Today marks a memorable date in Telugu cinema as Chirutha celebrates its 19th anniversary. Released in 2007, the Puri Jagannadh directorial introduced Ram Charan as a lead actor and began a journey that would eventually take him to the biggest stages of Indian cinema. The anniversary is even more special this year as September 28 also marks Puri Jagannadh’s birthday, bringing the director and his debut hero together in the memories surrounding the film.
Chirutha plays Charan, a young man whose childhood is shattered when his father is killed by gangster Mattu Bhai. His mother is also seriously injured, and Charan ends up taking responsibility for a crime in order to arrange money for her treatment. After spending years in prison, he returns to find that his mother is no longer alive. He then travels to Bangkok, where he works as a tourist guide and meets Sanjana, played by Neha Sharma. Their romantic track gradually leads the story back towards Charan’s unresolved past and his mission to take revenge on the people responsible for his family’s tragedy.
For a debut film, Chirutha gave Ram Charan an unusually broad platform. It was not limited to introducing him through a soft romantic role. The film immediately presented him as an action hero, a dancer and a performer who could carry emotional scenes. Puri Jagannadh also designed Charan’s introduction with a strong commercial impact, while the Bangkok portions gave the film a stylish visual setting. Contemporary reviews and reports particularly highlighted Charan’s screen presence, dances, action sequences and dialogue delivery.
The expectations surrounding the film were enormous. Ram Charan was making his debut as the son of Megastar Chiranjeevi, while Puri Jagannadh was coming off the blockbuster success of Pokiri. The combination created tremendous pre-release buzz, and that anticipation reflected strongly at the box office. Chirutha collected around ₹25 crore in distributor share over its theatrical run, making it the highest-grossing Telugu film by a debut actor at the time. The strong commercial performance, along with the attention Ram Charan received for his screen presence, action and dancing, made the film a successful launch for the newcomer.
This makes Chirutha such an important launch for Ram Charan. The film had almost everything required to test a newcomer under intense expectations. It introduced him to audiences as a mass hero, gave him romance, action, dance and emotional scenes, and placed him opposite experienced performers such as Prakash Raj and Ashish Vidyarthi. Most importantly, Charan did not simply depend on his father’s image. He had to create his own screen identity from the very first film.
Two years later, Magadheera would take Ram Charan to another level and establish him as a major star. But the foundation was laid with Chirutha. The film gave audiences their first glimpse of the actor who would go on to explore very different characters in films such as Rangasthalam, Dhruva and RRR.
Nineteen years later, Chirutha remains more than just Ram Charan’s first film. It is the starting point of one of Telugu cinema’s most significant journeys, and a reminder of the young actor who walked onto the screen in 2007 with enormous expectations and successfully made audiences curious about what would come next.