Magadheera is the story of a bike racer Harsha who falls in love with Indu (Kajal Agarwal). Indu's father (Surya) is fighting a legal battle to get back their ancestral Udaighad castle. His nephew (Dev Gil) eyes Indu, kills his uncle, and puts the blame on Harsha. The story then moves to 400 years back in which Harsha is Kalabhairava (Ram Charan), a bodyguard to Udaigahd's princess Mitravinda (Kajal Agarwal). On the other hand, the king's nephew, Billa (Dev Gil) wants to take over the kingdom and marry the princess. The rest of the story is what happens between them and how they meet in their next birth.
When SS Rajamouli announced a high budget movie in Telugu, that too with a one film old hero, everyone was startled at his confidence and at the same time expressed doubts. After the release - Magadheera with its theme, technical values, sets and direction proved as the highest standards of filmmaking in Telugu cinema. The movie became a blockbuster hit and is the biggest hit in Tollywood till date.
Trade
Magadheera is one of the biggest grocers of Tollywood cinema. It's total net collection was Rs. 92 crores in its all versions.
Highlights
This is the first combination of Ram Charan and Kajal Agarwal. Later they paired up once more for "Nayak" movie.
This is the first combination of Ram Charan and Tollywood's most successful director SS Rajamouli.
The movie went to become the biggest blockbuster ever in Tollywood. It shattered all the existing records in every territory of AP with a huge margin. It is still in the top position till date.
Chiranjeevi who had moved on to Politics then made his re-entry with a special appearance in the 'Bangaru Kodi Petta...' song in the movie.
Along with rewards, the movie also had reaped huge number of awards the following year
Awards:
57th National Film Awards
Best Choreography - K. Siva Shankar
Best Special Effects - R. Kamal Kannan
2009 Nandi Awards:
Best Popular Feature Film
Best Director - S. S. Rajamouli
Best Editor - Kotagiri Venkateshwara Rao
Best Art Director - Ravinder
Best Choreographer - Shiva Shankar
Best Audiographer - Radhakrishna
Best Costume Designer - Rama Rajamouli
Best Special Effects - R. Kamal Kannan
Special Jury Award - Ram Charan Teja
57th Filmfare Awards South:
Best Film - Allu Aravind
Best Director - S. S. Rajamouli
Best Actor - Ram Charan Teja
Best Music Director - M. M. Keeravani
Best Male Playback - Anuj Gurwara (Panchadara Bomma)
Best Cinematographer - K.K. Senthil Kumar
Sidelights
The film was dubbed and released in Malayalam as "Dheera"— The Warrior and in Tamil as "Maveeran". Both the dubbed versions performed reasonably well.
Chiranjeevi's chartbuster song 'Bangaru Kodi Petta...' from "Gharana Mogudu" was remixed for this movie.
Ram Charan is well trained in horse riding since his childhood. The horse riding scenes in the movie were some of the major highlights of the movie.
The movie was the biggest budget movie in Tollywood. The movie was in production for more than 3 years.
90% of the film was shot in Gujarat, Rajasthan, Rann of Kutch, and Badami in Karnataka.
The movie production involved intense graphic work. No movie in Telugu till then had spent so much of money in CG work than Magadheera.