Jai Simha will be the perfect family-friendly festival film, says Balakrishna at pre-release event

This is the second time in a row Nandamuri Balakrishna will have a release for Sankranti. If it was the critically-acclaimed period drama Gautamiputra Satakarni last year, it’ll be KS Ravikumar directed Jai Simha, which is slated for theatrical release on January 12. Jai Simha marks Balakrishna’s maiden collaboration with Ravikumar, known for delivering blockbusters such as Padayappa, Muthu and Panchathantiram.

Speaking at the film’s pre-release event on Monday evening in Hyderabad, Balakrishna said he’s been planning to work with Ravikumar for a long time. “For the last eight years we’ve been planning to work together. For various reasons, we couldn’t work earlier. I’m glad the long-time desire has been fulfilled with a project like Jai Simha, which will be the perfect festival film for everybody to watch with their family. It has all the navarasas (nine emotions).”

The film is titled after Balakrishna’s father’s 1955 film. “We are proud to have used the same title. It was my father’s third film as a producer. Despite the failure of the first two production ventures, he placed his faith in Jayasimha and it worked in his favour. We are confident about our Jai Simha, too”

Commenting on the experience of joining hands with Ravikumar, Balakrishna said he thoroughly enjoyed the collaboration. “When Ratnam brought the story, my producer C Kalyan and I had made up our minds that we’ll approach Ravikumar for this project. He was more than happy to come on board as he’s been waiting for this opportunity. I enjoyed working with him because both of us are like-minded and that made the whole experience very special. He’s made some great films in Tamil so I don’t have to specially talk about his good work because everybody knows about it.” Without divulging much information about the film, Balakrishna said it’s packed with unbelievable twists. “If I talk about the film, I fear I might end up revealing the story. I’m positive audiences will love the film.”

When it was Ravikumar’s turn to speak, he used the occasion to thank Balakrishna and producer Kalyan for the opportunity. Jai Simha is Ravikumar’s third Telugu directorial.

“When I signed the project, a lot of people told me Balakrishna has anger issues. They asked me how I was going to work with him. Honestly, I was slightly worried in the beginning. As we started shooting, I realized what I had heard about him was not true. During the course of making the film, never did I once experience his angry side. He does get angry at his assistants but that’s only when their work irritates him. But even that can’t be really counted as getting angry,” he said and added Balakrishna never tried to take over the reins of the project and call the shots.

“I have done around 46 films. In my career, only two heroes have not interfered in my work. In Tamil, it is Ajith and in Telugu, it’s Balakrishna. Never have both of them asked me to make changes to scenes or dialogues. I have worked with many stars and most of them interfere and want some things to be changed. I never take offense of such things because most of the time they do it for the sake of the final output. But the faith Balakrishna sir had me was very heartening," he added.

Also at the event, it was announced that Balakrishna will soon reunite with director Boyapati Srinu, who had presided over as one of the guests of the evening. Srinu’s project will commence after Balakrishna wraps up NTR biopic, which is currently on the floors and is being directed by Teja.