This 'protector' blasted the box-office all over India

Sankranti releases are special in Telugu Nadu. It has for years made or marred the box-office reputations of renowned banners, actors, actresses and the important people who are dependent on cinema for their social standing. 2012 Sankranti saw the release of 'Bodyguard', the reprised version of the Malayalam mega hit starring Dilip and Nayanthara, with the same title and released in 2010. It was its fourth version, after already hitting the bull's eye in Tamil and Hindi with Thalapathi Vijay and Sallu Bhai successfully entertaining their fans in their respective territories in 2011.

A strangely appealing mix of comedy, action, family drama and sentiment towards the final reels of the film made this film work phenomenally well all over India where it is remembered till today. Trisha, who was a reigning queen of southern film market in that phase was the female lead in the film, which was spearheaded by 'Victory' Venkatesh. Incidentally, among the heroes of the 1980s, he has always been known to be featured in remakes from many languages, Hindi included. A significant phase of his career has revolved around this aspect.

After the original film director Siddique declined to take up the fourth revision of his original, Gopichand Malineni was given the helmsmanship of the film. Prior to this venture, he had a hit to his credit – the whacky 'Dubai Seenu' with Ravi Teja in the lead. Gopichand has only directed six films in this past decade with one under production, but is rated high for his cinematic treatment of the stories with a light humour interspersed in it. Thaman scored the music for the film.

With generally positive word of mouth and also a favourable stance of the reviewers, the film went to rake in Rs 60 crore or so for the producer Bellamkonda Suresh who later went on to launch his son Sai Sreenivas, two years later in Telugu film industry. As far as Venkatesh went, he had one more hit in the same year ' Seethamma Vakitlo Sirimalle Chettu' which saw him featured with Mahesh Babu, a casting coup of sorts then. Even today, he has 'F3' as his last hit release, having seen 10+ films released since 2012.