Rajakumarudu

Rajakumarudu (translated in promotional material as The Prince) is a 1999 Indian Telugu-language romantic comedy film directed by K. Raghavendra Rao. It stars Mahesh Babu and Preity Zinta. The film was produced by C. Aswani Dutt under the Vyjayanthi Movies banner. Krishna made a guest appearance. The music was composed by Mani Sharma. The film was released on 30 July 1999.

Rajakumarudu was the debut film for Babu in a lead role after previous roles as a child actor. The film received positive reviews and was commercially successful. The film won two Nandi Awards.

Plot
Raj Kumar goes on a holiday to Khandala and stays with his uncle Dhananjay. He comes across Rani and falls for her. However, he ends up teasing her and she begins to despise him. She is determined to avoid him, but he won't leave her alone. Raj Kumar saves Rani from some thugs, and she is impressed. After spending some time together, she begins to like him and eventually love him.

Unfortunately his uncle has made other plans for him. He reveals the past of the hero's parents and his family. He mentions the challenge that he made with his in-laws to get the hero married to his daughter. Complying to this, the hero informs the heroine that their relationship needs to end there.

Going with his uncle to the village for his uncle's daughter, to his joy he sees that it's none other than Rani.

The rest of the movie revolves around the plot that is woven by him and his uncle to gain the heroine's hand and re-uniting the uncle with his family. This is done in a fun, comical way.

Cast

 * Mahesh Babu as Raja (credited as Mahesh)
 * Preity Zinta as Rani
 * Prakash Raj as Dhanunjay
 * Sumalatha as Rajyalakshmi
 * Srihari as Narsimharayudu
 * Prasad Babu as Rajyalakshmi's brother
 * Sivaji Raja as Rajyalakshmi's brother
 * Brahmanandam as Hyderabad Police Sub-Inspector Wagle
 * Asrani as Mumbai Police Inspector
 * M. S. Narayana as Police Constable
 * AVS as Rajyalakshmi's brother
 * Jaya Prakash Reddy as Sarvarayudu
 * Raghunatha Reddy as Rajyalakshmi's brother
 * Gundu Hanumantha Rao as Coconut seller
 * Ananth as Bystander during stick fight
 * Venu Madhav as Raja's collegemate
 * Sana as Rajyalakshmi's sister-in-law
 * Rajitha as Rajyalakshmi's sister-in-law
 * Sajja Teja as Vengalla Rayudu
 * Kaushal Manda as Raja's collegemate
 * Khayyum as Raja's collegemate
 * Krishna as Krishnamurthy (guest appearance; uncredited)

Soundtrack
Music was composed by Mani Sharma.

Release and reception
Rajakumarudu released with 78 prints in 116 screens. Jeevi of Idlebrain.com wrote that "There are some excellent scenes in the second half that will make us realize how good is Mahesh at comedy. He is got perfect timing. He will the force to reckon with in the future". Griddaluru Gopalrao of Zamin Ryot wrote that "All old stuff. There is not a single interesting new thing thing so it turns out to be an ordinary film" and added that "the dialogues of Paruchuri brothers were hilarious".

Box-office
The film had a 50-day run in 80 centres and a 100-day run in 44 centres. Raja Kumarudu collected a share of ₹10.51 crore from Andhra Pradesh. It was dubbed in Hindi as Prince No. 1 and in Tamil as Kaadhal Vennila. The film was again dubbed and released theatrically in Tamil during January 2017 as Ivan Oru Thunichalkaran.

Awards

 * Nandi Awards
 * Best Home - Viewing Feature film in 1999.
 * Best Art Director - Srinivasa Raju