Manmadhudu

142 minutesCountryIndiaLanguageTelugu

Manmadhudu is a 2002 Indian Telugu-language romantic comedy film directed by K. Vijaya Bhaskar from a story written by Trivikram Srinivas. The story is based on the 2000 Mel Gibson starrer What Women Want. Produced by Nagarjuna on Annapurna Studios, the film stars Nagarjuna, Sonali Bendre and Anshu, with music composed by Devi Sri Prasad.

Released on 20 December 2002, the film became an All Time Blockbuster.^[1] The film received Nandi Award for Best Feature Film for that year.^[2] The film was later remade as Aishwarya (2006) in Kannada. A spiritual successor titled Manmadhudu 2 was released in 2019.^[3]

Abhiram is a manager in an ad agency. He despises women and expresses his hatred for them every minute of the day. However, his workplace is full of women, and he has to deal with it. Prasad, the chairman of the company and Abhiram's paternal uncle, appoints a new assistant manager, Harika. Abhiram hates that yet another female employee has joined his office and he proceeds to bully her. He places a bug under her desk and uses it to steal her idea for a lipstick ad. He continues to belittle her and accuse her of not taking her job seriously. Eventually, Harika gets fed up with Abhi's verbal abuse and goes to Prasad to submit her resignation. Prasad sympathizes with her and asks her to reconsider, telling her about Abhi's past and why he despises women.

Abhi lost his parents when he was only two years old and was raised afterwards by grandfather. Abhi is the only heir to their family business and he enjoys life in a carefree way. He meets and falls in love with Maheswari, the niece of the family's accountant. Alarmed that Abhi is just playing around with his niece, Maheswari's uncle takes her back to his hometown and arranges her engagement with another man. Abhi arrives out of the blue and angrily interrupts the engagement ceremony, asserting that he intends to marry Maheswari and that he's serious about their relationship. He drives off with Maheswari and asks her to explain why she couldn't admit she wanted to marry him to her uncle. Just as she confesses that she really does love him, they get into a car accident, leaving Abhi unconscious. When Abhi wakes up, his grandfather tells him that Maheswari had went ahead and gotten married, showing him the invitation card. Abhi feels betrayed and begins to hate all women, believing that they are all superficial and treacherous.

After listening to the story from Abhi's past, Harika feels sympathy for Abhi. She decides to stay with the company, so Prasad promotes Harika to be manager and demotes Abhi to being an assistant manager. Though infuriated, Abhi has no choice but to travel with Harika to Paris on a business trip. As they navigate through the business deal and the city and Harika helps Abhi with his fear of deep water, they become close. Abhi starts to fall for Harika but is disappointed and distances himself from her when she reveals that she is engaged to be married.

After they come back to India, Abhi fails to show up to work and instead stays home and behaves childishly to get over his disappointment. Harika reciprocates his feelings but is confused about getting married as Abhi won't express his feelings to her. Meanwhile, Abhi's aunt mistakenly reveals that Maheswari died in the car accident they were in and that they hid that information fearing that Abhi might not be able to recover from the shock of hearing such horrific news. Abhi realizes it was foolish of him to hate women but is too shocked to express his feelings to Harika. On the morning of her wedding, Harika calls Abhi to tell him that her marriage was her parents' choice, not hers, and indirectly indicates that she is ready to come to him if he asks. Prasad learns that Abhi and Harika have feelings for each other and encourages Abhi to reveal them. But Abhi says that it is Harika who should say it and not him because last time he took the lead in the relationship, he lost Maheswari. Finally, Harika confesses her feelings over a phone call but due to network disturbance, Abhi isn't able to reply. Thinking that Abhi rejected her, she decides to go through with the marriage. Abhi races off to try and catch up with Harika's wedding party, but when he finally finds them, they're far off shore on a boat. When Harika fails to notice him, Abhi summons the courage to jump in the ocean to swim closer. Harika sees Abhi jump in and overjoyed she jumps off the boat to join him. Harika breaks off her engagement and marries Abhi.

