It is Telugu Superman! NTR stars as the South Indian Superman who fights evil cowboys. Seriously. FOUR clips and the Theme Song as an MP3! Crazy as heck! Read it today!
1980
Directed and written by Madhusudan Rao V.
Are you are familiar with how Superman got his powers from Hanuman and got revenge on three evil cowboys? If so, then you know all about the Telugu language Superman! Everyone else, read on to be amazed! This Telugu cinema borrows from the Western Superman but manages to also follow the revenge films popular at the time.
This is by far not the only Indian take on Superman. It isn’t even the most famous. That honor goes to the 1987 Hindi version of Superman that is generally considered the Indian Superman. That production even lifts scenes directly from the original 1978 film. But that was the FOURTH Indian Superman (This one is generally called Telugu Superman and is the third made) as there were two Superman films in the 1960s, Superman (directed by Mohammed Hussain and starring Jairaj and Nirupa Roy and there is no good information online about this film besides that) and Return of Mr. Superman which started out as another Superman film but got its title and concept altered slightly because the director was friends with the director of Superman. This title is available on VCD and we got a copy! There is also another film Dariya Dil that has a song and dance number where a character wears a Superman costume, but as that is the extent of the superhero antics it is not a true Indian Superman film.
You must learn about the Tollywood film industry – the Telugu film industry, also known as Cinema of Andhra Pradesh, is the Southern Indian film industry. The main language is Telugu, hence the name (There is also a Tollywood nickname for Tamil cinema, but that is a whole different beast.) The Telugu film industry is believed to be the most prolific film producing industry currently (several other regions have also claimed that)
NTR is the man! Rama Nandamuri Taraka Rao is what you get when you combine Elvis, Jackie Chan, James Bond, Cunyet Arkin, and John Wayne. Only ANR (Akkineni Nageswara Rao) even approaches him in popularity. NTR entered film in 1949, and eventually found fame in dozens and dozens of mythological films produced by the southern Indian film industry at that time. It is hard to even look up information about NTR without running into dozens of pictures of him in mythological garb. NTR starred in over 280 films, not counting the ones he wasn’t the main character in. NTR became a director and producer later, and eventually a politician.
Unhappy with the current government of his own state and the corrupt party ruling it, NTR became the founder of the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and served as Chief Minister of the state of Andhra Pradesh. India has a parliamentary system like Britain, so keep that in mind when you read the political things that happened. He served on full term, then when he was out of the country for open heart surgery one of his aides caused him to lose power, but the chaos caused no political mandate in the assembly, forcing the Indian government to appoint a new minister, who handed power back to NTR after a month’s time and NTR called for new elections. He served on for a second term, but after suffering a stroke he was unable to run for reelection on a third term and lost out on office for five years, until he was sufficiently recovered and ran again, getting elected minister for a third time in 1994. The TDP party encountered more turmoil in 1995 where it effectively shut NTR out, and NTR reformed a new TDP party but died in 1996 before any new action could take place. The TDP party continues to exist to this day as the most powerful regional party in India. NTR introduced many reform acts for common people, including equal inheritance rights for daughters, as well as price controls on rice for poor families and taking on corrupt officials.
NTR had seven sons and four daughters across two wives, his son Nandamuri Balakrishna is considered another great Telugu actor and his grandson N. T. Rama Rao Jr. is a current young superstar in Telugu cinema, although he is criticized for imitating his grandfather too often.
An NTR-only website could stay in business for years reviewing his films. Recently, scores of classic Telugu cinema has hit DVDs, to the point where the market is flooded and you can find old classics all over the place for cheap. So you have no excuse not to be able to see an NTR film. But please read this review first, so that way you don’t leave us mid-article! This presentation is in Telugu with no subtitles, but we don’t need no stinking subs!
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Feast your eyes on the visual feast! Found via HKMDB News
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aka Return of the Magic Serpent
1970
HKMDB link
Directed by Tong Chim
Written by Poon Lui
Young Flying Hero is a rare Taiwan film. It is so rare I even wrote a Rare Movie Time!!!! post about the film, thinking I would never get to see it. But, rare Asian films have been falling out of the sky recently, and one of those films just happened to be Young Flying Hero! There are no subtitles except for permanent Chinese subtitles, so that’s no real help. But this is TarsTarkas.NET, we don’t need no stinking subtitles!
Young Flying Hero achieved semi-legendary status as hard to find among collectors, due to a painted poster that appeared regularly on ebay and some lobby cards with giant monsters. But hardly anyone could get a hold of the actual film. Thus, people began to wonder just what kind of monster action happens on screen. Having now seen the film, I can tell you it is actually a children’s film, with a young boy as the main character. The giant monsters appear briefly in the film despite their prominent place on the poster art, with less than five minutes of screen time at the very end. There are too few Chinese giant monster films (other notable films are the equally as rare (or even lost) Devil Fighter and rare War God.)
Taiwan fantasy is rapidly becoming one of my favorite subgenres because it can be both insanely bizarre but amazingly entertaining at the same time. There are about a dozen more Taiwan fantasy films in the pipeline, many of which are responses to the Shaw Brother’s epic movies. But I’ll save a history of those films for one of the other Taiwanese fantasy films, because I haven’t finished writing it yet. One interesting thing is the alternate title for the film is Return of Magic Serpent, which may be a reference to the Japanese film Magic Serpent!
Enough background, let’s get on with the show!
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