Billa (2009 film)

Billa is a 2009 Indian Telugu-language action thriller film directed by Meher Ramesh. The film stars Prabhas in a dual role, alongside Krishnam Raju, Anushka Shetty, Hansika Motwani, Namitha, Rahman, and Kelly Dorjee. A remake of the 1978 Hindi film "Don" by Salim–Javed, it is the second remake of "Don" in Telugu after "Yugandhar" (1979). 
The film began its production in October 2008 and was released on 3 April 2009.
Plot.
The movie begins with an underworld don Billa hiding and operating out of Malaysia, hiding from Interpol's international criminal list. Krishnamoorthy, an ACP working for the Interpol, has spent the last few years looking for Billa, leaving behind a life in India.
During a chase with the police, Billa is severely wounded after an accident, and dies in front of the ACP. The ACP then secretly holds a funeral for Billa. Interpol Officer Dharmendra is assigned to work with the ACP to capture the elusive Billa as no-one knows of Billa's death. The ACP keeps the death of Billa as a secret even from his fellow officers, and tracks down a look-alike called Swami Ranga, a petty thief based in Visakhapatnam. He asks Ranga to infiltrate Billa's gang by pretending to be Billa. In return, he will make sure that the children Ranga adopted, Lakshmi and Sreenu, get a proper education in Hyderabad.
The ACP trains Ranga and sends him back to Billa's gang as a person who has lost his memory. Slowly Ranga starts to learn about Billa's gang and even speaks to Devil, Billa's boss, on the phone. Ranga provides a pen drive with the secret information of the crime network to the ACP, but he is about to be killed by a woman named Maya because her brother Vikram as well as his fiancée Priya were killed by Billa. At this juncture, the ACP arrives and tells her that he is Ranga and not Billa. Since then, she begins to assist Ranga and the ACP in their mission and soon falls in love with Ranga. Later before a party, Ranga secretly provides information to the ACP about a meeting of Billa's network, and Lisa, Billa's girlfriend, overhears his conversation. She challenges Ranga, but in the fight, he accidentally kills her. A shootout occurs at the party, and the ACP is secretly killed by someone, leaving his gun behind. Ranga finds the ACP's body and the gun, but is taken into the custody of the police team, now headed by Interpol Officer Dharmendra. He argues during interrogation that he is Ranga and not Billa to Dharmendra. Ranga mentions a piece of evidence – the pen drive, which may prove his innocence, but the pen drive is nowhere to be found.
Unable to prove his innocence, he escapes from a police van. He phones Dharmendra and asks him to meet at the Aero bridge. Here it is revealed that Dharmendra is none other than the Underworld Crime Don Devil, and he is the one who killed ACP Krishnamoorthy. While escaping from Devil's gang, he meets Officer Adithya, who apparently had the pen drive all along, and strikes a deal with Ranga to get hold of Devil. Meanwhile, Maya has been kidnapped by Devil after she tried to defend Ranga from Devil. Maya is tied up and kept in a car with her mouth taped shut. Ranga decides to pose as Billa to Devil, and provides Russian explosives to an arms dealer Rashid, who insisted on dealing with Billa. Enraged at being slighted by Rashid, following the completion of the deal, Devil and his henchman Ranjith fight with Ranga. Soon the police arrive and Devil, posing as Dharmendra, asks the police to arrest Ranga as Billa but gets shot by the squad of police and dies as the police have wired the entire conversation between Devil and Ranga, thus proving Ranga's innocence.
The movie ends with Ranga returning to Visakhapatnam with Maya, and deciding to start a school and college there with the government reward given to him and four suitcases of cash he stole from Malaysia.
Production.
The Below is Based on an interview by Meher Ramesh to Mr. Jeevi of idlebrain.com.
Development.
It was during the shooting of Vayassunami's song for Kantri in Ramoji Film City, NTR asked me if I were interested in watching Tamil Billa film. He got a print mailed from Chennai. He wanted to watch it because it was done by legend NTR as 'Yugandhar'. He said that if we like the movie, we might remake it in Telugu immediately after the Kantri film. I loved the film, but opined that NTR might not suit the role at this stage of his career and told him frankly about it.
I still had the idea of remaking Billa. The same producer came up with the proposal of remaking it with Ravi Teja as the hero. I watched the movie again with Ravi Teja in my mind. I modified certain scenes to suit him. Then I opined that a high budget film might not work out with Ravi Teja as the hero. The producer will end up suffering for the kind of budget we ask for. Hence we collectively decided not to make the movie.
