Upendra, who acted and directed the film "A" isaUpendra acted in and directed the film 'A' , a cult classic that redefined filmmaking in the Kannada film industry. a cult classic that redefined filmmaking in the Kannada film industry.
Published Jan 18, 2023 | 8:30 AM ⚊ Updated Jan 18, 2023 | 8:30 AM
Released in 1998, the cult film 'A' directed by Real Star Upendra is celebrating its silver jubilee in January 2023. (Supplied)
While the Kannada film industry is back in the limelight with films like KGF and Kantara making it big in the current digital era, a Kannada film released 25 years ago redefined filmmaking in the industry.
Not only a star director but also a star hero was born, and they went on to make it big!
Today, we revisit one of the most iconic Kannada cult classics A, which saw theatrical release in 1998.
G Thulasiram Laharivelu aka Lahari Velu, who is a partner in the popular South Indian music label Lahari Music, spoke exclusively to South First on how the audio cassette of the film sold like hot cakes, and much more.
He revealed some lesser-known and a few unknown facts about Real Star Upendra’s A.
While the film was initially planned with another actor, Upendra decided to step up and play a dual role — an actor and a director — after the talent they had chosen to play the role of Surya in A exited due to reasons unknown.
Until then, Upendra had acted only in short roles, mostly in films directed by his mentor Kashinath.
The entire process of making A was no less than a Herculean task, right from the budget, casting, and even bringing new talents on board.
For many, A was their debut as technicians and artists.
The film poster of Kannada film A directed by Upendra featuring him the lead role as Surya and actress Chandini as Chandini in the film. (Supplied)
As Upendra made his debut as a full-fledged hero, A introduced Chandini as the heroine, Guru Kiran as a composer, and HC Venugopal as a cinematographer, among others.
Even for the producers — Jagganath and Manjunath — this was the first project.
Inspired by Jean-Paul Sartre’s short story Erostratus from in his 1939 collection of short stories The Wall, the Kannada film ran for months, and the dubbed Telugu version clocked 100 days at the box office.
Even a noted Malayalam director picked A as one of the five Indian movies which managed to influence him at different levels.
The craze was such that it created ripples in Japan as well.
The director’s bold publicity, such as referring to it as “Buddhivantarige Matra” (rough translation: Made only for the intelligent audience) became the talk of the town.
However, there were no takers for the distribution of the movie for fear of losing money.
Actress Chandini, who played Chandini in A, recollected that the main theatre was still not finalised and the team was worried.
“I remember saying that I had prayed and that I was confident that the film would be released with no hurdles. It ended up creating history, redefining Kannada cinema!”
Soon, distributors lined up after every show started being labelled houseful!
Actress Chandini made her acting debut in the film A as Chandini. (Supplied)
It was reported that since the movie ran houseful for weeks, the producers of other movies staged protests, and some are even believed to have knocked on the doors of the court.
Finally, an arrangement was made that once the movie hit 100 days, it would make way for the release of another movie.
Since then, every time the film was re-released, it ran to houseful theatres.
Bollywood institutions like Shah Rukh Khan and Boney Kapoor flew down to Bengaluru to see the movie.
It became a norm for anyone having watched it for the first time to return to watch it again to understand the story.
When it eventually made it to the television, it thrashed the TRP records!
After none were ready to buy the audio rights of the movie, Upendra and the producers finally approached Lahari Music, hoping to just release it somehow under the label and not worry over how much the rights would fetch them.
G Thulasiram Laharivelu known as Lahari Velu, runs South India’s popular music label – Lahari Music.
“I still remember the time Upendra, who had come in his black car with the producer, requested me to listen to the songs composed by a newcomer. It was 4 pm.”
“To be honest, the quality of the tape cassette they gave me was pathetic. It was way below the quality of the pirated cassettes sold on the streets back then,” Lahari Velu told South First.
He said he listened to the songs along with his senior engineer Mirza, who is no more.
“After listening to it on more than one occasion, I kind of started liking it a lot. I said I liked the tunes of the songs, but the quality of the music was not that great,” he recounted.
“I, however, said that three songs — Mari Kannu, Helkoke Onduru, and Sum Sumne — would be a huge hit, and the other two would go along with the storyline.”
Lahari Velu said the two wouldn’t believe his words, but they were so excited that they wanted to release it under his music label.
“I eventually offered them ₹4.5 lakhs. They thought it was ₹45,000! The rest is history.”
He added that though distributors — who back then were only to pay the amount for the sold cassettes — expressed apprehension in the beginning, they all returned to it when the film became an instant cult hit.
“We ran a scheme of giving away 25 free cassettes for every 100 cassettes purchased. We kept it up for 50 days, but soon the demand left us all surprised. A total of 15 lakh or more cassettes were sold. The label sold it for a minimum of ₹20 per cassette,” he added.
Kannada films – Prema Loka and Ranadheera tops the sale of audio cassettes released by Lahari Music. (Supplied)
He sums it up by sharing the top five audio successes under the Lahari music label.
Velu says that A holds the record at number five.
The full list stands thus:
