Hong Kong action film in the Indian B circuit

Abstract

As with the rest of India and perhaps many other parts of the world, the success of Bruce Lee’s Enter the Dragon (Robert Clouse, 1973), released across the state between 1976 and the early 1980s, is where the story begins. Within a few years a new generation of male Telugu film stars began to perform their own stunts in action sequences which were clearly modelled on Hong Kong films. Notable among these are Chiranjeevi, Suman and Arjun. Indeed, even the more senior N.T. Rama Rao, who started his career in the late 1940s but was still very popular in the late 1970s, had to bow to this trend when he played the role of a martial arts expert in Yugapurushudu (K. Bapaiah, 1978). In other responses, the Telugu industry tried to invent a local martial arts tradition in turn mobilized to fight feudal oppression ( for example Sivudu, Sivudu, Sivudu, A. Kodandarami Reddy, 1983). In the wake of the popularity of female action stars from Hong Kong, the Telugu female vigilante film emerged as a distinct genre in the 1990s. Twin Dragons (Tsui Hark, Ringo Lam, 1992) was remade as Hello Brother (E.V.V. Satyanarayana, 1994). More recently, Bhadrachalam (Shankar, 2001) a full-fledged Telugu martial arts film, was hugely successful leading to rumours that many more may be in the pipeline.