    
Idiot
Vooriki Bewarse
Username: Idiot
Post Number: 4459
Registered: 09-2004
Posted From: 199.245.32.11
| | Posted on Thursday, October 14, 2004 - 3:23 pm: |    |
Cast: Chiranjeevi, Sonali Bendre, Srikanth, Anjala Jhaveri, Paresh Rawal, Girish Karnad, Rohit.
Music: DeviSri Prasad
Dialogues: Parachuri Brothers
Direction: Jayanth C. Paranjee
Story: Shankar Dada (Chiranjeevi) lives with his gang in Hyderabad, collects money and lives happily with his gang. Shankar's father Mr.Sarma (Girish Karnad) an upright, moralistic man, thinks his son is a doctor who's also running a charity hospital. Every year when Mr.Sarma visits his son, Shankar's aDDaa turns into a mock hospital. He even gets his son to get married to his doctor friend's daughter (Sonali Bendre) who is also a student of medicine. That's when Mr.Sarma gets to know about the truth that Shankar is a dada and not a doctor. Seeing his dad's disappointment Shankar wants to become a doctor. So how he became a doctor and how he marries Sonali Bendre is the rest of the story.
Making people laugh is indeed the most arduous task, but Shankar dada has them all. Shankar Dada translates Telugu saametalu into English, such as Enki marriage comes to Subbi's death, etc.
Loosely inspired by the 1998 Hollywood flick Patch Adams starring Robin Williams (directed by Tom Shadyac), Shankar Dada MBBS's success largely lies on the shoulders of Chiranjeevi. Srikanth also appears in an key role as a sidekick of Chiranjeevi. Rohit playes the role of a cancer patient, played by Arshad Varsi in the sensational hit Hindi version Munnabhai MBBS. The coma patient role in the Hindi version is changed into a child's role in Telugu to add sentimental angle to the comedy flick.
The moviemakers intially approached the yesteryear hero Sobhan Babu for the role of hero's dad, but it went to Girish Karnad when Sobhan Babu refused to do the role. Similarly, Prakash Raj was initially considered for the role of the heroine's father (he also did the same role in the Tamil version vasool Raja MBBS starring Kamal Hasan), but the role landed in the lap of Paresh Rawal (Hearsay is that this is due to the differences between Prakash Raj and Chiranjeevi's camp about the role in Pawan Kalyan's guDumbaa Sankar). Also, Raviteja was the producers' choice for the role that later (now) went to Srikanth. Chiranjeevi recommended Srikanth, and Raviteja was ambivalent in his decision to the role, and Srikanth took the role without any hesitation.
The first song is not an item song but a duet. Next two songs in the first half are item songs. One other item song and one duet come in the second half. Sonali thus has only two songs in the film.
It's heard that Sonali was paid about 50 lakhs for this film, while Chiranjeevi got 6 crores. The film was made a with a budget of 16 to 17 crore rupees, and was sold for about 26 crores, making a cool profit of 9 crores to the producer. (If the film is not released in Karnataka due to the conflicts with the Kannada film industry and exhibitors, then they will lose at least a crore rupees there.)
Some financiers for the film filed a legal case to stop the release of the film until they get their dues, but were unable to do so as the court said the company name was (now) different.
Shankar Dada M B B S  |
