Mungaru Male

Preetham is on a visit to Eva Mall in Bangalore; amidst a heavy wind, he spots a pretty girl, Nandini. While staring at her, he inadvertently falls into a manhole. Nandini rescues him, but in the process she loses her heart-shaped watch which she had just bought.

While accompanying his mother to Madikeri in Coorg, Preetham confronts a man named Jaanu. Jaanu, who has been following Nandini, hits Preetham, thinking that he is in love with her. Preetham, unaware that Jaanu has vowed not to allow anyone near Nandini, fights Jaanu and his gang in revenge.

In Madikeri, Preetham unexpectedly meets Nandini. He identifies himself and expresses his love for her and offers to put her lost watch on her. Nandini, who is already engaged, rejects his request. Nonetheless, Preetham vows to marry Nandini if she meets him again. In the meantime, Preetham discovers that his nearly-deaf host in Madikeri, Col. Subbaiah, is Nandini's father and that her wedding is only a week away. Dejected, Preetham throws Nandini's watch away. But Nandini calls him and taunts him to return. Delighted, Preetham goes in search of her watch and spots a rabbit, which he names Devadas, and brings it along with the watch.

Since Nandini's friends are due to arrive from Mumbai for the wedding, Preetham takes Nandini to the railway station. The train is delayed by five hours, so Nandini and Preetham decide to visit a nearby hill-temple. While returning from the temple, Preetham and Nandini are caught in the rain. An old couple offers to give them shelter inside their hut. Preetham, still not sure about expressing his love to Nandini, grabs a couple of toddy bottles, goes out in the rain and starts drinking. However, when Nandini walks towards him, offering an umbrella, he drunkenly tells Nandini that he should stay away from Nandini to remain a decent boy, rather than to propose or elope with her. Nandini is now in love with Preetham and is in a dilemma as her wedding is in a few days. She asks him to take her to the top of a waterfall where she expresses her love for him while standing at the edge.

Preetam, intent on marrying Nandini, takes Col. Subbaiah for a morning jog to discuss the matter. But Col. Subbaiah, a heart patient, tells Preetham that he is expected to die anytime and his only desire is to get Nandini married to Gautam: an army officer who saved his life during a war. He also could feel Nandini's mother's worry when she realised that Nandini could be in love with someone else because the wedding was to happen the next day and all invitations were already sent out. Her mother also felt that it would be very unfair to a good person like Gautham. Hence, Preetham decides to obey Nandini's parents' wishes and let Gautham marry Nandini. The night before the wedding, an extremely depressed Preetham goes to a road-side bar to drink alcohol and sees Gautam arriving for his wedding ceremony. Gautam asks the bar-owner for directions to Col. Subbaiah's home because of the heavy rains and badly-maintained interior roads of Coorg. Jaanu arrives and tries to kill Gautam, Preetham saves him and convinces Jaanu that Gautam is the best person to marry Nandini.

The next day, Preetham brings Gautam to the wedding after Gautam's car broke down. They reach just in time for the ceremony, but Preetham declines to attend. Gautam asks for the heart-shaped watch as a memento but Preetham leaves, unwilling to part with it. They search for Preetham, but cannot find him. Only Preetham's mother knows the truth of his love for Nandini, and she tries to hide her fear.

Resignedly, Preetham watches the arch proclaiming "Gautham weds Nandini" and the marriage taking place in Kodava style. As he leaves, he spots Devadas and takes the rabbit with him. Driving towards Bangalore, Preetham confides in Devadas as to how much he loved Nandini, and how he wished he had a life with her. He then realises that Devadas has died. The film ends with Preetham burying Devadas.

Development

Director Yograj Bhat, who had earlier dabbled in advertising and corporate films, began working on the script of Mungaru Male.^[21] He read the script to Puneeth Rajkumar and Ramya who rejected it.^[22] Ganesh introduced Yograj Bhat to producer E. Krishnappa, who agreed to finance the film. Bhat cast a relatively unknown actress, Pooja Gandhi, for the lead female role in the film.^[23]

Filming

Approximately 80% of the scenes were filmed in the rain.^[1][24] Shooting locations included major part in^[24] Sakaleshpura, Madikeri,^[24] Jog Falls Sagara,^[24] and Gadag. Krishna, the cameraman, was a part-time photographer prior to the film. The song "Kunidu Kunidu" and the climax was shot at Jog Falls.^[25][26]

