Chatrapathi (2005 film)

Chatrapathi is a 2005 Indian Telugu-language action drama film directed by S. S. Rajamouli, who also co-wrote the film with V. Vijayendra Prasad. The film stars Prabhas, Shriya Saran and Bhanupriya alongside Shafi and Pradeep Rawat playing supporting roles. M. M. Keeravani composed the music. The film was produced by B. V. S. N. Prasad on Sri Venkateswara Cine Chitra banner.
Chatrapathi was released on 29 September 2005 and emerged as a blockbuster, collecting an estimated distributors' share of ₹21 crore ($5 million) against a budget of ₹12.5 crore ($2.8 million). The film won two Nandi Awards - Best Supporting Actress for Bhanupriya and Best Music Director for Keeravani. The film was remade in Bengali as Refugee (2006), in Bangladeshi Bengali as Kothor (2007), in Kannada with the same name in 2013 and in Hindi with the same name in 2023.
Parvati lives on the coast of Sri Lanka and adopts Sivaji as her son. Parvati shows equal affection to her biological son Ashok, but Ashok becomes jealous of Sivaji. One day, the villagers are forced to evacuate the coast and a fire accident occurs. Ashok separates Sivaji from his family by lying to Pravati that Sivaji died in the fire accident. Sivaji ends up in a different boat and lands in Vizag port, which is dominated by Baji Rao, who uses refugee labor for his gain.
Years later, Sivaji grows up to be an aggressive guy and still searches for his mother. One day, Sivaji reacts violently in defense of the other refugees and kills Baji Rao's right-hand man Katraju after he killed a child named Suri. Enraged, Baji Rao attacks the slum and kills Sivaji's friend when he tried to save other children in the port. Sivaji revolts against Baji Rao and hacks him to death, thus leading the people to refer him as Chatrapathi.
Baji Rao's brother Ras Bihari arrives in Vizag and learns about his brother's death and begins to hunt Sivaji. Ashok also lands in the same place, where he realizes that Sivaji is his brother and joins hands with Ras Bihari. Despite this, Sivaji manages to reunite with Parvati and also kills Ras Bihari, thus saving the port from any danger. Ashok also realize his mistake and apologize to Sivaji and Parvati, where they reunite and live happily.
In an interview with Idlebrain.com, Rajamouli described Chatrapathi as a "mother sentiment film", which also deals with the exploitation of immigrants who come to India from the places and live without any official identity. When questioned about similarities to the American film Scarface (1983), he said that his father V. Vijayendra Prasad, who wrote Chatrapathi, watched Scarface and got inspired by the point of immigrants' problems, but there were no scenic resemblances between the two films.
The film has seven songs composed by M. M. Keeravani. The track Gundusoodi has been reused from the song Kambangaadu from the Tamil movie Vaaname Ellai (1992) also composed by M. M. Keeravani. The song Agni Skalana was plagiarized from the Main Theme of the video game Myst IV: Revelation (2004) composed by Jack Wall.
The Hindu wrote "The film has all the masala ingredients for the present day young generation. Though the storyline is routine, it is the directorial treatment and good screenplay that do the trick for the film." Sify rated the film 2/5 and wrote, "a swell cast with a young action hero and add a dash of digital wizardry to the stunts and cook up an unimaginative script as an aftermath and serve it piping hot! Chhatrapathi works to a certain extent thanks to the tall handsome hunk Prabhas." Jeevi of Idlebrain gave 3.5/5 stars and observed that the film's similarities with Scarface and Deewaar, but opined that it stands on its own owing to Rajamouli's direction and Prabhas' performance.
The film had a 100-day run in 54 venues.
The film was remade in Bengali as Refugee (2006), in Bangladeshi Bengali as Kothor (2007), and in Kannada with the same name in 2013, with Siddhanth and Priyadarshini. It was remade in Hindi with the same name starring Bellamkonda Sreenivas making his debut in Hindi cinema.