dangermousie | Reincarnated to Kick More Butt - Magadheera (India 2009)

I am absolutely in love with the Telugu hit Magadheera which involves reincarnation, revenge and true love. Ass-kicking + musical numbers = what more can you want?

So, what is it about?

Four hundred years ago, in the Kingdom of Udaigarh, the best warrior of the Kingdom, Bhairava (Ram Charan Teja) and its Princess, Mitravinda (Kajal Agarwal) fell in love. But their love is not to be, and in fact they cannot even hold hands as they die. If this were a Korean movie, this would be the ending. But as it is Tollywood, this is merely the beginning. Fast-forward to the present and Bhairava and Mitravinda, reincarnated as a rugged street biker Harsha and mischievious college student Indu, will meet again. Will their love succeed this time or will it fail? After all, the evil villain of their past lives has reincarnated as well - he did not let Bhairava have Mitravinda in the past and he is not about to let go of his obsession now.

I did a summary of opening scene of the movie here. Short version: we meet Bhairava and Mitravinda in the last moments of their lives. He finally confesses his feelings but it's too late, and as her dead body falls off the cliff, he jumps after it trying to desperately hold hands with her but...no luck.

And now we are in 2009. Meet Harsha - he earns his living by doing motorcycle stunts:

Also shilling for drinks as a side business :P

He wins the street bet and the female organizer tries to run off with the money leading to a truly bizarre picturization. That's Harsha - he will dance his money back!

It also leads to a cameo by Telugu superstar Chiranjeevi, who, I must say, despite being in his mid-50s, seems to still shake his moneymaker like nobody's business. It is all the more amusing as Ram Charan Teja is Chiranjeevi's son. (No, I have no idea why they have different names, either).

Anyway, the amusing diversion aside, we are about to start on our main plot and the meeting of our destined lovers. It is raining and Indu, dressed in white (surely not the best color for the weather) is desperately tying to catch an auto-rikshaw.

Her outstretched fingers accidentally brush Harsha's fingers as he is riding in a rikshaw. Sparks literally fly and he gets flashbacks of the past...

Harsha tells his bewildered comic relief friend that he simply must see this girl again, and dashes out of the rikshaw like a mad person.

Problem is - all he saw is that the girl was wearing white and Indu has put on a long black coat on top.

He is desperately asking all the people at the stop about a girl in white and Indu, cautious but curious, tells him she knows the girl he speaks of and why is he looking for her. Realizing "because I fell in love at first touch" would sound pretty insane, Harsha concocts a tale of true love with his beloved "Rani" (When Indu exclaims "she goes by Indu now!" half-indignant, half-amused, he quickly counters that her evil father who is against their love must have changed her name to fool him!)

Indu tells him she will let him meet Indu (yes, confusing) but instead she just basically plays a bunch of pretty funny scams/pranks on him. His friend points out he is being taken for a ride, but Harsha may be competent and dangerous but is not that bright. Plus is smitten.

Meet the Villain. His hobbies include parricide, reincarnation, and killing people while shirtless. We first meet him when he kills a lawyer who displeased him with a spear.

He plans to kill Indu's father (due to a property dispute) but sees Indu and is smitten by lust.

So he kills his own father instead (old man was on obstacle to his plans) and ingratiates himself to Indu's father - Indu's father being unable to see the psychopath eyes apparently.

This was a really awesome scene. Indu told Harsha she will bring Indu to him at the movies (her plan is to get him to treat her and her friend to IMAX tickets :)) but on the way to meet him, she was accosted by a bunch of louts who tried to harass her. She is still angry and upset when she meets Harsha who is pretty self-absorbed about soon meeting the girl he is fixated on and pays no attention to Indu's complaints about the louts. Stung, she tells him Indu won't come because the guys said worse things about her.

Uh-oh. That certainly penetrates. Harsha marches off to take the whole gang apart. By himself. For insulting his lady's name. How deliciously medieval.

Gotta love a girl who falls in love with a man upon seeing him take out a bunch of thugs.

She tells Harsha that Indu will now meet them at the park and off they go.

It's hilarious how she is trying to find out things about him now - what does he do for a living, how many relationships he's had (his answer is some but none of the heart, LOL) - and he is distracted and not interested.

