A marvelous tale, the film starts with Arundhati (Anushka) who lives in a city and her marriage is fixed with one Rahul (Arjan). She is considered the dearest of the family since she is the only female born after two generations and all the members treat her as Jejamma (Anushka).
She was once the ruler of the Gadwal region. However, a dark tale of flashback exists in the form of their own relative (Sonu Sood) who cons and gets married to Jejamma’s elder sister. He is a worst womanizer and drunkard.
Unable to bear this, his wife commits suicide and Jejamma gives him a punishment. Luckily he survives death and learns all the tricks of black magic only to re-emerge and from then on, he has only one mission- to get Jejamma but fails and she buries him alive with the required pujas and rituals.
Arundhati is coaxed by the locked up spirit. Finally, he manages to come out and takes a human form and wreaks havoc in Arundhati’s life, he lusts after her even now and wants to complete his revenge. Is he successful in that? Is Arundhati really the Jejamma that all are thinking? It forms the crux of the film.
Anushka is at her best with great performance and she reminds a lot of Jayaprada during her serious stills. Her emotions, expressions and the total contrast of the two roles have been depicted very well.
Sonu Sood was equally evil and he did his bit with required punch. Sayaji Shinde was full of energy and burnt the screen with his excellent role. Manorama was neat, Satyanarayana was mature, Subhashini was scary and the others did their bit to add value to the film.
The director has come out with a simple plot but then the entire credit goes to the presentation and fast paced narration. The script was written very well without loose ends, the screenplay was top notch. Dialogues were up to the mark and music played a lot of impact, two songs were worth relishing, the real hero here is the graphics team that has come out with some real good work especially during the climax and some of the horror scenes.
Cinematography was great. Editing was crisp and the costumes were grand. The other departments were
perfect and spot on with their work.
While the first half goes about with the building of the plot and why all this is happening it is not until the interval that the true story comes out. The second half goes about with the high voltage action and culminates into a worthy climax. Here, the length was a bit dragged and that could have been avoided.
The film has come across with some really mind blowing graphics and presentation, even the performances were top notch that helped. While the drums scene is a take from the Chinese movie ‘House of Flying Daggers’ it was well taken and presented. The shock points are high and one can say that the film is definitely not for the weak hearted. There are enough chilling moments to shake the audience off their chair. The film is one of the best made ever in the history of Telugu cinema in terms of technical values so it deserves to be a good hit.
Cast: Anushka, Deepak, Sonu Sood, Sayaji Shinde, Manorama,
Kaikala Satyanarayana, Annapurna, Ahuthi Prasad, Chalapathi Rao,
Subhashini, Siva Parvathi, Meena and Baby Divya.
Direction: Kodi Rama Krishna
Production: M Shyam Prasad Reddy
Music: Koti