Mano Murthy scored the film's background music and its soundtrack, lyrics for which was penned by Jayant Kaikini, Yogaraj Bhat, Kaviraj and Hrudaya Shiva. The soundtrack album consists of seven tracks.^[27] Anand Audio bought the distribution rights for ₹500,000.^[28] It was released on 6 November 2006 in Bangalore.^[29]

Upon the album's release, it topped the charts with the song "Anisuthide" receiving significant radio and TV air time.^[30] It was reported that by mid-May 2007, over 200,000 copies were sold in compact discs alone.^[31] Hindustan Times reported, "The film has just completed seven weeks, but audio sales have broken all earlier records. Composer Mano Murthy has once again created musical magic with songs like 'Anisuthidhe' and 'Onde Ondu Saari'."^[32]

The success of the film's soundtrack, especially the track "Anisutide", further propelled Nigam's playback singing career in Kannada cinema.^[30] With the song, lyricist and writer Jayant Kaikini's reputation as a writer of romantic songs further elevated, and is considered one of his best.^[33]

Rediff.com's critic awarded it a three-star rating and praised its cinematography, technical values, and the acting of Ganesh and Anant Nag.^[34]

Indicine.com's critic rated the film 4 out of 5, describing Ganesh as the "life and soul of the movie". Other praise was directed at Gandhi, "Sanjana makes a confident debut. Veteran actor Anant Nag with his brilliant comic timing provides able support".^[35] S. Shiva Kumar of The Hindu wrote, "Anant Nag never ceases to amaze. Playing a deaf, trigger-happy ex-serviceman, his dialogue delivery and sense of timing are spot on. TV anchor turned actor Ganesh has a casual style, which audiences seem to be lapping up."^[36]

Made with a production budget of ₹70 lakh (US$88,000),^[1] the film collected ₹50 crore (500 million) in 300 days.^[37][38] Then film went on to gross ₹50^[3][4]–75 crore^[5] (₹500–750 million) by the end of its theatrical run of 865 days.^[14][39] The film has also been released with 150 prints in Karnataka.^[40] This was the first Indian film which ran over a year in a multiplex: PVR cinemas Bangalore.^[41] Mungaaru Male was being screened at full theatres, one year after its release.^[42] According to reports it was the first Kannada film to touch ₹50 crore club in history of Kannada film industry.^[1][43][13]

Overseas

Mungaru Male was released to 10 countries including the United States, Australia, Singapore, New Zealand, UK, Hong Kong and Dubai. It was the highest-grossing Kannada film overseas.^{[citation needed]} It had made ₹36 lakh (equivalent to ₹1.2 crore or US$140,000 in 2023) in the US alone.^[44][45]

Home media

The satellite rights were acquired by television channel Star Suvarna for ₹36 million.^[46] The DVD of the film with 5.1 surround sound was distributed by Anand Video.^[47]

The film was awarded the Best Kannada Film award for the year 2006–07 by the Government of Karnataka (seven awards in total from the Government of Karnataka). It won three Filmfare awards: best music, best direction and best film. However, it did not win a single national award from the Government of India.^[48]

The success of Mungaru Male turned Ganesh and Pooja Gandhi into most sought-after actors in Kannada cinema.^[51] Ganesh had back-to-back commercial successes in Cheluvina Chittara (2007), Hudugaata (2007) and Krishna (2007). Ganesh and Bhat delivered two consecutive films that emerged as commercial successes, the other being Gaalipata (2008).^[52] The film also proved to be a launchpad for the career of actress Pooja Gandhi.^[53] Gandhi also delivered back-to-back commercially superhit films such as Milana (2007), Krishna (2007), Taj Mahal (2008) and Budhivanta (2008).^[54][55] Jog Falls attained popularity and became a tourist spot after the film's release.^[25]

Producer E Krishnappa and distributor Jayanna were raided by the Income Tax department multiple times, who claimed that the film had collected ₹67.5 crore and demanded tax for that amount. After Mungaru Male, two of Ganesh's next films also became super hits.^[13]

Book

Bhat wrote about the making of Mungaru Male in the book Haage Summane, which was released on day of the silver jubilee celebration for the movie.^{[56][clarification needed]}

The movie was remade in Telugu in 2008 as Vaana,^[16] in Bengali in 2008 as Premer Kahini , in Odia in 2009 as Romeo - The Lover Boy ^[18] and in Marathi in 2017 as Premay Namaha.^[57][58]

It was announced in July 2014 that Shashank would be directing the sequel of the film, titled Mungaru Male 2. Ganesh reprised his role in the film, produced by J. Gangadhar under the banner of E. K. Pictures.^[19] The sequel was released in 2016.

• Mungaru Male at IMDb