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Gang Leader is a 1991 Indian Telugu language-language action crime film written and directed by Vijaya Bapineedu, and produced by Maganti Ravindranath Chowdary. The film stars Chiranjeevi and Vijayashanti, while Raogopal Rao, Anandaraj, Murali Mohan, and Sarath Kumar play supporting roles. The soundtrack was composed by Bappi Lahiri with dance choreography by Prabhu Deva. The film explores the exploitation of law enforcement by anti-social behaviour and the impact of crowd psychology.
The film opened to highly positive reviews from the critics and became the highest grossing Telugu film at the time. It was screened at the International Film Festival of India. Later, it was dubbed in Tamil with the same title. The film was later remade in Hindi as Aaj Ka Goonda Raaj (1992) where Chiranjeevi reprises his role and in Kannada as Kutumba (2003).
Meanwhile, Ekambaram, a dreaded gangster known for contract killing and extortion, alongside his brother Kanakambaram, kill Raghupathi as he witnessed a homicide. Rajaram was spending time in prison when this incident happened. However, his friends are aware of Raghupathi's death. Rajaram, on the other hand, thinks that his brother's death was an accident. Raghava becomes an IAS officer and marries Latha, which was a scheme planned by Ekambaram and Kanakambaram so that they can escape cases with his support. Latha hates Raghava's family members, whereas Kanyakumari loves Rajaram and his family members. Meanwhile, Rajaram learns of his brother's death and begins to investigate, whereas his friends are also murdered by Ekambaram and Kanakambaram at the time.
Rajaram is framed for his friends' death, and Raghava disowns him. With Kanyakumari's help, Rajaram escapes from prison, and Kanyakumari reveals that she is Ekambaram's daughter, who ran away from home after her father killed her mother, and thus she began moving into other people's houses. After revealing this, Kanyakumari proposes to Rajaram, who accepts. Rajaram finds the evidence and goes to his brother's house, only to find that Ekambaram and Kanakambaram has held them captive. Rajaram and Kanyakumari arrives, where they kill Ekambaram and Kanakambaram, and the broken family finally leads a happy life.
Bhuvanachandra noted that "Vaana Vaana" was his first song on rain, he was initially apprehensive about writing this song since other songs of the same nature were popular. Bappi composed the tune at Suresh Guest House, initially, the tune was rejected however Bhuvan insisted that the tune should be retained. Later, the song "Vaana Vaana Velluvaye" was re-mixed by Mani Sharma for the 2012 film Rachcha.
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Notably, the 100-day celebrations of the film were a major event in the Telugu film industry, with festivities arranged simultaneously in four centres—Tirupati, Vijayawada, Eluru, and Hyderabad. Chiranjeevi and some crew members flew in a helicopter to attend all the celebrations, marking the first time such an event had been organized.
Gang Leader was dubbed into Tamil with the same title. It was a success in those areas also. The film was re-released in 4K quality on 4 March 2023.
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