How Ram Gopal Varma’s ‘Shiva’ Became a Telugu Action Classic Without Bloodshed

A Telugu action film with barely any slo-mo shots and barely any blood. Could we imagine a film like this today? Perhaps not, muses RGV, in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter India. Over three decades ago, Ram Gopal Varma achieved heights of suggestive violence through pure action and tension. Featuring Nagarjuna as an angry young man taking on Raghuvaran’s menacing thug, Shiva shook all the conventional expectations of what a Telugu action film was supposed to look, sound and feel like. Loosely inspired by Bruce Lee’s The Way of the Dragon (1972), Shiva wasn’t your regular action fare, but one that studied the psyche of men with various temperaments. The film set many box-office records in the Telugu-speaking regions, also becoming a breakthrough film for Nagarjuna.

36 years after its release, the film is getting a fresh run at the theatres on November 14, remastered in 4K Dolby Atmos, re-released by Annapurna Studios. Ahead of the re-release, we get director Ram Gopal Varma to revisit key scenes from the film. 

Excerpts from an interview:

Was it your purpose to redefine action with Shiva?

I've always felt that when you're showing any kind of action, it needs to come from within the character and not from the action director's point of view. Every character will fight differently, but audiences need to feel the impact of it. I took a lot of effort to make sure the characters express emotions of pain. So audiences felt like experiencing this in real time. I was inspired by a few English films, and I also used to move around with dadas and rowdies during college time. 

A film like this had also never been done before (at that point in time). Was it difficult to convince producers back then?

Not really, because I was so clear about what I wanted. For example, in the scene when Nagarjuna's friend comes home after a late-night show, I told them how it needs to be filmed, shot by shot. I saw the scene before I shot it. Since nobody ever shot action like this, it was difficult. 

The action director thought it was too tame, as audiences were used to exaggerated ways of shooting, and action directors could never think beyond that. But I insisted. When he's being hit, the extreme pain on his face is juxtaposed with the cold-bloodedness of the guy smoking a cigarette. This juxtaposition makes an impact psychologically, even if the audience isn't conscious of it. In an interview, Nagarjuna said the entire action in Shiva was choreographed by Ramu. There was nobody else.

Can you speak about the film's inspirations apart from Way of the Dragon? Fans have noticed your hat tips to Jaws and Taxi Driver.

After Subhalekha Sudhakar’s character dies, his mother slaps the inspector. I took that scene from Jaws. When the sharks eat up a little boy, his mother slaps the police chief. Here, Raghuvaran is the shark. Similarly, the scene where a character runs into a pole and falls, I took that from Balu Mahendra's Moondram Pirai (1982). Kamal Haasan is running on the platform when he's suddenly hit by the pole. Sridevi is travelling in the train on the right, and Kamal Haasan is coming from the left, but our eyes follow Sridevi and our eyes miss the pole entering the field. I did the exact thing in reverse here.

Films work because of characters and not stories, and that's what I strongly believe. There's no story in Shiva, something a lot of people don't realise. It is a series of interesting events. 

Can you talk about how you used the cycle to drive the action in the film? We see that first with the iconic cycle chain fight.

I've seen dadas use a cycle chain on the streets. Shiva isn't huge and doesn’t intend to beat up somebody, but he needs a weapon when the gang is ready to fight. Everyone liked the idea when they heard it, but I was confused whether a chain could be pulled off a cycle like that. I once tried to do it and hurt my hand. Even after 36 years, so many people tell me they have tried pulling the chain off cycles, but they are bloody faking (laughs). The chain is just too strong.

In Gulzar saab's Mere Apne (1971), Vinod Khanna keeps going around in a cycle. The same is true with Sunny Deol's Arjun (1985). I took the cycle chase scene from Arjun. This kind of world exists only in a certain class of people who could probably afford only a scooter. This makes the audience feel a sense of realism. 

What was it like to shoot the cycle chase scene?

We shot with a very small unit because we didn't get permission for the roads. Today, when I see it, I am surprised by how Nagarjuna did the scene and why he did it in the first place. It is pretty dangerous, and he's holding on to a jeep, too, at one point. Anything could’ve gone wrong at any time, and we didn't have sophisticated rigs at the time. So we just shot with handheld shots. We were ignorant of the possible dangers of the risk. 

Shiva was a love letter to action and filmmaking. Were you always a big fan of the genre?

If you remember Amitabh Bachchan's Deewar (1975), the hero is fearless but is real. He is fighting for his principles, and he's not afraid to die. I have been studying this aspect from First Blood (1982) to Amitabh Bachchan's earlier films like Zanjeer (1973).

One thing that really surprised me when I was redoing the sound [for re-release] was that I don't remember a single film that mimicked Shiva. Today, heroes are already heroes, instead of becoming heroes in films. When he comes with a loud score and slow-mo walks to claps, the believability is somehow getting lost.

They call it elevation scenes, where they spend crores on it, but it still doesn't have an impact as the breaking of a cycle chain. There's got to be some fundamental issue there. If you look at Shiva, there's no slow-motion shot except for two. Today, you can't imagine making a film without that. There's not a single drop of blood in the film. With the possible exception of one shot where Raghuvaran is hit in the climax, there's no blood in the film.

Can you talk to us about the film’s sound? Shiva introduced Indian cinema to new sound recording techniques.

I was always very interested in the sound part because the first time I noticed it was in American Western MacKenna's Gold (1969). I never heard the detailing of sound as much as I did in this film. I heard different sounds in a Tamil film and heard it was done by a person called Deepan in Bombay, who got these special sounds from mixing studios in the UK. We live-recorded Ambassador cars starting and stopping, and this kind of detailing had never been done before.

Among all of the praise for the film, do you remember any moment distinctly that made you realise the film was going to fly?

Post the film's release, I remember one distributor called and told the producer how audiences were watching the film silently without any reaction. He called again in the evening and said they were silent because they were shocked by the film. In the next two to three days, it went like wildfire.