Annayya

Annayya (“Elder Brother”) is a 2000 Telugu family drama directed by Muthyala Subbaiah, who wrote the screenplay with Bhupati Raja and Satyanand. Chiranjeevi and Soundarya lead, with Ravi Teja and Venkat as the younger brothers, and Mani Sharma composed the music; Chota K. Naidu shot it for Sri Sai Ram Arts. It was released on 7 January 2000 and runs 157 minutes.

What the story is about

Rajaram runs a fleet of lorries and dotes on his two younger brothers, Ravi and Gopi. When Devi, who owns a garment factory, asks him to deal with two loafers who have been teasing her sisters Latha and Geetha, the culprits turn out to be his own brothers, and Rajaram shrugs it off as youthful mischief. Over more such run-ins Rajaram and Devi fall in love, and so do the brothers and sisters. But when Rajaram asks for the sisters’ hands for his brothers, Devi bluntly refuses to give them to a pair of drunken wastrels. Stung, Rajaram vows to make the marriages happen and becomes much stricter with his brothers, setting off a family drama about how far an elder brother will go for his siblings.

Cast and crew

• Chiranjeevi as Rajaram
• Soundarya as Devi
• Ravi Teja as Ravi and Venkat as Gopi
• Chandni as Latha and Sishwa as Geeta, Devi’s sisters, with Priya as her friend
• Sarath Babu as Rangarao
• Kota Srinivasa Rao as Rajaram’s uncle
• Uttej, M. S. Narayana, Hema and Raja Ravindra, with Simran in a special song

Director: Muthyala Subbaiah. Music: Mani Sharma. Cinematography: Chota K. Naidu.

Making and music

Vineeth was first cast as one of the brothers and Chakravarthy was also attached, but both left and were replaced by Ravi Teja and Venkat. Two songs were filmed in Switzerland. “Hima Seemallo”, sung by Hariharan and Harini, won Hariharan the Nandi Award for Best Male Playback Singer.

Reviews

Deccan Herald praised Chiranjeevi and Soundarya but felt the film “buckles under a cliched plot”, while still calling it “quite good for family viewing”. Idlebrain thought the director had been carried away by Chiranjeevi’s charisma at the expense of the story. Andhra Today predicted a hit, saying Subbaiah had followed the sisterly sentiment of Hitler with brotherly sentiment.

Box office and awards

Annayya earned a distributors’ share of ₹11 crore, according to NonstopCinema.com. Wikipedia adds runs of 50 days in 92 centres and 100 days in 60, without a source. Besides Hariharan’s award, it won Nandi Awards for choreographer Raghava Lawrence (“Aata Kaavala”) and fight master Kanal Kannan. It was dubbed into Tamil as Moothavan and remade in Bengali as Devdoot (2005).

Where to watch Annayya

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

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