I got an offer to work with Prabhas. I told him another story, and he didn't look excited enough. I casually asked him if he saw Billa. I told him that it has all elements of commercial hits like Rowdy Alludu and Donga Mogudu, which Chiranjeevi has done in his peak time of the career. He loved it, and I told him the script changes. We need a comfortable producer who can spend a lot of money at the same time who doesn't pressurize us. Prabhas suggested that we should make it on his home banner Gopi Krishna Movies. I told him another script which is equally exciting. It would cost only 60% of what Billa would have cost. But Prabhas wanted to make Billa. We narrated it to Krishnam Raju, and he loved it. I wanted Krishnam Raju to do the role of police commissioner. I wanted to capture the first combination of Prabhas and Krishnam Raju.
I made some changes in the screenplay. I made Billa an out and out commercial entertainer. I visualized every shot before making the movie. We went to Malaysia and selected the required locations a month in advance.
Casting.
Meher Ramesh explained his casting decisions in an interview.
Anushka: I knew Sweety (Anushka Shetty) even before she entered the movies. It was me who introduced her to Puri Jagannadh for "Super". I told her that she is going to be paired up with Prabhas, and I need her in the best shape. She worked hard, and when I met her after two months, she slimmed down a lot.
Hansika: I told Hansika Motwani that a slot is done by Kareena Kapoor in "Don" is available and asked her if she is interested in doing that role. She trusted me and told me yes immediately.
Namitha: I didn't have Namitha in my mind for that character. I tried many new faces. Namitha asked me that she want to re-enter Telugu films with "Billa". She slimmed down for this role, and we had a photo shoot before signing her.
Supreet: Supreet is highly impressive as Katraju in "Chhatrapati". He matched the masculinity of Prabhas in that film. I cast him as an associate of Prabhas in this film. He looks cool in black suits.
Rahman: Tamil actor Rahman did an important role as an associate of Krishnam Raju in this film. I noticed that he is also a perfectionist like Prakash Raj. He learned each and every word of his dialogue before hand. He uttered all Telugu dialogues with no prompting.
Filming.
Most of the Indian and Bollywood films shot in Malaysia have William Wong as the action director. But I have good tuning with Stun Siva. I employed Stun Siva as fight master for Billa, and we took the help of William Wong whenever we required. We shot a chase that never came in the Indian screen before. It will be like watching terrific chases in Bond flicks. We used choppers for 15 days. When we asked for 2 helicopters, the producer granted us four. This credit should go to producer D Narendra and production designer Krishna. We stayed in Malaysia for 3 months at a stretch to shoot this movie.
I wanted to have either Sameer Reddy or Chota K Naidu for cinematography. But the dates of both of them were not available. Not many people know about Soundar Rajan, who worked as an associate to KV Anand in the past. He also worked for four forgettable Tamil flicks. He got busy in doing commercial ads. We wanted to shoot Billa with a Super 35 camera. When I met him for the first time, we shared good vibes. We spoke for 5 hours about moviemaking. I signed him without looking at his work because I realized that he is extremely talented through our discussion. He is a friend of Vishnu Vardhan, who directed Tamil Billa. We met Vishnu Vardhan, and I informed him of the changes I made in the Billa script. He was impressed with it. Soundar is an excellent technician with an amazing sense of using lenses. He is one of the reasons why Billa is made in less time with more quality.
Billa is shot in 104 working days. We shot this film in the unpredictable weather of Malaysia. The total runtime of the final cut is 2 hours and 30 minutes.
Soundtrack.
Music of Billa was launched at a packed auditorium in Shilpakala Vedika on the night of 18 March 2009 with Dasari Narayana Rao, S. S. Rajamouli, V. V. Vinayak, Gopichand and Allu Arjun as guests. Dasari Narayana Rao launched the music. Mani Sharma composed music for the film and Lahari music bought audio rights. The song "My Name is Billa" was re-used by Sharma for the Tamil film "Sura" (2010) as "Naan Nadanthaal Adhiradi" and "Bommali " as "Thanjavoor Jillakkaari".
Release.
The film was released on 3 April 2009. The film was later dubbed and released in Hindi as "The Return of Rebel 2" and released on YouTube on 10 June 2017.