118 (film)

118 is a 2019 Indian Telugu-language action thriller film[4][5] written and directed by cinematographer turned film director K. V. Guhan in his Tollywood directorial debut.[6] The film features Kalyan Ram, Shalini Pandey and Nivetha Thomas in the lead roles.[7] The music for the film is composed by Shekar Chandra and the film is produced by Mahesh S Koneru under the production company East Coast Production.[8] The film follows an investigative journalist who finds himself threatened after he tries to decode a recurring nightmare involving a woman's death.

118
Theatrical release poster
Directed byK. V. Guhan
Produced byMahesh S Koneru
Written byK. V. Guhan
Screenplay byK. V. Guhan
StarringNandamuri Kalyan Ram
Shalini Pandey
Nivetha Thomas
Music byShekar Chandra
CinematographyK. V. Guhan
Edited byTammiraju
Production
company
East Coast Production
Release date
  • 1 March 2019 (2019-03-01)[1]
Running time
126 minutes
CountryIndia
LanguageTelugu
Budget₹12 crore[2]
Box officeest. ₹17–20.8 crore[2][3]

The film released on 1 March 2019. It received generally positive reviews from critics and became a commercial success.[9][10]

Plot

While sleeping in room number 118 of the Paradise resort, Gowtham dreams about a girl getting beaten and a car being thrown into lake. The next day, he is revealed to be an investigative journalist who stops a money laundering operation by fighting off the home minister's brother and his goons while filming everything. The minister is exposed and Gowtham is invited to a night party at the same resort where he sleeps in room 118 again. When the dream recurs, he visits a psychiatrist named Dr. Athmaram Divakar who advises him not to take the dream seriously. Soon, a car chase with the home minister's henchmen takes Gowtham to a road he saw in his dreams. Jumping into the nearby lake, he discovers an empty car belonging to a church. The Church Father tells Gowtham it was driven by a woman named Esther. A strange gate symbol leads Gowtham to a shut down printing press where he discovers missing posters of the girl in his dreams, Aadhya. He later realizes that Aadhya went missing and his dream appeared on full moon days. Believing the visitors during the other six full moon days to have had the same dream, he sets out to contact them but is contacted by Aadhya who tells him not to look for her. He uses police help to trace the phone number and chases a van containing the phone but finds it belonging to none. Some hints from the visitors lead him to a photo of Aadhya and a girl from Venkataramana Public School whose employee named Murthy is murdered while on his way to help Gowtham.

Gowtham visits the office of Sai Videos office, who filmed an event at the resort, and in the footage sees Aadhya with a man who is soon kidnapped by some goons and a chase ensues, resulting in his death. Gowtham then goes to meet the Father and identifies a nun as the woman who contacted him as Aadhya. She then reveals that the Father told her to make the call and even lied about Esther to Gowtham. He then heads for Vizag to meet the Father, following which the nun is killed. Esther is revealed to be the daughter of the Father who is then shot by the goons. A fight ensues, resulting in Gowtham escaping with Esther who then tells him Aadhya was a friendly computer science teacher who showed affection on Prabhavathi, a young student who died after a vaccination in the school. Aadhya tried to investigate and came to know about illegal vaccinations run by Alanta company. Aadhya and Esther went to the Paradise resort to meet a friend for help, but had to part away because of a phone call that told Esther her friend with an accident. Upon finding Aadhya missing and goons looking for her too, Esther had to run away.

Gowtham visits Dr. Athmaram who claims to make humans enter the world of dreams and decides to use his technology after a successful trial. Gowtham, his fiancée Megha and assistant Ramesh are on their way to the resort but get attacked by the same goons and a car chase ensues, resulting in a fight that leaves Gowtham injured. Asking both Megha and Ramesh to not enter until he voluntarily comes out, he injects himself with the drug given by Athmaram and sleeps. He enters the dream within his mind, and realizes that he was the one supposed to help Aadhya but couldn't as he too had to leave upon learning about the accident of his and Esther's common friend Siddharth. He then watches Aadhya being taken to room 118 where she meets the CEO and owner of Alanta Company V.N. Shah, his henchmen has all the evidence snatched from her and destroyed, is brutally killed and buried near a fountain in the same resort. Gowtham upon waking up, gets the spot where she's buried excavated with the help of police team and obtains a bracelet from her skeletal remains, which has a USB drive containing Aadhya's final video message along with the evidence she had collected thus far against the company (thus, the evidence destroyed by Shah's henchmen was only a copy that she had brought to show Gowtham whom she was to meet that evening during the event at resort). The culprits are captured, Gowtham is praised by the media, and V.N. Shah shoots himself. Later, at his house that night Gowtham has a bright dream in which Aadhya appears with a smile indicating that her soul is now at peace, he wakes up to find her presence of vision disappeared.