The set resembling corporate advertising agency was built at first floor of Annapurna Studios by Srinivasa Raju.^[4][5] The crew have taken interesting ads from magazines and blown them up and placed them in the office with backlit.^[4] A huge vinyl poster of Birla temple and water filled Hussain Sagar was pasted opposite the ad agency building to give a feeling that the building was located on the hilly area near Birla Temple. The entrance of the building has an A shaped glass door to symbolically represent A from Abhi.^[6]

The songs "Naa Manasune" and "Gundello Emundo" were shot in Austria.^[4] Some of the scenes were shot in France with scenes shot at Eiffel Tower.^[7][4] The costumes for Nagarjuna were designed by Asmita Marwah.^[8] The song "Dont Marry Be Happy" was the last one to be shot during the final schedule.^[4]

Manmadhudu
Soundtrack album by Devi Sri Prasad
Released	2002
Recorded	2002
Genre	Soundtrack
Length	27:04
Label	Sohan Music Aditya Music
Producer	Devi Sri Prasad
Devi Sri Prasad chronology
Thotti Gang (2002) Manmadhudu (2002) Inidhu Inidhu Kadhal Inidhu (2002)

The music for this movie was composed by Devi Sri Prasad. Five out of six songs had lyrics by Sirivennela Sitaramasastri. The audio was released on 6 December 2002.^[9] An audio release function was held at an open dais erected outside glass house in Annapurna Studios. Telugu singer Sunitha anchored the event, the music director of the film Devi Sri Prasad performed some of the songs from the movie. The people who attended the event include Nagarjuna, director K. Vijaya Bhaskar, lyricist Seetharama Sastry, actors Brahmanandam and Tanikella Bharani.^[9] The soundtrack was released under the music label Sohan Audios.^[10]

Telugu Cinema wrote "Devisri Prasad comes up with average-to-good tunes, backed by proper orchestration. The interludes with classical instruments need a special mention".^[11]

Nandi Awards

• Best Feature Film – Swarna (Gold) (as producer)^[12]

Filmfare Awards

• Filmfare Award for Best Comedian – Telugu – Manmadhudu (2002)^[13]

The film was released with 90 prints.^[14] Nagarjuna in an interview with Baradwaj Rangan in 2019 revealed that it was an above average grosser.^[15]

Jeevi of Idlebrain.com rated the film 4.5 out of 5 stating, "When director and hero have latest hits behind their back, the comparison is inevitable. This film is definitely better than Santosham (Nagarjuna's earlier film). Manmadhudu is as good as Nuvvu Naaku Nachav (Vijaya Bhaskar's earlier film). First half of the film is extremely entertaining (total comedy + flashback romance). And second half (comedy + story) is even better than first half. 95% of the scenes in the film are comedy dialogues. There are few sentiment scenes. But these very few sentiment scenes are bound to leave impact on you. Nagarjuna dominated the show and won accolades from audiences. It's a must recommended hilarious film for all Telugu film lovers."^[16]

Sify gave an extremely positive review and wrote, "Though the story is wafer thin, the director has been able to package the film well with an innovative presentation. Nagarjuna and Sonali are excellent and have played their roles with conviction. The music of Devi Sri Prasad is hummable. The film is out to wallop some fun ‘n’ frolic." It gave a verdict that it is a "Rip-Roaring Entertainer".^[17]

Kiran Nadella of Fullhyd.com rated the film 7.5 out of 10 stating, "Nagarjuna lends significantly to the character of Abhiram in one of his slickest cinematic performances ever. He perfectly captures the liveliness, complexity and frustration of Abhiram. Unquestionably, Manmathudu proves to be an enthralling vehicle for his crowd-pleasing comeback. Sonali gives a commendable performance as a young and struggling art director who is in love with Abhiram. Devi Sri Prasad's romantic and sometimes ominous musical score nicely complements the images on screen. The dialogues, penned by Trivikram, are chronically mind-boggling. Manmathudu gratifies on many levels. The direction maintains pace and intrigue, the performances are spot on, and the locations are simply sumptuous, be it Smokey Alps or a clean Hyderabad road. All things considered, if you can stomach the thirty minutes of echoing flashback, Manmathudu makes for one intense and rousing entertainment, and if you're on its quirky wavelength, it might just strike you as one of the funniest movies you've ever seen!"^[18]

Telugu Cinema wrote "Vijayabhaskar strengthens the weak storyline with his taking aided by Trivikram’s pen-power and Devisri Prasad’s music. A movie that can be a good pastime, and can be worth a watch, or even more for fans of Nagarjuna".^[19]

The film had a re-release in 4k on 29 August 2023 on the eve of Nagarjuna's birthday.^[20]

The film was later remade as Aishwarya (2006) in Kannada, marking the debut of Deepika Padukone and also remade in Bengali as Priyotoma in 2006.^[21]

A spiritual successor of the film titled Manmadhudu 2, also starring Nagarjuna was released in 2019.^[3][22]

• Manmadhudu at IMDb