Lieutenant Ram to his lover, Sita Mahalakshmi of India. Upon successfully doing so, she will inherit his wealth. Though relucant at first, Afreen agrees to deliver the letter to her, so that she can inherit Tariq's wealth.
She goes to Hyderabad in search of Sita. She is accompanied by Balaji, her senior at the university in London. She reaches the address, only to find that to be a ladies college. She asks Subramaniyam, who has been working there for more than twenty years, about Sita. He tells Afreen that the college was the royal palace of the Nawab of Hyderabad once which was donated by Princess Noor Jahan for the education of girls. He also adds that nobody with the name of Sita was there, twenty years ago. Clueless, Afreen is unable to find Sita without any details. Upon getting an idea, she goes in search of Ram, instead, and gets to the know the address of Lieutenant Vikas Varma, who was in Ram's regiment, in Kashmir. Afreen upon meeting him, asks him about Ram. She later meets Ram's friend Durjoy Sharma and Ram's superior Vishnu Sharma and learns Ram's story.
In 1964, Mujahideen, who sent the teenagers to Kashmir, gives them the whereabouts of the Indian Army. Major Selvan, after coming to know about them, orders the army to catch and kill the Pakistani teenagers, as they can compromise the safety of the Indians, in Kashmir. However, their plan backfires as Kashmiri Muslims, in the area, who thought of the youngsters as their own, attacked every soldier responsible for killing the youngsters. Knowing that this would happen, Mujahideen steps over into Kashmir and brainwashes the Kashmiri Muslims.
The enraged Muslims set fire on the houses of Kashmiri Pandits in Agarta. Ram, aware that they are under the influence of Mujahideen, tries to stop them. Ram captures the informer and reveals the truth to the Kashmiri Muslims. After coming to know of the truth, they apologize for trying to incite a religious riot and help the Indian Army in putting out the fires. This becomes national news and everybody comes to know about this. Additionally, Ram and his fellow regiment mates become national heroes.
An Indian reporter, Vijayalakshmi, comes to interview them, through which she comes to know that Ram is an orphan. The next day, on the radio, she tells everybody about Ram and asks everyone in India to send their love to him. As a result, Ram receives a lot of letters from people across India, acknowledging him as their own brother and son. He is overjoyed to know that he now has a big family and starts writing letters to reply to all of them. One of them is a letter, written by Sita Mahalakshmi, addressing him as her husband. He is surprised and regularly receives letters from her with no address.
One day, Vikas and he take the same train as Sita, based on the minute details provided by her in the letters. He searches the entire train and is able to find her. He repeats a riddle, written in her letter, so that she can recognize him. He gives her his friend's landline number and leaves the train. Upon his arrival at his friend, Durjoy Sharma's house, he gets to know that the phone has been dead for a week. Sita comes in search of Ram, at Durjoy's house. They meet and Ram takes a picture of her, discreetly.
She leaves yet again without giving him an address. Ram then goes to a magic show in search of Sita and meets her friend, who reveals that Sita has been writing many letters to him but posted only few of them. He gets to know that Sita is a dance teacher, living in Princess Noor Jahan's palace in Hyderabad, to teach her Kathak. He enters the palace with the help of Subramaniyam and meets Sita. He learns that he saved her from riots, in Agarta, and that it was her first encounter with him. However, he was not able to see her face back then.
It is later revealed that, Sita is none other than Princess Noor Jahan. Her marriage alliance is fixed with the Prince of Oman, in order to save her family's factories and businesses that were captured in Oman. She goes to bid her final goodbye to Ram, but ends up accompanying him the next four days, where they meet his family (the ones that wrote him the letters). Sita and Ram are spied by a journalist, who clicks their pictures together. Later, Ram drops off Sita at the palace and leaves to Kashmir. The pictures get published in the newspaper, revealing the Princess's love for a common man. Sita reveals to her brother that the news is true and cancels her alliance. She leaves to Kashmir for Ram. They spend some time together and Noor meets Ram's fellow mates, as Sita. They go to dinner and meet Vishnu Sharma and his family. However, they are attacked by the youngster seeking revenge for the earlier encounters. They capture him and obtain the precise location of Mujahideen. Ram promises the youngster that he will rescue his younger sister, Vaheeda, from Mujahideen.