Cast

Production

The film marks the directorial debut for cinematographer KV Guhan in Telugu film industry who also marks his return to directorial after previously directing a 2010 Tamil-language film titled Inidhu Inidhu which was remake of 2007 blockbuster Telugu film Happy Days. The filming began in around May 2018 and the first look poster of the film was unveiled on 5 July 2018 on the occasion of lead actor Kalyan Ram's birthday.[11]

Marketing

The official teaser of the film was launched on 18 December 2018. The official trailer of the film was unveiled on 15 February 2019.[12][13]

The film will have its official theatrical release on 1 March 2019 according to the official trailer of the film following the wrap up of post production work which concluded in around February 2019.[14]

Soundtrack
118
Soundtrack album by
Shekar Chandra
Released
  • 26 February 2019 (2019-02-26)
Recorded2019
GenreSoundtrack
Length8:11
LabelAditya Music
ProducerShekar Chandra
Shekar Chandra chronology
Subrahmanyapuram
(2018)		 118
(2019)

Music composed by Shekar Chandra. Music released on Aditya Music[15] The soundtrack consists of three songs which was released on 26 February 2019.

Track list
No.TitleLyricsSinger(s)Length
1."Chandamame"RamanjaneyuluYazin Nizar03:41
2."Paadhaalu Nee Dhari"Kalyan TripuraneniNutana Mohan02:24
3."118 Theme" Instrumental02:06
Total length:08:11

Reception

Neeshita Nyayapati of Times of India gave 3.5/5 stating "Just don't try to dig too deep or you might miss out on a fine thriller".[16]

Manoj Kumar R of Indianexpress gave 2/5 stating "KV Guhan's film is rife with unoriginal ideas that it becomes very difficult for the audience to forgive and just focus on the story".[17]

Hemanth Kumar of Firstpost gave 2.5/5 stating "Kalyan Ram goes on a wild goose chase to find the plot of KV Guhan's thriller".[18]

gollark: You get a bunch of facts you have to memorize, which are never wrong™.
gollark: The education system as currently extant doesn't really teach critical thinking though.
gollark: It selects for it because it's a working strategy, and politicians who say vague meaningless emotive things do better than hypothetical ones who try and just say facts.
gollark: Politicians can just go around spouting meaningless slogans and people vote for them. The system selects for it.
gollark: I spent a while rephrasing this, but whatever: ultimately, the stupid persuasive things politicians go around doing to get votes *do work* on people.

References
  1. "South Indian releases March 1 from 118 to 90ml". Bollywood Life. Retrieved 26 February 2018.
  2. "2019లో భారీ వసూళ్లు రాబట్టిన సినిమాలివే." Sakshi (in Telugu). 31 December 2019. Retrieved 6 August 2020.
  3. "Tollywood Box office report - 2019: Highest grossing Telugu movies of the year". International Business Times. 22 December 2019.
  4. "'118' is a stylish action-suspense thriller: Makers". Indiaglitz.
  5. "118 is not that, it's a bright action thriller". Mirchi9.com.
  6. "Kalyan Ram starrer 118 seems to be a mysterious tale". The Times of India. 16 February 2019. Retrieved 24 March 2019.
  7. Guru (17 December 2018). "118 Telugu Movie (2019) | Cast | Songs | Teaser | Trailer | Release Date". News Bugz. Retrieved 26 February 2019.
  8. "Kalyan Ram confident about his upcoming film 118". Zee News. 24 February 2019. Retrieved 26 February 2019.
  9. "118 Movie Review: Kalyan Ram starrer opens to positive response; check it out". Pinkvilla.com.
  10. "118 Final Total WW Collections". Andhraboxoffice.com.
  11. "Is it '118' for Nandamuri Kalyan Ram?". The Times of India. Retrieved 26 February 2019.
  12. "118 – Official Trailer | Telugu Movie News". The Times of India. Retrieved 26 February 2019.
  13. "Kalyan Ram, Shalini Pandey and Nivetha Thomas' 118 trailer is intriguing!". The Times of India. Retrieved 26 February 2019.
  14. "Kalyan Ram's 118 post-production in its final stage". The Times of India. Retrieved 26 February 2019.
  15. "Telugu 118 Movie Audio Songs Jukebox". TimesofIndia.
  16. "118 Review". TimesofIndia.
  17. "118 movie review: Kalyan Ram-starrer is very pretentious". Indianexpress.
  18. "118 movie review". Firstpost.
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