''Athanokkade'' () is a 2005 Indian Telugu-language

action thriller film Action film is a film genre in which the protagonist is thrust into a series of events that typically involve violence and physical feats. The genre tends to feature a mostly resourceful hero struggling against incredible odds, which include life ...

written and directed by

Surender Reddy Surender Reddy is an Indian film director and screenwriter who works in Telugu cinema. He made his directorial debut with '' Athanokkade'' (2005), which won him Nandi Award for Best First Film of a Director. He later directed films such as ''K ...

. It was produced by Nandamuri Janaki Ram, Kalyan Ram's elder brother, under the banner N. T. R. Arts. It stars Kalyan Ram,

Sindhu Tolani Sindhu Tolani is an Indian actress working in Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and Hindi language films. Tolani was born in Mumbai, India on 19 July 1983. She has been a '' Fair & Lovely'' cream model in North India. Film career Sindhu Tolani starte ...

, and

Ashish Vidyarthi Ashish Vidyarthi (born 19 June 1962) is an Indian actor who predominantly works in Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam, English, Odia, Marathi and Bengali films. He is noted for his antagonist and character roles. In 1995, he received t ...

in the lead roles, with the music composed by

Mani Sharma Mani may refer to: Geography * Maní, Casanare, a town and municipality in Casanare Department, Colombia * Mani, Chad, a town and sub-prefecture in Chad * Mani, Evros, a village in northeastern Greece * Mani, Karnataka, a village in Dakshin ...

. The film was released theatrically on 7 May 2005. Following its commercial success, the film was remade in

Tamil Tamil may refer to: * Tamils, an ethnic group native to India and some other parts of Asia **Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka also called ilankai tamils **Tamil Malaysians, Tamil people native to Malaysia * Tamil language, nativ ...

as ''

Aathi ''Aathi'' () or known as ''Aadhi'' is a 2006 Indian Tamil-language action thriller film, directed by Ramana and produced by S. A. Chandrasekhar. Starring Vijay in the lead role, it is a remake of the 2005 Telugu film '' Athanokkade''. The ...

'' (2006) and in

Kannada Kannada (; ಕನ್ನಡ, ), originally romanised Canarese, is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by the people of Karnataka in southwestern India, with minorities in all neighbouring states. It has around 47 million native sp ...

as ''

Lakshmana Lakshmana ( sa, लक्ष्मण, lit=the fortunate one, translit=Lakṣmaṇa), also spelled as Laxmana, is the younger brother of Rama and his loyalist in the Hindu epic ''Ramayana''. He bears the epithets of Saumitra () and Ramanuja (). ...

'' (2016). The film was set to be remade in Hindi as ''He, The Only One'', but the film was never released. It was later dubbed in

Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been d ...

as ''International Don''.

Plot

The opening scene shows Anjali sitting on a bench feeding a white pigeon by a calm ocean, and a retired DGP Shankar coming and sitting by her side and exchanging pleasantries. Suddenly, she whips out a knife and stabs him to death with the help of her maternal uncle Ramachandran, saying that she has been waiting for this moment for many years. After that, the scene shifts to Ram who lives with his loving parents and sister in New Delhi. He takes up a course in a Hyderabad college against his parents' wishes. Unable to be separated from Ram, his parents and sister come to Hyderabad along with him. It is revealed that Anjali is studying in the same college as Ram, and she has her own agenda to seek revenge on her family's killers, assisted by Ramachandran. Anna is a local gangster, who enters and is shown to have a dispute with another gangster named Pattabhai. To exact their revenge, Ramachandran attempts to kill one of Anna's aides, Abdullah, but fails to do so since Ram kills him. Naturally, Anna assumes that the killer can be none other than Pattabhai, so he kills him. However, Ram arrives and with help from Gulab Singh threatens Anna telling that he was the one who killed Abdullah and that he will also kill Sada, Anna's second main aide. Sada gets angry and goes to kill Ram, but Ram kills Sada while his family are horrified by his actions. On being questioned, Ram reveals his past. Ram's biological father was an honest ACP in Hyderabad, who arrested one of Anna's henchmen. It is revealed that Anjali and Ram are from the same family, as Anjali's father is Ram's father's brother-in-law. Anna pays Ram's house a visit and asks his grandfather to release his henchmen. When Ram's grandfather refuses, Anna threatens them only to find knives held at him by Ram's cousins. Ram's father arrives and arrests Anna. Infuriated, he pays them a visit with some of his henchmen and Shankar. Together, they murder their whole family. Only Anjali, Ramachandran, and Ram survived the blast that annihilated their family. After the house is blown up by Anna, Ram escapes and is taken by his foster parents. Meanwhile, Anjali feels that one of her family members is still alive, as someone keeps a flower on the Buddha statue of their former house, which is now the city library. It turns out to be Ram. On finding out his past, Ram's foster parents request him to come back, but he refuses. He then takes them to the railway station, but is nearly ambushed. He succeeds on defeating them and meets Anna, warning him to bring his brother from Dubai. Soon, he arrives and kills Ramachandran in revenge before challenging Ram to meet him at his brother's place. Ram arrives and after finding out that Anna has Anjali kept under hostage, he escapes after killing Ajay. Ram kills Anna and is shown to be leaving with Anjali and his foster parents, the only ones left in his family.

