Kandireega

Kandireega
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Santosh Srinivas
Written by	Anil Ravipudi
Produced by	Bellamkonda Suresh
Starring	Ram Pothineni Hansika Motwani Sonu Sood Aksha Pardasany
Cinematography	I. Andrew
Edited by	Kotagiri Venkateswara Rao
Music by	S. Thaman
Production companies	Sri Sai Ganesh Productions and Multidimension Entertainments Private Limited
Release date	12 August 2011 (2011-08-12)
Running time	160 minutes
Country	India
Language	Telugu
Box office	₹37.5 crore[1]

Kandireega (transl. Wasp) is a 2011 Indian Telugu-language romantic comedy action film directed by Santosh Srinivas and produced by Bellamkonda Suresh under Sri Sai Ganesh Productions. The film stars Ram Pothineni, Hansika Motwani, Sonu Sood and Aksha Pardasany with the music scored by S. Thaman. Released on 12 August 2011, the film was a commercial success, collecting a share of ₹22 crore at the box office.^[2] It was remade in Bengali as Paglu 2 and in Hindi as Main Tera Hero (2014).^[3] Four years later it was dubbed in Hindi as Dangerous Khiladi 4.^[4]

Sreenu is the son of Vishwanatham. He is a high school dropout in Anakapalle and wants to marry his uncle's daughter Bujji. She rejects him, stating that he doesn’t have a basic college education. Sreenu, who is clever and street-smart, decides to go to Hyderabad for further education. While traveling on the train, he bashes up a bunch of rowdies teasing college girls. At the college in Hyderabad, he meets Shruthi and falls in love with her. The city gangster Bhavani is in love with her and blackmails her into marrying him. He beats anyone moving closely with Shruthi. Meanwhile, henchmen of Rajanna, a dreaded chieftain from Warangal, are looking for Sreenu in the city.

Sreenu meets Bhavani and forces him to a challenge, whereby, he will make Shruthi love him. Sreenu rescues Shruthi from being kidnapped by the gang of Yadayya, a rival of Bhavani. When Sreenu wins Shruthi's heart, and both of them decide to elope, she is kidnapped.

It is then revealed that Rajanna kidnapped Shruthi to get hold of Sreenu because Rajanna's daughter Sandhya is in love with Sreenu. She was on the train during the night and gets impressed by him. Sreenu lands at Rajanna's place and finds himself in a fix. Bhavani, too, arrives at Rajanna's place to take away Shruthi. A police intelligence officer, Avataram, Rajanna's brother-in-law, comes to attend Sreenu and Sandhya's wedding. Sreenu and Bhavani start their one-upmanship games to win Shruthi.

How Sreenu comes out of this quagmire to rescue Shruthi from the clutches of Rajanna and Bhavani and what happens to Sandhya are revealed in the climax interspersed with twists and turns.

This film was initially announced in October 2009 with Ravi Teja playing the lead role and with Krishna Vamsi as director, with the producer announcing the film as a partly fantasy venture.^[5] The film progressed in pre-production with Tamannaah Bhatia and Sneha Ullal being considered to portray the heroine role, whilst the fantasy elements in the original script were removed.^[6] In April 2010, it was revealed that the producer and Ravi Teja had fallen out and he was replaced by Ram.^[7] Thetfilming began in October 2010 with Ram and Hansika Motwani, whilst actress Swati Reddy shot scenes the following month.^[8] Ram stated on his Twitter account that the film had three female lead roles, and suggested that Nisha Aggarwal was signed on.

During the first schedule, events on the set of the film became the reason for the Telugu film industry strikes of 2010 after Telugu film fighters attacked Tamil film technicians in Chennai on the sets of the film in December 2009.^[9][10] Enraged by this, producers called for a bandh the next day. However, film workers declared a strike immediately after that for an indefinite period. The crisis affected the whole film industry and no films were shot in Andhra Pradesh during late December and early January during negotiations.^[11]

After filming had resumed, the original music director Chakri was replaced by S. Thaman in March 2011.^[12]

Kandireega's audio was launched at Taj Deccan in Hyderabad on 14 July 2011. Venkatesh was the chief guest at the audio launch. Dharmavarapu Subramaniam, hero Gopichand, producer Bellamkonda Suresh, director of the film Santosh Srinivas, senior director V. V. Vinayak, music composer S. S. Thaman, actress Aksha, Sravanti Ravikishore etc. all were present at the grand audio launch.^[13]

The film was theatrically released on 12 August 2011.^{[citation needed]}

In a bid to acquire the film, Gemini TV was competing but the rights were acquired by Zee Telugu.

Jeevi of Idlebrain rated the film 3 out of 5 and stated that "Kandireega is a kind of script that is prepared to cater to comedy and mass elements. It is a mass masala movie with ample entertainment".^[14] Echoing the same, The Times of India stated: "Though the story isn’t too original, Kandireega is an out-and-out entertainer that doesn’t leave you bored for even a second".^[15]

The film was remade in Hindi as Main Tera Hero and in Bengali as Paglu 2.^[16]

• Kandireega at IMDb