Pundareeka (Balakrishna) is the son of a great devotee (Vishwanath) of Lord Krishna. The entire family including Pundareeka's mother, sister, brother-in-law, and paternal uncle are all devotees. However, Pundareeka feels like emulating Lord Krishna, who resorts typical thefts, moving with girls and enjoying life. He takes the life very casually and just enjoys the life. He doesn't want to marry as he treats girls like dolls. On the other hand, Lakshmi (Sneha) is also a great devotee of Lord Krishna and is the foster daughter of a priest (Balayya). In fact, she is an orphan but is brought up by him. Once, Lord Krishna (Balakrishna) appears in her dream and suggests that Pundareeka would be her husband.

Analysis :

A senior director like Raghavendra Rao has taken the second role of Balakrishna very casually. Though Lord Krishna role is also played by Balakrishna, the characterisation is very poor. The entire troupe, Lord Krishna and his eight wives characters are very poorly moulded on the screen. The audience would get a feel of watching a stage play and the dialogues are very cinematic and dramatised way. LB Sriram's character as Narada is atrocious. Words like Anta Scene Ledu in general films are translated like Manaku Anta Sannivesam Ledu are in poor taste. JK Bharavi did not work whole-heartedly for the film. The comedy track picturised on Sunil and Brahmanandam failed to evoke laughter.

TeluguOne Perspective :

The original Panduranga Mahatmyam remained a classic due to excellent characterisation of all the roles. The original film, which was a devotional film in nature, had only 20 per cent romance and 80 per cent devotion. Moreover, the film was made when the late NTR was in prime age and he appeared very romantic in the film and the glow of devotion could be clearly noticed in the latter part of the film. But in this film the romance percentage is 70 and the devotional percentage reduced to 30. The extension of the film with the Lord Krishna waiting for a request from Pundareeka spoiled the mood. As is said earlier, but for the last 20-25 minutes, the film has nothing much to talk about.