Cast

* Kalyan Ram as Ram *

as Anjali *

as Anna *

Prakash Raj Prakash Raj (born Prakash Rai; 26 March 1965) is an Indian actor, film director, producer, television presenter, and politician. Known for his works in Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Hindi, and Malayalam-language films, he is the recipient of severa ...

as Ram's father * Chandra Mohan as Ram's foster father *

Brahmanandam Kanneganti Brahmanandam (born 1 February 1956), known mononymously as Brahmanandam, is an Indian actor, comedian, impersonator, and voice actor known for his works predominantly in Telugu cinema. He is particularly known for his comic perform ...

as Johnny *

Rajyalakshmi Rajyalakshmi Chandu, better known by her stage name Sankarabharanam Rajyalakshmi (born 18 December 1964) is an Indian actress. She was a prominent lead actress during the 1980s in Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam films. She was well noted ...

as Ram's foster mother *

Surya Surya (; sa, सूर्य, ) is the sun as well as the solar deity in Hinduism. He is traditionally one of the major five deities in the Smarta tradition, all of whom are considered as equivalent deities in the Panchayatana puja and a m ...

as Ramachandran, Anjali's uncle *

Sudeepa Pinky Sudeepa Raparthi (born 28 February 1987), better known by her stage name, Sudeepa Pinky, is an Indian actress who predominantly appears in Telugu cinema. She started giving stage performances at the age of 3, and learned classical dance from ...

as Ram's foster sister *

Chalapathi Rao Chalapathi Rao (8 May 1944 – 24 December 2022) was an Indian actor and producer known for comedy and villainous roles in Telugu cinema. He acted in different roles in more than 600 films. Personal life and death Rao hailed from Baliparru, K ...

as Ram's grandfather * Venu Madhav as Gulab Singh * Rami Reddy as Pattabhai *

Ahuti Prasad Ahuti Prasad (born Adusumilli Janardhan Vara Prasad; 2 January 1958 – 4 January 2015) was an Indian actor who worked in Telugu film industry. He was renowned for the wide variety of roles he played, including father-figure, comedian, and ant ...

as DGP Bhavani Shankar * Ajay as Anna's brother *

Raghu Babu Yerra Raghu, known professionally as Raghu Babu, is a Telugu comedian well known for his comic expressions and timing. He has worked in many successful films in Telugu industry. He is the eldest son of famous comedian and character actor Giri ...

as Abdullah * G. V. Sudhakar Naidu as Sada * Narsing Yadav *

Dharmavarapu Subrahmanyam Dharmavarapu Subrahmanyam (20 September 1954 – 7 December 2013) was a popular Indian actor, comedian and film director who worked in Telugu cinema. He was established as one of the highly paid and top most leading comedians in Telugu film in ...

Soundtrack

The music was composed by

and released by

Aditya Music Aditya Music India Private Limited is a music company in India, which owns the label Aditya Music. It produces music for the Telugu cinema industry and is headquartered at Hyderabad, Telangana. Overview The company was founded by Umesh Gup ...

. The song "Chita Pata" is based on "Dhoom Thanakkadi" from the Malayalam film ''

Mullavalliyum Thenmavum ''Mullavalliyum Thenmavum'' () is a 2003 Indian Malayalam-language romance film directed by V. K. Prakash, starring Kunchacko Boban and Chaya Singh. Plot Shelly and his girlfriend, Rajasree are in love, but Rajasree's mother is against their ...

''.

Reception

B. Anuradha of ''

Rediff.com Rediff.com (stylized as ''rediff.com'') is an Indian news, information, entertainment and shopping web portal. It was founded in 1996. It is headquartered in Mumbai, with offices in Bangalore, New Delhi and New York City. , it had more than 300 ...

'' opined that "All in all, this is a lavish masala film is worth watching". Jeevi of '' Idlebrain.com'' said that "On a whole, ''Athanokkade'' is a commendable effort by the debutant director Surendar and debutant producer Janakiram Nandamuri". A critic from ''Full Hyderabad'' wrote that "On the whole, a film worth a watch".

Box office

The film was released with 72 prints initially and later 24 prints were added. The film became a commercial success. It ran for 50 days in 80 centres and crossed 100 days in 46 centres in

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

Accolades

;

Filmfare Awards South Filmfare Awards South is the South Indian segment of the annual Filmfare Awards, presented by the Filmfare magazine of The Times Group to honour both artistic and technical excellence of professionals in the Indian film industry encompassing f ...

* Best Villain - Ashish Vidyarthi ;

Nandi Awards The Nandi Awards are the awards that recognise the excellence in Telugu cinema, Telugu theatre and Telugu television, and Lifetime achievements in Indian cinema. Presented annually by the Government of Andhra Pradesh, the award is named after ...

* Best Debut Director - Surender Reddy * Best Character Actor - Chandra Mohan

References

External links

* {{Surender Reddy 2005 films Indian action films Telugu films remade in other languages Films directed by Surender Reddy Films scored by Mani Sharma 2000s Telugu-language films 2000s masala films Indian films about revenge 2005 directorial debut films 2005 action films Films set in Visakhapatnam Films shot in Visakhapatnam Films set in Andhra Pradesh Films shot in Andhra Pradesh