Venkatesh: ‘Narappa’ stays true to the emotions portrayed in ‘Asuran’

Actor Venkatesh Daggubati calls ‘Narappa’ his most challenging film thus far and says it will be as raw and rustic as the original

“In my experience of having worked on more than 20 remakes, I have learnt that it is best not to spoil the original material,” says actor Venkatesh Daggubati, when we discuss his new Telugu film Narappa, directed by Srikanth Addala. Scheduled to stream on Amazon Prime Video on July 20, the film is a remake of the much-appreciated Tamil film Asuran (2019). Asuran, directed by Vetri Maaran and starring Dhanush, was an adaptation of Poomani’s Tamil novel Vekkai (meaning heat/rage) and harks back to the 1968 massacre in Kilvenmani, Tamil Nadu. Narappa’s trailer hints at a faithful remake of the original, much like some of the other remakes that the actor starred in, Drushyam (remake of the Malayalam film Drishyam) and Gopala Gopala (Oh My God!) in recent years. Speaking to The Hindu on the sidelines of a media interaction at the Ramanaidu Studios, Hyderabad, the actor says it was imperative to stay true to the hard-hitting story of Asuran. He is not worried that a section of viewers might have seen the original film with subtitles on the same digital streaming platform. Given the unpredictability of the pandemic, the team decided to go for a digital release: “Vetri Maaran did a fine job and Dhanush was fantastic; he is among the best actors we have today in Indian cinema. Asuran is a raw, rustic film with strong emotions. Even those who didn’t understand Tamil had so much empathy for the character. If people can relate to the emotions, it wouldn’t matter even if they have seen the original.”