Story, Screenplay, Direction : Gunasekhar
Producer : Gunasekhar | Raagini Guna
Cast : Anushka Shetty, Allu Arjun, Rana Daggubati, Vikramjeet Virk, Prakash Raj, Krishnam Raju, Nithya Menen
Music : Ilaiyaraaja
Cinematography : Ajayan Vincent
Editing : A. Sreekar Prasad
Production company : Gunaa Team Works
Run Time : 158 mins

With the season studded with fantasy and period films, Rudramadevi starring Anushka Shetty, Rana Daggubati and Allu Arjun in lead roles. The film is directed and produced by Gunasekhar with musical score by Maestro Ilayaraja and art by Thotta Tharani.

Born in the Kakatiya dynasty, Rudrama is a princess born in the family, but due to some circumstances and to avoid the confrontations from the neighbouring territories, the elders designate her as boy naming her as Rudradeva. After many years, in spite of knowing about her identity as a girl Rudrama manages to maintain the secrecy. But sooner, the identity is revealed and yet facing all the hurdles, the film speaks about the tale of the striving queen to save her kingdom.

In accordance to the nativity, we have a depth of history owing to different regions and Rudramadevi as the name suggests has been one of the most prominent rulers.. Although the drama here is fictional events, the director has implemented an interesting plot of women empowerment. Storytelling is an integral part of Indian culture, especially when it comes to period genre, it enhances more fascination, when we read in our academic history syllabus. The storytelling is quite impressive, but the way, it is narrated on the screens seems to be losing the momentum. When we speak about a film with female protagonist, the characters offending her antagonists should be someone like herculean devils, but they look like a model. Technically, the CG works are appreciable, but it could have been intensely pushed to the next level to have an international standards. In fact, having seen a movie like Baahubali coming from the same industry, it turns out to be a mediocre on comparison. Musical score by Ilayaraja is appreciable; especially his background score, but the songs don’t get a proper placement. In some places, there is no proper synch between the visuals, situations and music. The art work by Thotta Tharani is commendable.

Anushka has strained me a lot over this film and it is quite evident that But when it comes to Suman and Aditya are seen as goofy characters. Allu Arjun with his mannerisms and body language has his portions well executed. But his moments are like parallel events, where sometimes we feel he is purposely injected into the movie to enhance the sequences. Rana Daggubati gets his role to perfection… Prakash Raj as counselor is okay. Nithya Menen albeit her minima; portion does justice to her role and Catherine Tresa is seen as Allu’s pair, but with her glittery skimpy costumes…

On the whole, Rudramadevi holds some prominence for its grandeur and some good performances. If it was done with a good top-notch technical aspects and an engaging screenplay, the film would have been better.