Athidhi (film)

For the 1975 Malayalam film, see Athidhi (1975 film).

Athidhi (Atithi)
Directed by	Surender Reddy
Produced by	Ronnie Screwvala Siddharth Roy Kapoor Ramesh Babu
Written by	Vakkantham Vamsi
Starring	Mahesh Babu Amrita Rao Ashish Vidyarthi Kota Srinivasa Rao Nassar
Narrated by	Abburi Ravi
Music by	Mani Sharma
Cinematography	Sameer Reddy
Edited by	Gowtham Raju
Production company	UTV Motion Pictures Krishna Pictures Private Limited
Distributed by	UTV Motion Pictures
Release dates	19 October 2007
Running time	172 minutes
Country	India
Language	Telugu
Budget	₹20.2 crore (US$3.0 million)(citation needed)
Box office	₹35 crore (US$5.2 million)(Share first week)

Athidhi or Atithi (English: Guest) is a 2007 Telugu action thriller film starring Mahesh Babu and Amrita Rao, directed by Surender Reddy and produced by G. Ramesh Babu, brother of Mahesh Babu, under their banner Krishna Pictures Private Limited. It was released on 18 October 2007. It was dubbed into Tamil as Thani Kaattu Raja, and into Hindi as International Khiladi:The Iron Man. Athidi was released with 500 prints in 820 theaters all over the world. Athidi collected a share of ₹28 crore (US$4.2 million) in its lifetime. Athidi finished 35 days in 400 centres successfully. It grossed ₹35 crore (US$5.2 million) in four weeks. It is being remade in Bengali as Royal with Hiran and Sayantika Banerjee.

Trivia

Atithi, an orphan, is implicated in a murder and sent to jail for 13 years. Once out, it becomes his mission to trace and kill Kaiser, the boy who had murdered Amrita's parents. The romantic element comes in the form of Amrita who is an art student in Delhi. Though the twosome meet in Delhi, the story moves to Hyderabad and it is here the rest of the story unravels.

There is a love story interwoven into the story, yet Atithi is essentially a revenge drama and the action scenes are the main highlight of the film. The entire look of the film is rich and the filmmakers spent much on sets for the song sequences.

Royal is the Bengali remake of this film starring the successful Bengali hero Hiran and heroine Sayantika Banerjee. Raja Chanda is the director of this upcoming film.

Plot

An orphan boy, Sunil, wanders through Delhi looking for a job. When selling balloons, he sees a girl and gives her a free balloon. A few days later, during a storm, the girl finds the boy getting soaked and gives him an umbrella. The umbrella blows into a place nearby, where the girl's parents are headed. The boy stops their car and tells them about the dangerous path ahead destroyed by the storm. As the boy has rescued the girl's parents, he gets adopted by them. They name the boy "Atithi", which means "guest".

One day, while driving Atithi to a hostel, they are stopped by a teenager, a psychopath, who mugs them, and shoots the parents. In his rage, Atithi lunges after the teen and manages to take the gun. Nearby witnesses see Atithi with a gun, and the girl's dead parents, and think that Atithi killed them. The police arrest Atithi. The girl also thinks that it was Atithi who killed her parents and starts to hate him and thinks that she will never see him again.

Fourteen years later, Atithi (now Mahesh Babu) gets out of jail, and goes in search of the psychopath murderer, and the girl. In Delhi, local goons are feared by Atithi, as he becomes a hurdle for their illegal operation. Once he runs across a girl named Amrita (Amrita Rao) chased by stalkers from her college. Amrita and Atithi meet many times. Amrita starts to like Atithi, but has to go back to Hyderabad before she can confess her love. When she tries to tell him that she is leaving, Atithi gets annoyed. He continuously tells her to leave him alone, and when she keeps asking to get some coffee, he slaps her. She runs away crying. Later Atithi goes to Amrita to apologize, but only finds her friend. She tells him that Amrita just wanted to tell him that she's leaving. They go to the cemetery to look for her. Amrita's friend then explains that a boy adopted by Amrita's parents killed them when she was young and Amrita goes to the cemetery to see their graves all the time. Atithi realizes that she was the same girl that he met in his childhood and leaves for Hyderabad to find her.

When Atithi also arrives in Hyderabad, and decides to stay with Amrita's family, he learns that a Mafia leader and kidnapper named Kaiser is feared there. Later, Atithi realizes that this was the psychopath teen who killed the girl's parents. Atithi stops two attempts by Kaiser to murder Amrita.

Meanwhile, Officer Ajay (Murali Sharma) is trying to track down Kaiser. Ajay dies in an explosion in his house, which was planned by Kaiser. Atithi figures out that Ajay's real name is Kaiser. Before Kaiser's house blew up, Kaiser managed to escape. When the MLA realizes that Ajay and Kaiser are the same person, the MLA, after succumbing to shock, dies from a heart attack. Atithi manages to kill many of Kaiser's men. Kaiser kidnaps Amrita and her cousin, then kills the cousin. Kaiser leads Amrita to a dungeon, calls Atithi, and tells him that he will kill Amrita if Atithi doesn't rescue her in 12 hours. Atithi kidnaps Kaiser's brother, and trades him for Amrita. Amrita is severely cut and stuck in a certain air tank, but is rescued. Kaiser is killed. Atithi and Amrita unite, and she realises he wasn't the one who killed her parents.

Cast

• Mahesh Babu ... Atithi
• Amrita Rao ... Amrita
• Ravi Prakash... Hero friend
• Ashish Vidyarthi ... Danny Bhai
• Murali Sharma ... Inspector Ajay Sastry/Kaiser
• Nassar ... Amrita's uncle, the Home Minister
• Kota Srinivasa Rao... Maccha Srinu, an MLA who works under Kaiser
• Brahmanandam
• Sunil
• Subbaraju... Ganni Bhai
• Pragathi ... Nasser's wife
• Rajiv Kanakala ... Cameo
• Venu Madhav ... Cameo
• Malaika Arora Khan ... Item number in the song "Rathraina"

Crew

• Director: Surender Reddy
• Producer: Ramesh Babu
• Music: Mani Sharma
• Cinematography: Sameer Reddy
• Editor: Gowtham Raju
• Stunt director: Stun Siva

Box office

• The film was released worldwide with 500 prints in 820 theaters across the globe.
• The film opened with a gross collection of ₹ 6 crores on the first day. It collected a total of around ₹16.70 crore (US$2.5 million) share in the first four days of its release.

Athidi collected a share of ₹22 crore (US$3.3 million) in its first week, breaking all records at that time. It collected a final share amount of ₹28 crore (US$4.2 million) (net) in 2 weeks. Gross collections of the film went up to ₹35 crore (US$5.2 million).

Soundtrack

Athidhi
Soundtrack album by Mani Sharma
Label	Supreme

No.	Title	Lyrics	Singer(s)	Length
1.	"Khabaddarani"		Naveen, Rahul Nambiyaar	4:57
2.	"Gona Gona"		Naveen, Rita	4:26
3.	"Satyam Emito"		Deepu, Usha	4:27
4.	"Khiladi Koona"		Karthik, Rita	3:55
5.	"Ratraina"		Ranjit, Anushka	5:12
6.	"Valla Valla"		Rahul Nambiyaar, Dharmna	4:21

External links

Athidhi at IMDb