Mirchi

Koratala Siva's first film and one of the turning points in Prabhas's career. Prabhas plays Jai, an architect living in Italy, who meets Vennela, played by Anushka Shetty, and returns with her to India and to a family still locked in a blood feud. The idea is that the hero refuses to answer violence with violence. That is an unusual choice in Telugu action; Jai can fight, but his actual plan is to end the enmity between two families by talking, and the film spends its length showing how hard that is. There is action, but it does not sit at the centre of the story. Devi Sri Prasad wrote the music and Chota K. Naidu shot it. It opened on 8 February 2013 and took around eighty-seven crore against a budget of thirty. At the Nandi Awards, Koratala Siva was named best first-time director and Prabhas took Best Actor in the silver category. Who it is for: viewers who like Telugu action drama and Prabhas. Who it is not for: anyone unaccustomed to a three-hour running time and to the genre's conventions.