Rakta Charitra

Rakta Charitra
Film poster
Rakta Charitra
Directed by	Ram Gopal Varma
Produced by	Madhu Mantena Sheetal Vinod Talwar
Written by	Ram Gopal Varma
Screenplay by	Ram Gopal Varma
Story by	Prashant Pandey
Based on	Lives of Paritala Ravindra
Starring	Vivek Oberoi Suriya Shatrughan Sinha Kota Srinivasa Rao Abhimanyu Singh Sudeep Sushant Singh Radhika Apte Priyamani
Narrated by	Chetan Sasithal (Hindi) Ram Gopal Varma (Telugu) Gautham Menon (Tamil)
Music by	Part I: Sukhwinder Singh Bapi-Tutul Dharam Sandeep Imran-Vikram Part II: Dharam Sandeep Imran-Vikram Sukhwinder Singh Amar Desai
Cinematography	P. S. Vinod Amol Rathod
Edited by	Nipun Gupta
Production company	RGV film factory
Distributed by	Vistaar Religare Film Fund
Release date	22 October 2010 (2010-10-22) (Part I) 3 December 2010 (2010-12-03) (Part II)
Running time	Part I: 123min (Hindi) Part II: 121min (Hindi) and 117min (Telugu) Single part:118min (Tamil)
Country	India
Language	Hindi Telugu

Rakta Charitra (English: History of Blood) is a 2010 Indian biographical political crime thriller based on the life of Paritala Ravindra. Directed by Ram Gopal Varma, and written by Prashant Pandey, the films were simultaneously shot in Hindi and Telugu. The film was nominated for Stardust Readers Choice Award for Best Direction — Action/Thriller. The second part was dubbed into Tamil as Ratha Sarithiram in a single part. The film starred Vivek Oberoi as Pratap Ravi, and Suriya as Suri in lead roles, while Sudeep, Shatrughan Sinha, Abhimanyu Singh, Kota Srinivasa Rao, Sushant Singh, Priyamani, and Radhika Apte play supporting roles.

The film starts with a narration about politics and gangs in Anantapur district, Andhra Pradesh. The opening scene of a murder in broad daylight, which the narrator calls "rakta politics", sets the tone of the movie. Narasimha Reddy, a local politician, is a powerful man in the area. His close associate Veera Bhadra (Rajendra Gupta) is his trustwothy ally for his political work, to the extent that Narasimha Reddy gives him freedom to contest Jilla Parishad polls with his men. Veera Bhadra champions the causes of the poor and oppressed and they look up to him like their leader.

Nagamuni Reddy (Kota Srinivasa Rao), who is the local MLA of the district and close to Narasimha Reddy, becomes jealous of the budding trust between Veera Bhadra and Narasimha Reddy, and starts poisoning Narasimha Reddy against Veera Bhadra. Narasimha summons Veera Bhadra and asks him not to contest the polls with his contestants, but rather support Nagamuni Reddy's. Veera Bhadra lashes out at Narasimha Reddy for being unfair to the lower castes and storms out. Nagamuni Reddy calls for Manda (Ashish Vidyarthi), a close follower of Veera Bhadra, and manipulates him into killing Veera Bhadra, giving him the assurance that if he does it, people will suspect the policies of Veera Bhadra as his own follower killed him and he will be the next in line as the leader of the poor people, else take his life. Manda reluctantly agrees to it. Veera Bhadra and his wife (Zarina Wahab) travel in a bus with 40 people to a wedding. Manda and Nagamuni's men stop the bus, kill Veera Bhadra's guards, and tell him to step out of the bus or else he will be killed along with the other innocents on the bus. Veera Bhadra comes out, looking at Manda, and dares him to kill. Nagamuni's henchman Durga shoots at Veera Bhadra, making it look like Manda shot at him; prompting Manda about the deal he made with Nagamuni, he tells him to kill him in front of everyone. Manda takes a boulder and crushes Veera Bhadra's skull and kills him.