Premaloka

Premaloka is a 1987 Indian romantic musical film directed by Ravichandran in his directorial debut and produced by N. Veeraswamy under the banner Sri Eshwari Productions. Based on the 1982 film Grease 2, the film was made simultaneously in Kannada and Tamil with the Tamil version titled Paruva Ragam. It stars Ravichandran in the lead role alongside Bollywood actress Juhi Chawla. Leelavathi and Lokesh play supportive roles in the Kannada version while Jaishankar and Manorama reprise their respective roles in the Tamil version. Vishnuvardhan, Ambareesh, Tiger Prabhakar, Srinath and Urvashi made guest appearances in the film. Thengai Srinivasan, Cho Ramaswamy and Delhi Ganesh portray the respective roles of Ambareesh, Prabhakar and Srinath in the Tamil version.

Plot
Ravi is a happy-go-lucky college student who lives with his parents Govardhan Rao and Girija, but considers his maid Sharadamma as his family as he never felt loved by his parents due to their business schedule. One day, Ravi accidentally meets Shashikala at the market, where he meets her again at his college and learns that she is the newly joined student. On the occasion of the college's diamond jubilee, the college director wishes to hold a ceremony in order to celebrate and get donations. The principal's suggestion of a small pooja is rebuked and the college Prof. Manohar is chosen to plan a grand spectacle with the other students.

A motorcycle gang tries to derail the planning, but they are held off and the stage is set up without a hitch. However, Shashikala is accosted by the gang and has to hide, where she runs into Ravi. The preparations continue, where the gang again harass the students and all hope seems lost after they beat up the students who stand in their way. However, a mysterious biker rescues them and beats the gang. Shashikala falls in love with him and receives the biker's jacket. Shashikala continues to reject Ravi's advances while fantasizing over the mysterious biker.

During the night of the show's musical performance, the gang comes back to disrupt the afterparty and Shashikala ends up fainting from the chaos. The biker again saves the students, where Shashikala regains consciousness to see him. The biker reveals himself as Ravi. Though hesitant at first, Shashikala accepts his feelings and her love for him, but Ravi's parents have arranged his marriage to the CM's daughter Rajini as a way of gaining prestige. Rajini tries to find Ravi with the help of the principal and Inspector Srinath, who happens to be Shashikala's father. Shashikala learns from the principal about Ravi's arranged marriage, where she runs away from him heartbroken after assuming that Ravi has cheated her.

Meanwhile, Ravi finally realizes what has happened and goes home, where he is scolded for what he has done. Although his parents ask Sharadamma to convince him to accept the marriage, Ravi instead becomes enraged and trashes his room in a fit of rage. Shashikala is yelled and slapped by her parents for loving Ravi. Finally, Ravi goes to Shashikala's house and yells his grievances while jumping around and breaking more things. Realizing her love for him, Ravi and Shashikala emotionally reunite and run away the next morning.

In response, Shashikala's father claims that Ravi kidnapped Shashikala and sends the police to catch them. Swapping positions with a couple in a wedding procession, they are about to get married until the principal, Prof. Manohar and their parents confront them. Ravi and Shashikala manages to convince their parents, principal and Prof. Manohar, where they finally agree. Ravi and Shashikala get married and they leave to a countryside for their honeymoon.

Production
Premaloka marked the directorial debut of V. Ravichandran. The film was supposed to be produced by K. C. N. Chandru who later backed out due to the film's high budget and high number of songs hence Ravichandran himself produced it. For the lead actress, Ravichandran rejected 52 girls before choosing Juhi Chawla. Apart from composing music, Hamsalekha also wrote lyrics for the soundtrack album and dialogues for the film. When Ravichandran was mulling over the theme of the film, Hamsalekha suggested him to do a musical script on the lines of The Sound of Music and Grease 2. Jolly Bustin, who went on to become an action choreographer, worked as a body double for Ravichandran.

Soundtrack
Hamsalekha composed the music for the film (in his Tamil debut) and also penned the lyrics for the Kannada soundtrack while Vairamuthu and Rajasri penned the lyrics for the Tamil and Telugu soundtrack. The soundtrack album consists of eleven tracks. The distribution rights were bought by Lahari Music for a hitherto record price of ₹150,000.

The music were widely appreciated and created records in the audio cassette sales during the time. Tulsiram Naidu aka Lahari Velu of Lahari Music wrote in 2015, "Premaloka continues to be the biggest hit among film music albums in Kannada cinema. Back then audio rights were sold for a pittance and nominally paid ₹100 or ₹1,000. With Premaloka things changed and rights began to be sold in lakhs." The lyrics of the soundtrack also received acclaim from critics. The soundtrack sold 38 lakhs (3.8million) units, setting a record for South Indian soundtrack albums.

The lyrics of two songs from Grease 2 – Back to School Again and Who's That Guy? were retained as "Geleyare Nanna Gelathiyare" and "Yaarivanu". Another song  Premalokadinda Banda was an adaptation of the 1986 Taiwanese Hokkien pop song Reflections In The Cup (also known as "Cup (in the) Shadow") composed by Taiwanese musician Chen Hong  and sung by Taiwanese singer Chen Hsiao-yun.

Release and reception
Premaloka opened to an underwhelming response for the first few days, but became successful a month after the release due to positive word-of-mouth and soundtrack being repeatedly playing on television. By contrast, Paruva Ragam underperformed due to competition from other bigger films. Reviewing this version, Jayamanmadhan of Kalki praised Ravichandran, who has shown a normal story in an awe-inspiring CinemaScope size and requested him to tone down songs in his next film.

Legacy
One of the songs, Nodamma Hudugi, was reused by Sundeep Malani for his Kanglish film SMS 6260. Hamsalekha would go on to compose music for many more Ravichandran films. This film established Ravichandran as new entry star in Kannada film industry.

Premaloka was dubbed in Telugu as Premalokam. Juhi Chawla recalling her experiences stated that "My 45-day shoot for Premaloka ensured that going on the set of Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak was a cakewalk. The other good thing about Premaloka was that the team was young, so it was like college buddies hanging out. [..] Since the film was a musical, it was like a party on the set. The only senior person there was our cinematographer. I fondly look back at my stint in Kannada cinema during my early days as the foundation for my career in Bollywood".

Sequel
In March 2024, Ravichandran announced he would direct a sequel. It was expected to begin production in late May, but has yet to begin.