Upendra to play a dreaded gangster and Dawood’s contemporary in RGV’s underworld saga, R

In September last year, on the occasion of Real Star Upendra’s birthday, filmmaker Ram Gopal Varma had announced a collaboration with the actor. “HAPPY to announce that Me and @nimmaupendra are starting an action film VERY SOON and here’s wishing him MANY HAPPY RETURNS OF THE DAY,” he had tweeted along with a picture of the two of them. In the months since, there’s been no update on this project, until last evening, that is.

In a series of tweets, RGV, as the filmmaker is popularly known as, announced the title and subject of his film with Upendra, which is expected to take off soon. Along with a short video of Upendra ‘lovingly’ caressing a knife, and other glimpses of the actor in character, RGV wrote, “Happy to announce my film with @nimmaupendra titled R based on an incredibly unique gangster in the criminal history of india ..It’s produced by A Square productions. R was unlike any gangster, who started as a small time street tough and then terrorised not only Banglore but also the mafia in Mumbai and the D company in Dubai ..R’s character is played by @nimmaupendra. The police themselves were scared of R and also sometimes used to take the help of R. Dawood Ibrahim himself was in awe of R and R helped the D company many times in Dubai. R was a daredevil gangster who was not scared of anyone in the world and the most successful of all the gangsters in india.”

Interestingly, though, the character description of Upendra in and as R is a lot like his role in filmmaker R Chandru’s pan-Indian project Kabzaa. According to Chandru, the two-part film that the Real Star is still working on has him play an underworld don who reigned over all of south India between the 1960s and 80s. The film captures his life from the 1940s, well into the 80s.