Credits
Banner: Vyjayanthi Movies
Cast: Nagarjuna, Soundarya, Raghuvaran, Shilpa Shetty, Banerjee, LB Sriram, Prakash raj, Brahmanandham, Sujitha, Nutan Prasad, Raghunatha Reddy, Tanikella Bharani, Dharmavarupu Subramanyam, Narsing Yadav
Music: Mani Sharma
Lyrics: Suddala Ashoka Teja, Veturi, Chandrabose, Sirivennela
Cinematography: Chota K Naidu
Art Director: Srinivasa Raju of Manmadhudhu, Sitaramaraju, and Rajakumarudu fame
Editing: Marthand K Venkatesh
Fights: Kanal Kannan, Thriller Manju
Screenplay Assistance: Feroz Bhagat, N Maharajan, Crazy Mohan, Bhupathi Raja, Yandamoori Veerendranath
Dialogues: Parachuri Brothers
Story - Screenplay - Direction: Thirupathi Swamy
Producer: Aswini Dutt
Release Date: September 29th, 2000
Context: Saw it on TV when I was like 8 years old in India but only from Chamma Chekka song and remember that song so well, asked what movie this is and they said Azad, wanted to watch it since it has Nagarjuna and I knew of him. Bought the VCD and watched it. Remember liking it and then downloaded the songs and used to listen to them a lot. Later on came to know that the movie was not a big success. Revisited the songs when making a Hariharan playlist and realized theyre very good. Decided to rewatch the movie and see how it is. It’s a good action movie with emotions. Its entertaining. You never feel bored. Should have been a success.
Interesting Facts:
This is director Thirputahi Samy’s next telugu movie after the super hit Ganesh with Venkatesh.
Tirupathi Samy Died In a Car Accident In Chennai In June 2001.
Tirupathi Swamy, being a Journalist himself by profession has chosen a story that is based on a Journalist. He took Amitabh Bachchan’s’ Main Azad Hoon and Legend of Zorro movie as inspirations and wrote the story.
He must have approached Aswini Dutt after to make a movie and then they cast Nagarjuna as the hero and movie was launched. Vyjayanthi is known for making movies with high priodictwuon values with all the commercial elements and Azad is the same.
Casting they took Soundarya who dubbed for herself for the first time in Telugu for this film and then Shilpa Shetty who had done Sahasa Veerudu Sagara Kanya and then Veedavadandi Babu starring Mohan Babu before this making it her 3rd Telugu film in her career. Her last one would be Bhalevadivi Basu.
Set evergreen villain Raghuvaran and remaining actors such as Prakash raj, Brahmanandhan, etc.
Filmed in Rajahmundry, Hyderabad, Pollachi mainly then songs in Switzerland.
Songs were released on Supreme Music audio label and it became a super hit.
Since it was coming after Nuvvu Vasthavani huge hype for the movie and for Nagarjuna and finally it released and movie was declared above average or average I think.
Despite this movie ran for 50 days in 72 centers and 4 days in 100 centers. Movie also ran for 104 days in Sandhya 35MM and in Anakapalle Nagarjuna created a record: His three films ran for 100 days in a span of 6 months:
Nuvvu vasthavani - Raja theater
Ninne Premistha - Satyannarayana
Azaad - Gopal krishna
For singer Mahalakshkmi Iyer it was a breakthrough as she had sung just two songs in telugu before this in Okke Okkadu which was a dub and first straight movie was Ammo! Okato Tareekhu music by Vandemataram Srinivas.
Perhaps due to Nuvvu Vasthavani hype and then competition from so many other movies.
List of movies released against it were Ninne Premistha 14th, Rayalaseema Ramanna Chowdhary 15th, Vamsi on Oct 4th, Jayam Manaderaa on October 7th, and then Nuvve Kavali on October 13th which would go onto to become industry hit and highest grossing movie of 2000.
Nagarjuna had 3 releases as said before and one of them was actually in competition with this movie Ninne Premistha in a edition to Jayam Manadera which released a week later and almost became industry hit range movie and stopped.
For Soundarya she had 3 released in 3 weeks in Ninne Premistha Sept 14th, Azad 29th, and then Jayam Manadera October 7th.
