Billais a 2009 Indian Telugu-language action thriller film directed by Meher Ramesh. The film stars Prabhas in a dual role alongside Krishnam Raju, Anushka Shetty, Namitha, Rahman, and Kelly Dorjee. A remake of the 2007 Tamil film Billa by Vishnuvardhan (director),[1][2] The film began its production in October 2008 and was released on 3 April 2009 to positive reviews.
The story begins with an underworld don Billa hiding and operating out of Malaysia, hiding from Interpol's international criminal list. Krishnamoorthy, an ACP working for the Interpol, has spent the last few years looking for Billa, leaving behind a life in India.During a chase with the police, Billa is severely wounded after an accident, and dies in front of the ACP. The ACP then secretly holds a funeral for Billa. Interpol Officer Dharmendra is assigned to work with the ACP to capture the elusive Billa as no-one knows of Billa's death. The ACP keeps the death of Billa as a secret even from his fellow officers, and tracks down a look-alike called Katikaranga (Ranga), a petty thief based in Visakhapatnam. He asks Ranga to infiltrate Billa's gang by pretending to be Billa. In return, he will make sure that the children Ranga adopted, Lakshmi and Sreenu, get a proper education in Hyderabad.
Unable to prove his innocence, he escapes from a police van. He phones Dharmendra and asks him to meet at the Aero bridge. Here it is revealed that Dharmendra is none other than the Underworld Crime Don Devil, and he is the one who killed ACP Krishnamoorthy. While escaping from Devil's gang, he meets Officer Adithya, who apparently had the pen drive all along, and strikes a deal with Ranga to get hold of Devil. Meanwhile, Maya has been kidnapped by Devil after she tried to defend Ranga from Devil. Maya is tied up and kept in a car with her mouth taped shut. Ranga decides to pose as Billa to Devil, and provides Russian explosives to an arms dealer Rashid, who insisted on dealing with Billa. Enraged at being slighted by Rashid, following the completion of the deal, Devil and his henchman Ranjith fight with Ranga. Soon the police arrived and Devil, posing as Dharmendra, asks the police to arrest Ranga as Billa but gets shot by the squad of police and dies as the police have wired the entire conversation between Devil and Ranga, thus proving Ranga's innocence.
It ends with Ranga returning to Visakhapatnam with Maya, and deciding to start a school and college there with the government reward given to him and four suitcases of cash he stole from Billa's estate in Malaysia.
During the making of Kantri (2008), actor N. T. Rama Rao Jr. expressed his intention of making Billa (2007) in Telugu following his grandfather N. T. Rama Rao's Yugandhar (1979). Meher Ramesh, however, felt that Rama Rao Jr. would not fit into the role at that stage of his career. Ramesh also explored the idea of making the film with Ravi Teja, but dropped the idea due to budget constraints.[3] Ramesh later approached Prabhas who was excited to work for the project. Prabhas' uncle, Krishnam Raju, was also on board for a pivotal role, marking their first on-screen collaboration. Ramesh cast Anushka Shetty as the female lead. Shetty worked for over two months to slim down for the role. Hansika Motwani readily agreed to act in the film when suggested by Ramesh. Namitha, like Shetty, lost weight before signing the film.[3] Meher wanted either Sameer Reddy or Chota K. Naidu for the cinematography, but due to non-availability of dates from the both of them, Soundararajan was chosen instead, marking his debut in Telugu cinema.[3]
The film's score and soundtrack was composed by Mani Sharma. The audio launch of Billa was held at Shilpakala Vedika on 18 March 2009 with Dasari Narayana Rao, S. S. Rajamouli, V. V. Vinayak, Gopichand and Allu Arjun as guests. Dasari Narayana Rao launched the music. The audio rights was bagged by Lahari Music.[5] The song "My Name is Billa" was later re-used by Sharma for the Tamil film Sura (2010) as "Naan Nadanthaal Adhiradi" and "Bommali " as "Thanjavoor Jillakkaari".[6]
Billa is a 2007 Indian Tamil-language action thriller film directed by Vishnuvardhan. It is a remake of the 1980 film of the same name starring Rajnikanth, which itself is a remake of 1978 Hindi film Don, starring Amithabh Bachchan. The film stars Ajith Kumar who plays a double role as an underworld don and his friendly look-alike alongside Nayanthara and Namitha, while Prabhu, Rahman, Adithya Menon, and Santhanam playing supporting roles.[2] It is produced by L. Suresh and Abdurrahman M while featuring a score and soundtrack by Yuvan Shankar Raja, cinematography by Nirav Shah and editing by A. Sreekar Prasad.[citation needed]
The shooting of Billa commenced in April 2007 and was released and distributed worldwide by Ayngaran International on 14 December 2007.[3] The film, upon release, emerged highly successful,[4] and was selected to be screened at the 61st Cannes Film Festival.[5][6]
David Billa is a crime boss featured on Interpol's criminal list, who is hiding and operating out of Malaysia. DSP Jayaprakash has spent the last few years looking for Billa, leaving behind a life in India. During a chase with the police, Billa is severely wounded after an accident and dies in front of Jayaprakash, who secretly holds a burial of Billa. Interpol officer Gokulnath is assigned to work with Jayaprakash to capture elusive Billa as no-one knows of Billa's death. Jayaprakash keeps Billa's death as a secret even from his fellow officers, and tracks down a look-alike called Saravana Velu, a hotel server and small-time petty thief. He asks Velu to infiltrate Billa's gang by pretending to be Billa. In return, he will make sure that the child Velu adopted, Karan gets a proper education.