The army plans a secret mission, in order to gun down Mujahideen, and also warns the soldiers that if they get caught, they will be disowned by the army and declared as traitors. Ram, Vishnu Sharma, and his team leave for the operation, by crossing the Indian border, and successfully execute Mujahideen. However, Brigadier Tariq gets alarmed by the fires that started as a result of the cross-firing, and starts for their location. Ram and his team are about to leave, when Ram hears a cry of a girl and realizes that it is of Vaheeda's. He goes in to save her.
However, Ram, along with Vishnu Sharma, are captured by the Pakistan Army, while the other soldiers escape successfully. Ram hands over Vaheeda to Brigadier Tariq. They are tortured mercilessly to reveal the coordinates to the Indian Army base, in Kashmir, but the Army General takes pity on Ram and Vishnu, and provides them with care. The Pakistani soldiers, one day, while using brute force on them, are able to get Vishnu to reveal the coordinates of the Indian army base to them, in exchange for his freedom and not harming his family. Vishnu gets released, but they hang Ram, in order to demoralize the Indian army. The Indian army bases in Kashmir are destroyed, as a result, and Ram is branded as a traitor. Before his execution, Ram writes a letter to Sita and asks the Army General to deliver it to her.
In 1985, Afreen learns that the Army General was in fact her grandfather, Tariq. Additionally, the child, whose life was saved by Ram during the fire, is Afreen herself. A changed Afreen, with a heavy heart, delivers the letter to Sita, through Balaji, where they learn about Ram's innocence and also finds the newspaper clipping attached to it, about "Princess Noor Jahan of Hyderabad being in love with a common man". Both Afreen and Balaji realize that Ram knew of Sita's true identity as a Muslim and did not care. Alas, with Ram's letter and Afreen, as evidence and witness, an enquiry is ordered on Vishnu Sharma and his regiment. However, out of disgrace, he shoots himself with his service revolver. Sita manages to prove Ram's innocence and restore his name and honour in the Indian Army.
Cast[]
- Dulquer Salmaan as Lieutenant Ram
- Mrunal Thakur as Sita Mahalakshmi / Princess Noor Jahan
- Rashmika Mandanna as Afreen / Vaheeda
- Sumanth as Brigadier Vishnu Sharma
- Tharun Bhascker as Balaji
- Gautham Vasudev Menon as Major Selvan
- Vennela Kishore as Durjoy Sharma
- Murali Sharma as Subramanyam
- Prakash Raj as Brigadier Y. K. Joshi
- Tinnu Anand as Anand Mehta
- Shatru as Lieutenant Vikas
- Sachin Khedekar as Brigadier Tariq, Afreen's grandfather
- Rohini as Reporter Vijayalakshmi
- Sunil as Maruthi, Train Ticket Examiner
- Rukmini Vijayakumar as Noor Jahan's friend
- Jisshu Sengupta as Princess Noor Jahan's brother
- Abhinaya as Noor Jahan's sister-in-law
- Bhumika Chawla as Mrunalini Sharma, Vishnu's wife
- Priyadarshi Pulikonda as a Journalist
- Rahul Ravindran as Rahul Varma, Indian diplomat in Pakistan
Production[]
Development and casting[]
Hanu Raghavpudi got the idea for the film when he bought a book that had an unopened inland letter. Regarding the same, he told The Hindu, "The letter I found in that book, in 2007, was from a mother to her son. I gathered that their family is from Vijayawada and the son is living in a hostel. She had enquired about his well being and asked when he would be home. It got me thinking, what if the contents of the letter had something crucial that could change the course of events?".[4] Army backdrop was later included in the story as suggested by Rajkumar Kandamudi. Sheetal Sharma was hired as the costume designer for the film.[5]
