RRR: Rise Roar Revolt! How this Telugu film continues to take the world by storm!

Rajamouli's film RRR: Rise Roar Revolt has Risen, Roared and Revolted 

What’s happening?

An Indian film is getting unprecedented love not just in India but by global audiences and critics alike. They even want it to win the Oscars!  RRR is getting praised for many things, its cinematography, story-telling and representations of human relationships. The audiences worldwide sat amazed through three hours of cinematic event. Let us share with you a few glimpses of this phenomenon. Later we will delve into what exactly worked for the film.

Here are some youtube reviews and reactions by influencers world over as they watched RRR:
Americans largely got emotionally invested in Bheem and Ram's Story within few minutes. As you can see in the video, they are literally crying, shocked, laughing, excited... feeling a range of emotions throughout. An American female Youtuber Miss SlientNinja was left shocked and shivering just three minutes into RRR remaining invested right till the end.

Below: Scream Queens Podcast : 'We watch RRR (2022) for the FIRST TIME! REACTION! COMMENTARY'!

RRR was able to captivate its audience within minutes and retain their interest and attention throughout with many left deeply moved by the events therein.
Far-off cultures were brought together by visual media. A lot of us have been inspired by K-dramas and K-pop. Similarly, Koreans too found themselves relate intensely to this Indian Telugu , even though they were reading subtitles.

RRR team is working fast for dubbing the film to Japanese for its October release in Japan. They have already begun making popular art for RRR and even before seeing the film many are already big fans of Ram Charan. They are eagerly waiting for the release of the film and the current hysteria suggests that this could be one of the highest-grossing Indian films in Japan!

Three-hour action epic #RRR is the biggest film in India's history. @ByClaytonDavis weighs the movie's chances at this year's #AcademyAwards. | Variety The Take presented by @AppleTV https://t.co/x7D5VnuwBk pic.twitter.com/R6gkDohMqS

— Variety (@Variety) August 19, 2022

Variety Meda Entertainment News agency  - Clayton Davis Senior Awards Editor from Variety has recently spoken about RRR and wishes that Indian Oscar juries would send RRR as its submission to the Oscars from India. Else they would themselves add RRR to some categories to get it awards!

ScreenCrush News ranked RRR at the Top 2 Spot among Western Audiences. 

Ruso Brothers, the directors of the Famed Marvel Avengers praised Rajamouli (Director RRR) and declared that they would like to be the producers for Rajamouli's future ventures, offering Hollywood-level Budgets, clearly depicting their high regard for the RRR director!

Going by the people’s love for RRR across the Globe, Google has launched a doodle animation when anyone searches RRR in Google!  We see a horse and motorcycle racing each other in our search.  It symbolises the refreshing friendship of lead characters that have captivated audiences worldwide.

🏍 🐎

Thank you @Google for surprising us and acknowledging the GLOBAL PHENOMENON & Popularity of RRR !! 🤩❤️

Search for RRR in google and post screenshot/video to us with #RRRTakeOver #RRRMovie pic.twitter.com/1f509prJJU

— RRR Movie (@RRRMovie) August 13, 2022

 

What made RRR work for foreign audiences?

Emotions - Range of emotions which felt sincere. But how did a Bharatiya movie’s emotions make a connection with foreigners? That's because it leveraged universal emotions like the mother-child bond, friendship, brotherhood, trust, the human ability to recognise right and wrong and the courage to fight for justice. 

The plot: A child is separated from her mother, snatched brutally away by a British lady to keep in her castle. A community leader from the village pledges to bring the girl back. This humble bow and arrow-wielding forest dweller was up against the British empire and all its might! The story moves ahead to deep friendships being formed. There is another man's promise to his village folk. We see the men follow the vows without compromise. There is respect for all life, even that of animals. The fight against colonisers remains the core theme all through.  

Some refreshing changes: Foreign audience applauded how masculinity was not downgraded or hated upon in any way. Some foreign audiences have felt that lately, Hollywood had been pushing femininity not by celebrating it for its many virtues, but instead by insulting men and masculinity. The overkill of the trend, got the audiences sick of it and RRR appeared as a refreshing change. Audiences also felt that many Hollywood movies were indulging in unnecessary preaching and moral policing, often pushing agendas- all the while tossing aside the main reason people watch films, for entertainment! Which RRR provided in good measure.

Suspense: RRR gloriously ran on the shoulders of two masculine heroes. The first being Junior NTR as Bheem, a simple, innocent man of the forest, with iron willpower.  The other is Ram Charan as Raju, a police officer who is laser-focused on his service to the British. He is a one-man army. He keeps the audience baffled and in a dilemma. No one can make out his intentions. His introduction itself was one where is shown fighting his own people mercilessly. Who is he really and what does he want? Will Bheem be successful in completing the Bhagirathi task he pledged upon himself? A few parallel suspense themes kept the viewer glued to their seats.

Clean film: the story is clean with no unnecessary innuendos or sexual experiments, which is extremely rare today. 

Encore: Foreigners demanded to watch it again in theatres, and so RRR is still running in the US, and UK in select theatres! Many moviegoers confessed to watching this multiple times, one person said she was watching RRR in the theatre for the 14th time!  Another person declared that it was his 20th time. RRR has allowed the audience to experience a wide range of pure human emotions: from motherhood, innocence,  friendship, romance, suspense, dance battles, betrayal, injustice, failures and ultimately the relief and joy to see the triumph of justice and truth in this epic ride.

The victory of good over evil: Another aspect was its historical connection and highlighting of Colonial oppressors and their grave injustices. Audiences were made aware of some of the evil acts performed by the colonial rulers, their greed and their spite for the local people of India. 

The Nacho Nacho Song has a fan base of its own!  Junior NTR is a classically trained Kuchipudi dancer and Ram Charan also has some good moves! These actors are megastars of the Telugu Film Industry with the capabilities of delivering a triumvirate of super acting, dancing and fighting!

RRR is still going strong and the Hollywood industry has taken notice of it.  In fact, the film has put the Telugu Film Industry on the world map, with many correcting each other that this is not a 'Bollywood film' its Telugu! This is a 'Tollywood' film. Wishing many more successes to RRR which has opened up Indian cinema to the World! And immense gratitude to the legendary Rajamouli and his father Sri Vijeyandra Prasadi, the writer for RRR and the Baahubali movies!