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Punnami Naagu
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Wikipedia article
'Punnami Naagu' is an Indian Telugu-language horror drama film directed by Rajasekhar and produced by AVM Productions. The movie brought recognition to Chiranjeevi and his first Filmfare nomination. The other leads in the film, including Rati Agnihotri, Narasimha Raju and Padmanabham played important roles. The film was released on 13 June 1980. The film was a remake of the director's own Kannada movie 'Hunnimeya Rathriyalli', which was also remade in Hindi as 'Jeene Ki Arzoo' by the same director, starring Mithun Chakraborty and Rakesh Roshan. It also marked the Telugu debut for Malayalam actress, Menaka G. Suresh.
Plot
Naagulu (Chiranjeevi), a snake charmer, falls in love with Menaka, whose adopted brother Raju (Narasimha Raju) is in love with Naagulu's cousin Laxmi (Rati Agnihotri). Naagulu's father has been mixing snake venom into his food since childhood, making Naagulu immune to any snake bite. Every full moon, Naagulu behaves like a cobra and searches for a woman and every woman he meets dies from his poison. On one such full moon, he kills Menaka and Raju gets suspicious about this, as there are no marks of a snake bite on her body. A young teacher comes to the village and becomes Naagulu's victim. Raju investigates with the help of film in her still camera and discovers that Naagulu has become a snake. Naagulu's father reveals his secret before dying and Naagulu tries to find a remedy, but it's too late for that. His skin starts peeling off like a snake and Raju advises him to leave the village before villagers find and kill him. Naagulu prefers death to the life of a snake and commits suicide from a hilltop.
Cast
* Chiranjeevi as Naagulu
* Narasimha Raju as Raju
* Rati Agnihotri as Lakshmi
* Menaka as poornima
* Jayamalini
* Sumangali
* Padmanabham
* Mikkilineni
* Dhulipala
*Balakrishna
*Ramadas
Soundtrack
Reception
The movie was a "super hit" at the box office and brought recognition to Chiranjeevi. He received his first Filmfare award nomination as best actor.
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