The film was announced in July 2020.[6] Dulquer Salmaan was roped in to play the lead role as a military officer, and it is his second collaboration in Telugu cinema with Vyjayanthi Movies after Mahanati (2018).[7] In May 2020, Pooja Hegde was approached to play Sita but it did not materialize due to date clash, eventually after which Hindi cinema actress Mrunal Thakur was signed to play Sita, marking her debut in Telugu cinema.[8] Raashi Khanna was considered to play Afreen before Rashmika Mandanna was finalized for the role.[9] In April 2022, its title Sita Ramam was announced.[10][11]
Filming[]
Principal photography commenced in April 2021 in Kashmir and first schedule wrapped up in July 2021.[12][13] After another schedule in Russia and Hyderabad, final schedule took place in April 2022.[14][15]
Music[]
| Sita Ramam | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Soundtrack album by Vishal Chandrashekhar | ||||
| Released | 2 August 2022 | |||
| Recorded | 2021-2022 | |||
| Genre | Feature film soundtrack | |||
| Length | 15:06 | |||
| Language | Telugu | |||
| Label | Sony Music India | |||
| Producer | Vishal Chandrashekhar | |||
| Vishal Chandrashekhar chronology | ||||
| ||||
| Singles from Sita Ramam | ||||
| ||||
The soundtrack is composed by Vishal Chandrasekhar after his third collaboration with director Hanu Raghavapudi after Krishna Gaadi Veera Prema Gaadha and Padi Padi Leche Manasu. The audio rights were acquired by Sony Music India. The first single titled "Oh Sita Hey Rama" was sung by S. P. Charan and Ramya Behara and it was released on 9 May 2022.
| No. | Title | Lyrics | Singer(s) | Length |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Oh Sita Hey Rama" | Ananta Sriram | S. P. Charan, Ramya Behara | 4:06 |
| 2. | "Inthandham" | Krishnakanth | S. P. Charan | 3:38 |
| 3. | "Kaanunna Kalyanam" | Sirivennela Seetharama Sastry | Anurag Kulkarni, Sinduri | 3:52 |
| 4. | "Oh Prema" | Krishnakanth | Kapil Kapilan, Chinmayi | 3:28 |
| 5. | "Eppudo Ninnu" | Ananta Sriram | Yazin Nizar | 3:50 |
| Total length: | 15:06 | |||
All lyrics are written by Madhan Karky.
| No. | Title | Singer(s) | Length |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Hey Sita Hey Rama" | S. P. Charan, Sinduri | 4:06 |
| 2. | "Kurumugil" | Sai Vignesh | 3:38 |
| 3. | "Kannukkule" | Haricharan, Sinduri | 3:52 |
| 4. | "Piriyadhey" | Kapil Kapilan, Chinmayi | 3:28 |
| 5. | "Uraiyum Theeyil" | Yazin Nizar | 3:50 |
| Total length: | 15:06 | ||
| No. | Title | Lyrics | Singer(s) | Length |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Pen Poove Thenvande" | Arun Alat | Sharreth, Nithya Mammen | 4:06 |
| 2. | "Aaromal" | Vinayak Sasikumar | Sooraj Santhosh | 3:38 |
| 3. | "Kannil Kannil" | Arun Alat | K. S. Harisankar, Sinduri | 3:52 |
| 4. | "Thirike Vaa" | Vinayak Sasikumar | Kapil Kapilan, Anne Amie | 3:28 |
| 5. | "Ariyum Thorum" | Vinayak Sasikumar | Yazin Nizar | 3:50 |
| Total length: | 15:06 | |||
Release[]
Theatrical[]
Sita Ramam was released on 5 August 2022 in Telugu along with dubbed versions of Tamil and Malayalam languages.[16][17]
The film's screening was banned in Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.[18] According to an article published by News18, the ban was a result of the film hurting religious sentiments.[19] Later, the ban in the United Arab Emirates was lifted and the film released on 11 August 2022.[20] A pre-release event was conducted in Hyderabad in 3 August 2022 with Prabhas attending as guest.[21] The team promoted the film at events in Hyderabad, Vijayawada, Vizag, Chennai and Kochi.[22][23]
The film is distributed in Nizam region by Asian Cinemas, Krishna[a] and Uttarandhra region by Annapurna Studios, Tamil Nadu by Lyca Productions and Wayfarer Films in Kerala.[24] The Hindi version rights were acquired by Pen Studios. In the United States, it is distributed by S. Radha Krishna's Radhakrishna Entertainments.[25][26] The worldwide theatrical rights of the film were sold at a cost of ₹18.70 crore.[27]