Jayaprakash trains Velu and sends him back to Billa's gang, disguised as an amnesiac Billa, who had been hiding at an apartment complex due to his injuries. Slowly, Velu starts to learn about Billa's gang and even speaks to Jagdish, Billa's boss on the phone. Velu provides a pen drive with the secret information of the crime network to Jayaprakash, but he is about to be killed by Sasha because her brother Rajesh as well as his fiance Rhea were killed by Billa earlier. At this juncture, Jayaprakash arrives and tells her that he is Velu and not Billa. Later before a party, Velu secretly provides information to Jayaprakash about a meeting of Billa's network and C.J., Billa's girlfriend, overhears his conversation. She confronts Velu, but in the struggle, he accidentally kills her.
Meanwhile, Sasha and Karan have been kidnapped by Jagdish and wants the pen drive in return for them. Velu meets Ranjith and gives him a second pen drive with the same data, but corrupted. When Ranjith tries to kill Velu, a scuffle ensues, making Ranjith fall from the top. In a final confrontation, Jagdish fights with Velu. Jagdish posing as Gokulnath, asks the police to arrest Velu as Billa but gets shot by the squad of police and dies as the police have wired the entire conversation between Jagdish and Velu, thus proving his innocence. Velu finally hands over the original pen drive to Officer Menon and joins Sasha and Karan.
In an interview, Vishnuvardhan said that he had "twice missed out on the chance to direct [Ajith]. The third time when I got a chance to direct him, I made sure that I would not miss it. I was all ready to write a good script for him, but he said, he wanted me to remake Billa", confirming it was Ajith's idea.[7]
After the official announcement of the production company, the director and the cameraman, Vishnuvardhan and Nirav Shah began to select other members of the cast and the crew to be a part of the Billa team. Ajith could not assist in helping choose the other members. On 13 April 2007, the eve of Tamil New Year's Day, the launch of Billa took place at the AVM studios in Vadapalani, Chennai.[8] Among the attendees were the stars of the old cast, Rajinikanth, Sripriya, Suresh Balaji as well as noted directors Mani Ratnam, Dharani, K. S. Ravikumar, and Saran. The confirmed cast until the date of the launch also were invited, among them Ajith along with his wife, Shalini, Nayanthara, Namitha and Prabhu.
Apart from the casting of Ajith in the dual lead role, previously played by Rajinikanth, the rest of the cast took nearly four months to finalise. The role played by Sripriya in the original was given to Nayantara in early 2007,[9][10] controversially after Bollywood actress, Isha Sharvani, who had been in contention to act in the last few movies of Ajith, was paid the advance.[11] Vishnuvardhan reported that he was pleased with Nayanthara's role in E and subsequently opted for her. The other lead female role in the film was initially written for Shriya Saran,[12] but due to her contract with Sivaji: The Boss, she refused to accept the film. Despite other actresses such as Trisha,[13][14] Reema Sen,[15] Asin[16] and Bhanu being considered,[17] the role was eventually given to Pooja Umashankar.[18] However, she refused the role, citing that she was reluctant to appear in a bikini, as the role required. Subsequently, Namitha was signed up for the role. Nayanthara was later finalized as the female lead.[19][20]
The remaining members of the cast were selected after the launch, which was held on 13 April 2007. Despite early reports of Prakash Raj playing the role enacted by K. Balaji of an inspector in the original,[21] the role was eventually secured by Prabhu.[22] The role of the comedian was tipped to go Vadivelu,[23] after he received rave reviews for his comic chemistry in Chandramukhi with Rajinikanth. However, despite the reviews, Vishnuvardhan's regular pattern meant that the spotlight for a comedian would be limited. Santhanam replaced him.[24] Another character artiste, Adithya, also signed up to be one of the members of the police troupe, as did Malayalam actor Rahman, who with Billa made his comeback into Tamil cinema. The item number danced by Helen in the original was originally given to Mumaith Khan,[25] but was later changed to newcomer Rose Dawn, for unknown reasons.
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