With Walt Disney's first south Indian feature hitting screens in less than a month, the promo machine has moved into high gear. Once Upon a Warrior (Anaganaga O Dheerudu) is Disney's first venture into any of India's non-Hindi film markets, and it looks like it is going to set a very high standard for quality in Tollywood. Based upon the teaser and trailer below, the special effects are miles beyond anything that has been accomplished in India, even in the northern film industry of Bollywood, which generates a lot more revenue in general than its southern brethren.
The first teaser for the film made it look as though it was going to be more of a Western style sword and sorcery film with not much to distinguish it from the masses of American films, apart from the color of the actors' skin. However, this longer trailer most definitely showcases the Indian side of the film with snips of song sequences, elaborate set pieces, and a number of very Indian looking wide angle zooms. Indian filmmakers LOVE wide angle lenses, it's kind of a plague.
Anyway, the trailer gives a little bit more breathing room to some of the outstanding imagery in the teaser, including a new character and some really gorgeous songs. Walt Disney, in their role, have apparently chosen to market this film as an action adventure film akin to their National Treasure/Pirates of the Caribbean series, even going so far as to have the closing music for the trailer closely mimic Hans Zimmer's Pirates score.
I'm definitely looking forward to this, and there I'm hoping that Walt Disney's involvement means there is a chance that it will be subtitled in English, which is almost unheard of for Telugu film. In fact, I can't think of a Telugu film that has ever had an English subtitled theatrical print. I'll be crossing my fingers.