Here's what's common between Ram Charan's fight scene in Rajamouli’s RRR and their earlier film, Magadheera

Moviegoers today are very much aware of exactly what to expect from an S.S. Rajamouli movie. While Ram Charan fighting off 2,000 people at once might still seem like too much, the director has been able to pull it off convincingly in the movie. And this is not the first time the two have pulled a massive act like this. The director has gotten Ram Charan to fight a huge army before as well, in his 2009 fantasy action drama, Magadheera.

Ram Charan worked with Rajamouli back in 2009 for his second career film, titled Magadheera. The movie saw Charan slay 100 soldiers, battling death and exertion. The fight scene in Magadheera is a long and exhilarating action sequence where Charan’s character, Kala Bhairava, slays 100 soldiers of an army who are invading the kingdom he is sworn to protect. 

The fight is placed towards the latter part of the movie and has an emotional aspect, also involving his love interest in the movie, played by Kajal Aggarwal. The stakes are high in this sequence for a few reasons, including the life of the princess being on the line, and the location of the fight being tricky. 

Kala Bhairava fights a hundred soldiers, standing on top of a narrow bridge, which is at a height of thousand feet. While this adds to the tension and allure of the sequence, he also uses this to his advantage, sending many of the bad guys for a tumble. 

With the action choreography handled by Peter Hein and the duo of Ram–Lakshman, the sequence in Magadheera paved the way for some technical swordplay where the actor excelled. 

While Magadheera and RRR are filmed 13 years apart, the director proves he can still convincingly execute a fight sequence featuring hundreds of people. Ram Charan also proves that he still has the technicality and the agility he had 13 years ago with this scene in the film.

In Ram Charan’s powerful introduction scene in RRR, he is seen taking on an angry mob of over 2,000 people after the British officer has ordered the arrest of one of the mobsters. 

Nick Powell’s action choreography in RRR also helps produce an introduction scene that defines the character of Alluri Sitarama Raju. This action sequence is placed at the very beginning and is our first look at Ram Charan in the movie. While the setting here is very different from Magadheera, Charan also has a different task at hand. His mission here is to capture one among the thousands and bring him back to his superiors. Charan never really kills anyone here, but the intensity is built up brilliantly by the director. 

While there is also no cliff in this fight sequence, Ram Charan does take a tumble down a slope with a few of the bad guys but comes out of it with only a few bruises to show. While this is the only real connection between the two fight sequences, both Rajamouli and Ram Charan’s control over their craft is evident. 

Rajamouli’s epic period action drama, which also stars Jr NTR in the lead with extended cameos from Alia Bhatt and Ajay Devgn, is currently running in theatres around the world.