King (2008 film)

King
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Sreenu Vaitla
Screenplay by	Sreenu Vaitla B. V. S. Ravi (dialogue)
Story by	Kona Venkat Gopimohan
Produced by	D. Siva Prasad Reddy
Starring	Nagarjuna Akkineni Trisha Mamta Mohandas Srihari
Cinematography	Prasad Murella
Edited by	M. R. Varma
Music by	Devi Sri Prasad
Production company	Kamakshi Movies
Release date	25 December 2008 (2008-12-25)
Running time	181 minutes
Country	India
Language	Telugu

King is a 2008 Indian Telugu-language action comedy thriller film directed by Sreenu Vaitla. The film stars Nagarjuna Akkineni in the titular role, Trisha, Mamta Mohandas and Srihari. Devi Sri Prasad composed the film's music.^[1]

King hails from a royal family, having taken over the legacy and riches after the death of his father, Raja Ravi Chandra Varma. King has a younger brother Ajay, a mother, a maternal uncle, and his late father's three sisters, who are married. Their husbands are Appaji, Kona Venkat, and Gopi Mohan. The uncles steal money that is for the workers. They make it look as though the employee Chandu is responsible. King believes and fires Chandu. Suddenly, King knew the uncles had hidden the money in their room. He kept quiet because of his aunts.

Before King leaves the airport, this mysterious guy is after King. A few days later, King and Swapna discuss something next to a graveyard. The same creepy guy from the airport tries to shoot King but misses. King chases the shooter to the cemetery, but the shooter suddenly disappears. Munna calls King's cell phone. King tells Munna that he's in a graveyard. Munna asks if King is OK, to which he says yes. Unfortunately, Swapna shoots King from behind. He sees her face and realizes that she is working with the shooter. Swapna reshoots King. King is presumed dead. Munna tells the police that King went missing. At least one day later, when the police take Munna to a hospital morgue, a dead body looks like King. Munna tells the police that none of the corpses are King's body. Kona Venkat and Gopi Mohan say that Appaji's responsible for King's disappearance. Appaji escapes, and it is assumed that he is responsible. King's mother believes that her son is safe.

Another story thread is incorporated through the introduction of gangster Bottu Seenu, who falls in love with singer Sravani. Sravani does not care for a wastrel like Bottu Seenu, so he poses as a software engineer named Sarath to impress her. Bottu Seenu meets the real Sarath. Sravani's elder brother Gnaneswar knows Bottu Seenu, but he would get mad at Bottu Seenu for loving Sravani. Bottu Seenu pretends to be Sarath, who wears a tie, shirt, and pants. Gnaneswar gets fooled too. The real Sarath imposes Bottu Seenu in front of a cop by mistake. The cop mistakes Sarath for Bottu Seenu and beats him up badly in a hilarious way.

Meanwhile, Appaji sends goons to look for King, thinking he's still alive. They run into Bottu Seenu, who thrashes them. Appaji proposes a deal to Bottu Seenu and asks him to pose as King and return to the palace. After Munna informed King's family that King had disappeared, Appaji tried to escape, but Munna picked him up. Munna gave a picture of the King's corpse, time, and date to Appaji. Appaji had nothing to do with King's murder. Once Bottu Seenu gets access to King's bank accounts, Appaji can repay his debts because he borrowed much money from goons. Sravani and Gnaneswar mistake Bottu Seenu for Sharath again. They accompany Bottu Seenu to the palace. The first twist: Swapna is none other than Chandu's daughter, but Chandu committed suicide because nobody believed that he did not steal the money; Bhagath Seth hired Swapna and the mysterious shooter; the mysterious shooter is Baba, and Swapna's real name is Pooja.

Bhagath hires Pooja to kill King's brother Ajay. Ajay brings his girlfriend Pooja to his home. Suddenly, Bottu Seenu attacks Pooja, but a few seconds later, he has no idea what happened. Gnaneshwar believes King's spirit came to get revenge and control Bottu Seenu. Bottu Seenu gets engaged to Sravani. Pooja knows that the King is not living in the palace right now. Bhagath hires many guys, including Baba, to dress up in black and kill King's impostor and Ajay in the court during the night. Bhagath Seth thinks that he shouldn't trust girls, including Pooja. King's spirit controls Bottu Seenu and saves Ajay from Pooja. Another twist is that Ajay met Pooja right before she killed King. She feels Ajay depends too much on his brother, so he tells her to kill King. The third twist: Bottu Seenu/Sharath is revealed as King.

Munna captures Baba, who reveals his motive for planning to kill Swapna, who is Chandu's daughter too. Pooja said what happened that day but didn't kill King. The father and friends who cared for Bottu Seenu were Munna's people. Munna's real name is Bottu Seenu. King says that Ajay's mistake is unforgivable. King's family members are feeling sad, so he decides to leave. He dies in an explosion that takes place in his car. King's mother leaves and doesn't want anyone to look for her. Everyone else is probably still mad at Ajay. The fourth twist is that King is still alive.

He reveals his plan only to Shravani: King asks Bhagath's henchman (who kidnapped Ajay at the beginning of the movie) to tell him about Bhagath's evil plans. After King got shot, Munna took him to the hospital. Swapna's details were fake, so that they couldn't find her. He decided to play this double-role drama. Bhagath's henchman/King's informer reveals the shooter is working for Bhagath, too but doesn't find details about Swapna. When King met his uncles again, none had anything to do with it. King realized that Ajay was behind everything. King's informer blew up King's car after he escaped. This was King's plan too. The informer puts a bomb inside Bhagath's car, too, so King talks to Bhagath on the phone before Bhagath dies. King pretends to be Sarath in front of everyone else.

Bottu Seenu/Munna's father and friends were responsible for messing up lights and pulling tables with rope in King's palace. They did it to make it look like King's spirit came for revenge.

Music was composed by Devi Sri Prasad. The tune of "O Manmadhuda" is reused from the title track of the Kannada movie Sangama. Music was released on ADITYA Music Company. The following actors appeared in the film's "Nuvvu Ready Nenu Ready" song segment: Genelia D'Souza, Shriya Saran, Kamna Jethmalani, Charmy Kaur, Anushka Shetty, Priyamani, and Sneha Ullal .

The film was dubbed into Hindi as King No. 1 in 2010 and into Tamil as Pudhukottai Azhagan and in Malayalam as King, and it was dubbed in Bhojpuri as Main Hoon King.

The Times of India gave the film 3 stars out of 5 and wrote: "Being a star-centric film, director Sreenu Vytla sensibly blends action into his comedy plot and succeeds to quite an extent, barring a few lapses. However, the director's forte has always been fun-centric movies, and again he doesn't disappoint on that score."^[2] Idlebrain.com rated 3/5 and opined that the film's screenplay is "extremely complicated" and "The director could not evenly distribute the twists in the film."^[3]

• King at IMDb