He even tells her to walk further off because what if Indu sees them - she may misunderstand!

Her friend is all - hey, you like him, why don't you tell him you are Indu? Her response is he is so cute all anxious and sulky, she wants to watch him pine for her a bit more. Cue a truly adorable song picturization.

She comes home in an excellent mood from her 'date' (to Harsha's frustration, Indu didn't show up again :P) only to discover Psycho there.

Psycho decides to have a little fun rape (I must say Indu sleeps like the dead)

Only for a ghostly presence to appear and save Indu - the blood may also be ghostly but it freaks out villain enough he leaves for the night. Lock your door, Indu, k?

Villain goes to vist some crazy guru to find out why he couldn't rape! Poor thing, such a serious cramp in your lifestyle! Crazy guru tells him that he is a reincarnation of a bad guy from 400 yrs ago, Indu is a reincarnation of Princess Mitravinda and what protected her was Bhairava and he's probably reincarnated too. Villain decides not to worry about metaphysics but just to find the guy and kill him.

Here for the hotness:

Harsha and his friend are watching a mounted police parade and by (bad) luck, Villain sits there too - his goons are looking for Harsha meanwhile - they may not know he's Bhairava but Indu is not allowed to even look at another dude, as per villain.

Tongue-in-cheek Harsha and humorless and insane villain do not get along.

There is commotion caused by the Villain and his goons failing to kill Harsha (who doesn't even realize they were trying) and the horses riot. Harsha is trying to get out of the way of stampede:

Yes, Indu is on this bus and their hands touch. Again. What follows is my favorite scene in the movie so far.

Once again, everything ceases to exist for Harsha but his need to see the girl who makes this happen. He grabs a runaway horse and chases after the bus.

Indu's white scarf blows off her and flies into his face.

And then he sees who the girl is - the girl whose friend (also on the bus) is calling her right now "Indu!", who is wearing white, and whom he spent the last week with. It all falls into place.

Have a cute little flashback:

He wraps his face in her scarf and rides close to the bus, refusing to relinqish it and jubilantly proclaiming his feelings. Indu can't tell who this is so she thinks the guy is a total nut!

Next morning she contemplates telling Harsha about the lunatic, saying he offended Indu, and having Harsha track and beat the guy up.

Ooops, Harsha is there. He's come to tell her he's found Indu on his own, thank you so much, won't be seeing you again. LOL.

He also conducts a fake phone conversation with "Indu", hinting that they already spent the night together and now plan to get married and to meet at X park as the overhearing Indu gets more and more pissed and jealous.

She ditches her Uni exams (unscrewing the barred windows LOL) and chases after him.

She tracks Harsha to a very pretty park only to see him canoodling with a woman.

Bwahahahahahahaaa! Surprise! Turnabout is fair play!

And then Harsha shows Indu her scarf, showing her he knows.

We enter another awesome picturization. Enjoy it, woobies, the angst is about to hit!

Her father is a tour guide and due to some bad luck comes upon them. He assumes some random rough guy is harrassing his daughter - he is pulling her by the scarf after all.

He has his daughter dragged off and Harsha, who has no idea who this guy is, loses it and tells him that if he tries to separate him and Indu he will kill him. That is so going to come back to bite him in his shapely ass.

Indu begs her father's blessing, saying she loves Harsha and he didn't mean to threaten, he was just terrified about losing her. Indu's Dad is a good guy so he accepts the explanation.

So when Harsha comes to the house, all chastened and shy, he tells the young man he can marry his daughter with paternal blessings.

A-ha! The villain is not about to let this happen. He chokes Daddy to death with Indu's unfortunate scarf and Harsha can't go to help because Villain's thugs basically clubbed him into unconsciousness.

Indu hears the commotion and comes downstairs only to discover her father dead, Harsha trying to revive the body and Villain and his thugs all yelling at him as to why he killed the poor old man. A++ frame-up, bad guy!

It does NOT look good, especially with past threats and Indu not knowing her new love so well. She curses him and his desperate attempts to explain are not met with success - villain is not about to let them.

Shell-shocked Indu gets into villain's helicopter but villain pauses to perform a bit of creepily sexualized face-wiping with her scarf to taunt Harsha. Dude, get a blow-up doll!