Kiccha Sudeep celebrates two milestone films in his career – one that made him and another that elevated him

July is a special month for Kannada superstar Kiccha Sudeep – not only because he has one of his biggest films to date, Vikrant Rona, up for release, but also for two other movies that quite literally defined his career. Sudeep, of course, acknowledges the importance of both these film in making him the actor and star that he is today.

In a tweet this morning, Sudeep wrote, A beautiful day in my life. A big thanks to each one from the team of #Huchcha and #Eega for giving me those unforgettable moments.🥳❤️ One made me,, One Elevated me. #21YearsOfHuchcha #10YearsOfEega”.

Twenty-one years ago, on a July 6, a film called Huccha released. The Om Prakash Rao directed romantic action film was the Kannada remake of the Tamil film Sethu, which had Vikram in the lead. Huccha came shortly after Sudeep’s first major break, Sparsha and went on to become the film that made him Kiccha Sudeep, a moniker he got for his character in the film. The film got him his first Best Actor award. Interestingly, Sudeep was not Om Prakash’s first choice for the role. He had approached both Upendra and Shiva Rajkumar, both of who declined to be a part of it, as they were not convinced if the second half of the film would work for Kannada audiences.

In the years, thereafter, Sudeep was a part of several Kannada films as actor and director, stepped into Bollywood with Ram Gopal Varma’s Phoonk, which he followed up with Rann and the bilingual Rakthacharitra. Then came along a film that would go on to quite literally change things around for Sudeep – director SS Rajamouli’s Telugu-Tamil bilingual Eega/Naani, in which the actor was the antagonist. Although Nani was the protagonist of the fantasy action film, his character is killed pretty early on by Sudeep, only to reincarnate as a housefly seeking to avenge his death and protect his love, Bindu (Samantha). For most the film, Sudeep had to act without a co-star, given that the fly was to be added in post-production only. The film went on to become one of the biggest grossers of Tollywood that year and won several awards and accolades, including one for Best Supporting Actor for Sudeep. It was dubbed and released in Hindi as Makkhi and Malayalam as Eecha and did well in those markets too. The film was not dubbed in Kannada, as there was an unwritten rule against dubbed content in the market at the time.