Macho Star Gopichand after a long streak of flops, is looking to make a huge blockbuster comeback with director Srinu Vaitla. Even the popular director is looking for a big comeback and he is planning to use everything at his disposal to make this film, Viswam, a major success.  The teaser has already promised that Srinu Vaitla is back to his strength and also added great action episodes to match Gopichand's image. The team has now unveiled third single, Vastanu Vastanule, on 4th October. Chaitan Bharadwaj's composition is blissful and highly melodious.  Kapil Kapilan's rendition and Vengi's lyrics enrich the romantic feel as well. Also, the sizzling chemsitry between the leading pair Gopichand and Kavya Thapar, enhances the beauty of the song on screen. The song is set to become a viral hit among the romantics for sure.  TG Vishwa Prasad is producing the film on People Media Factory on a massive scale. Movie is set to release worldwide on 11th October and makers are planning to capture the festival box office during Dasara weekend. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yRPSYNPGdE

The much-anticipated film Thalapathy69 officially commenced with a traditional muhurat puja, held on the second day of Navratri. The event brought together an impressive ensemble of cast and crew, including the iconic Thalapathy Vijay, Bollywood star Bobby Deol, and the talented Pooja Hegde. Following this auspicious start, filming is set to begin from 5th October and makers promise it to be a historic film for Vijay.    In addition to Vijay, Pooja Hegde, and Bobby Deol, the film boasts a stellar cast that includes renowned filmmaker-actor Gautham Vasudev Menon, National Award-winning actress Priyamani, veteran actor Prakash Raj, and rising star Mamitha Baiju. The exciting lineup is a testament to the film's high expectations and ambition. Directed by H. Vinoth and produced by Venkat K. Narayana for KVN Productions, Thalapathy 69 promises to be a landmark film, a tribute celebrating Vijay's remarkable three-decade-long career. The music for the film will be composed by the celebrated Anirudh, further heightening anticipation among fans. Cinematographer Sathyan Sooryan already worked with Vijay for his Master and with H. Vinoth for Theeran Adhigaram Ondru. Other important technical crew includes editor Pradeep E Ragav, action choreographer Anlarasu, art director Selva Kumar, and costume designer Pallavi Singh. The movie is scheduled for a pan-Indian release in Tamil, Telugu, and Hindi in October 2025. 

  Cast: Sree Vishnu, Ritu Varma, Meera Jasmine, Daksha Nagarkar, Goparaju Ramana, Sunil, Saranya Pradeep, Vadivukkarasi, Ravi Babu, Pridhvi Crew:  Music by Vivek Sagar,  Cinematography by Vedaraman Shakaran, Edited by Viplav Nyshadam Produced by TG Vishwa Prasad Written & Directed by Hasith Goli Telugu Film Industry has been blessed with good content makers from time to time. Every generation does have a good actor with great run at the box office content wise and commercially, too. In current generation, Sree Vishnu has been concentrating on good content and delivering some really memorable films. After his much adored Raja Raja Chora, the actor has joined hands with the film's director, Hasith Goli, for another film, Swag. The combination is back working for same production house, People Media Factory, owned by TG Vishwa Prasad. Swag also marks as Meera Jasmine's comeback film in Telugu and it released on 4th October, worldwide. Let's discuss about it in detail.  Plot:  In 1551, a matriarch Vinjamara Rukhmini Devi(Ritu Varma) treats men as slaves and asks them to wear face masks and doesn't let them any kind of freedom of any sorts. She wants to give birth to only female babies but previously, her male babies died early. Many royal staff believe that she killed the male babies as she harbours fierce hatred towards males. Her husband, Swaganika Bhavabhuti(Sree Vishnu) wants to establish patriarchal society, where men have all the freedom and women have restrictions. Cut to 2024, we see SI Bhavabhuti(Sree Vishnu) being retired and his head, SP Dhana Lakshmi decides to withhold his pension and other benefits. Rather than trying to sort out differences with her, he rebels and decides to live without benefits.  He doesn't want to bow down to a woman in any case. At this juncture, he receives a letter stating that he belongs to royal family Swaganika lineage and he has a huge amount of treasure waiting to be claimed. He tracks down the "Royal Family lineage" recorder Vamsa Vruksha Nilayam and decides to register himself as Yayathi(Sree Vishnu)'s son and only surviving "male kin" to the lineage. But he is asked to submit a proof of lineage but it happens to be with Anubhuti(Ritu Varma). Meanwhile, Bhavabhuti is completely in love and longing for his estranged wife, Revathi(Meera Jasmine) and their kid. His son, Singa aka Singa(Sree Vishnu) desperately tries to become an influencer. Will Bhavabhuti meet his son? What would Anubhuti do with the "Swaganika identity proof"? Is there any other successor to the royal family? Watch the movie to know more.  Analysis:  Sree Vishnu is one of the finest performers and he did his best in the four distinctive characters. His looks and body language for different characters are unique and differentiable. In the transgender character, his look and performance needs to be praised. But as Bhavabhuti, he did go a little overboard at places and the writing also did not help him at places. He did his best in Yayathi role by being true to the character and time period. Ritu Varma has a good character and she did perform well. Meera Jasmine has the meatiest role and she did her best. Saranya Pradeep, Daksha Nagarkar characters don't really connect with us but they did well. All others performed aptly to their characters.  Writing wise Hasith Goli looked highly ambitious for the subject he had in his mind. He tried to include how matriarchal society gave rise to patriarchal society in a satiric way. It is true that some Indian kingdoms were identified to be matriarchal. In Mahabharata, Queen Prameela was said to be the head of matriarchal kingdom and Arjuna married her, after falling in love with her. Among Telugu dynasties, Satavahana dynasty is known for being matrilineal, where Kings assume their mother's name rather than father's name. Taking these sort of examples, Hasith Goli wanted to create a gender war between male and female. He tried to give an origin to the entire central clash in the film but then he did not establish the transgender not being inclusive in gender classification.  When the story deals with acceptance of humans as humans without any gender bias, the focus needed to be more about that core than just identifying the kith and kin of a royal family. As a premise, it does provide great number of possibilities to explore but the screenplay that Hasith Goli went for did not really convey the point in an exciting and engaging way. The talented director did not identify a core emotion and it almost looked like he is searching for it throughout. In actuality, he did knew the core emotion, essential beats but in trying to expand the simple point, he traveled too many places in trying to bring everything he wants to say in one story.  There are moments of brilliance here and there with director bringing out inner turmoil of Meera Jasmine's character. The delicate touch he has added to Vibhuthi character in Flashback episodes is also good. But then, he fails to integrate all the emotions, characters and their motivations in a streamlined manner. There are lot of good things hidden amongst some weird and very strange things. All those could have been simplified, structured and presented without going for shock value. With good score from Vivek Sagar, fine visuals from Vedaraman Shakaran and good production values by People Media Factory, film still ends up being a messy effort with lofty ideals.  In Conclusion: Sree Vishnu does try his best and there are few sparks here and there. But the film finds it hard to connect with us as too many characters and back stories fail in hooking us to core emotions.  Rating: 2/5  - Naresh Kota