Home media[]
The digital distribution rights of the film were acquired by Amazon Prime Video.[4]
Reception[]
Box office[]
On it's opening day, Sita Ramam collected a gross collection of ₹5.25 crore in worldwide.[29] On the same day, it collected a gross of $400K at the US box office.[30] In nine days, the film has collected a total gross of $1 million at the United States box office.[31]
Critical response[]
Neeshita Nyayapati of The Times of India rated the film 3.5 out of 5 stars and wrote "With Sita Ramam, Hanu manages to deliver a story that’s moving and a film that’s visually aesthetic and pleasing".[32] Jayadeep Jayesh of Deccan Herald rated the film 3.5 out of 5 stars and wrote "Sita Ramam shares its soul with theth Bollywood classic Veer Zara. Yet, it maintains an identity of its own".[33] Janani K of India Today rated the film 2.5 out of 5 stars and wrote "Sita Ramam is also a musical, as opposed to a romantic story about war".[34] Manoj Kumar R of The Indian Express rated the film 2 out of 5 stars and wrote, "The screen presence of Dulquer Salmaan and Mrunal Thakur does add a little vigour to the otherwise dull narration. The film majorly leverages the good looks of its actors to make it tolerable".[35] Soundarya Athimuthu of The Quint rated the film 2.5 out of 5 stars and wrote "Sita Ramam delivers a poignant love story laced with socio-political messaging".[36] Gautama Bhaskaran of News 18 rated the film 1.5 out of 5 stars and wrote "Sita Ramam has all the ingredients of a puffed-up plot, peppered with coincidences and made to look like a web of implausibilities".[37] Balakrishna Ganeshan of The News Minute rated the film 2.5 out of 5 stars and wrote "Sita Ramam tries hard to make the love story between Sita and Ram a poignant tale, but with weak writing, the film does not get the desired response". He also opined that Vennala Kishore's character is related to Lord Hanuman, who helps Rama in his journey to find Sita in the Ramayanam.[38]
A critic for Telangana Today stated, "The film is however for the grooming Dulquer fan following. He is a natural charmer and understands the nuances of his role".[39] Writing for Hindustan Times, Haricharan Pudipeddi opined that "Dulquer Salmaan and Mrunal Thakur's film is a tale of love that also takes a mature and sensitive take on the conflict between India and Pakistan".[40] Opining the same, The Hindu's Sangeetha Devi Dundoo wrote that "Hanu Raghavapudi’s old-world romance saga brims with earnestness and is helped by charming performances from Dulquer Salmaan and Mrunal Thakur".[41] Princy Alexander of Onmanorama, stated: "Sita Ramam is a heartfelt romantic tale in a strife-torn setting".[42] 123Telugu wrote, "On the whole Sita Ramam is a beautiful love story. The film has a decent first half and great second half. The scintillating performances by all the lead cast, the pleasing narrative, and the poetic writing will make you poignant and heartwarming".[43]"Unlike usual love stories it did had some good elements to bring the reality and can make us believe the situations", written by avin ranger.
Notes[]
References[]
- ↑ Focus, Filmy (August 1, 2022). [TBA Sita Ramam taking a huge risk - Filmy Focus].
- ↑ [TBA Box office collection: Bimbisara और Sita Ramam का शानदार आगाज, जानिए किस फिल्म ने की कितनी कमाई].
- ↑ [TBA Sita Ramam weekend box office: Dulquer Salmaan, Mrunal Thakur's film crosses ₹50 crore worldwide].
- ↑ [TBA Sita Raamam Movie OTT Release date and Platform Fixed] (en) (2022-08-05).
External links[]
- Please use a more specific IMDb template. See the documentation for available templates.