Okkadunnadu

Okkadunnadu (“There Is One Man”) is a 2007 Telugu action thriller directed by Chandra Sekhar Yeleti and produced by Chiranjeevi (Cherry) Pedamallu in his debut as a producer, under the Clap Entertainment banner. Gopichand plays a man with the rare Bombay blood group whose blood, and heart, a gangster needs. Neha Jhulka makes her film debut, Mahesh Manjrekar his Telugu debut, and Nassar and Rahul Dev play key roles, with music by M. M. Keeravani. It was released on 3 March 2007 to positive reviews.

What the story is about

Kiran, who has the rare Bombay blood group, arrives in Mumbai to sell his guest house through an estate agent, Gautami. When he offers blood to someone in need, he is approached by the gangster Sona Bhai, who has the same blood type. Kiran agrees to donate, but Sona’s nephew secretly warns him that he will be killed, and Kiran soon learns that what Sona really wants is his heart. The rest is a chase through Mumbai, with Kiran’s own family history, his father’s collapsed private bank, slowly coming into the story.

Cast and crew

• Gopichand as Kiran
• Mahesh Manjrekar as Sona Bhai
• Nassar as Jayadev, Sona Bhai’s right-hand man
• Neha Jhulka as Gautami
• Rahul Dev as Sona’s nephew
• Suman as Gowri Shankar, Kiran’s father, and Pragathi as his mother
• Brahmanandam as the auditor Satyanarayana and Tanikella Bharani as a Reserve Bank official
• Rao Ramesh as a man searching for Bombay blood

Director: Chandra Sekhar Yeleti. Producer: Chiranjeevi Pedamallu. Dialogue: Koratala Siva, his first solo dialogue credit. Music: M. M. Keeravani. Cinematography: Jaya Krishna Gummadi. Runtime: 136 minutes.

Making the film

Yeleti built the story around the rare Bombay blood group and real incidents connected with it, set against heart transplantation, and added the familiar backdrop of a bank scam in the hero’s past; he talked about the process in an Idlebrain interview. He wrote the script with Gopichand, Nassar and Rahul Dev in mind, and advised Gopichand to study Tom Hanks. For the villain the team wanted someone between 50 and 60, which led to Mahesh Manjrekar; Neha Jhulka came from commercials. Nassar played his part with one eye larger than the other. The film was shot largely in Mumbai, with three big sets in Hyderabad and three fight masters, while the songs, directed by Krishna Vamsi, were filmed in Dubai.

Reviews and box office

Idlebrain gave it 3.25 out of five, calling it a “Blood Chase”, and IndiaGlitz said Yeleti, “a champion of gripping screenplay”, had passed “with flying colours”. Sify praised the photography and slick editing but thought Keeravani scored more with the background music than the songs, calling it “an average flick” for urban audiences.

The film opened strongly, then fell away. Its makers disagree on the result: the producer told Idlebrain it was financially satisfactory and that distributors broke even, while Yeleti has described it as commercially unsuccessful; TV9 later called it an average grosser. (Wikipedia gives both 2 and 3 March 2007 as the release date; our record has 3 March.)

Where to watch Okkadunnadu

We do not have a confirmed streaming listing for Okkadunnadu on file. If we verify one with a platform, it will appear on this page.

Sources: the Wikipedia article on Okkadunnadu and the reviews and interviews it cites, linked above; our own cast and crew records.