From 'Anuraga Aralithu' to 'U Turn': Kannada movies that were remade in foreign languages

One of the most commonly heard accusations on the Kannada film industry is that of remaking movies from other languages. But, it has not always been the case as there have been times when Kannada movies too were remade into other languages. There were more remakes in the 90s, but over the years, Sandalwood has seen a dip in the number of remakes from other languages and has had more and more original content coming up. In recent times, many Kannada movies have been remade into other languages or have inspired other film industries. Let's take a look at such Kannada films from ‘Anuraga Aralithu’ to ‘U Turn’ that were remade in different languages.

‘Anuraga Aralithu’ starring Dr Rajkumar, Madhavi and Geetha was one of the box office hit movies directed and produced by M. S. Rajashekar. This film was remade in a total of six languages. But, this was the first Kannada movie to cross borders and get remade in an international language as well. The movie was also remade in Bangladeshi Bengali in 2002 as ‘Shami Strir’. This was the first Kannada movie to be remade in many languages, and in a foreign language. ‘Anuraga Aralithu’ was also the first Indian film remade in six languages.

‘Appu’ was directed by Puri Jagannadh starring Puneeth Rajkumar and Rakshita in lead roles. This was the second Kannada movie remade in a foreign language. This movie was remade in Bangladeshi Bengali as ‘Priya Amar Priya’ in 2008. Puneeth Rajkumar played a student in this movie and it was remade in Telugu in 2002 as ‘Idiot’, Tamil in 2003 as ‘Dum’, and Bengali in 2006 as ‘Hero’. Puneeth Rajkumar and Rakshita made their acting debuts with this film, and it surely proved to be a big break for both the actors.

‘Appayya’ was a romantic movie starring Srinagar Kitty and Bhama, which was written, directed and co-produced by S. Narayan. This movie didn't do well in theatres but received good reviews. This was the third movie to be remade in a foreign language. It was remade in Bangladeshi Bengali as ‘Angaar’ in 2016. This film was well appreciated for its amazing songs and music.

‘Auto Shankar’ starred Upendra, Shilpa Shetty and Radhika Kumaraswamy in lead roles. This movie was directed by D. Rajendra Babu and produced by Ramu. It was dubbed in Tamil, Hindi and Malayalam. This movie also got remade in Bangladeshi Bengali in 2017 as ‘Ohongkar’. This was a career-changing movie for Upendra, and Gurukiran’s music direction was another reason for the success of the film.

'U Turn', directed by Pawan Kumar, was a mystery thriller hit of 2016. It featured Shraddha Srinath, Radhika Chetan, Dileep Raj and Roger Narayan in lead roles. Later, the film was remade in Telugu and Tamil in 2017 and was directed by Pawan Kumar himself. This movie was also remade in Malayalam as ‘Careful’. 'U Turn' was also remade in the Filipino language in the Philippines, and in Sinhala in Sri Lanka. This was the first Kannada cinema to be remade in two foreign languages.