Veteran filmmaker S. K. Bhagavan, who directed many Rajkumar starrers, passes away

Veteran movie director and producer of Kannada cinema S.Ok. Bhagavan handed away as a result of age-related illnesses on Monday (February 20) morning in Bengaluru.
| Photo Credit: The Hindu

Veteran filmmaker S. Ok. Bhagavan, 89, one of many previous few hyperlinks of the Rajkumar-era Kannada cinema, handed away as a result of age-related illnesses on Monday (February 20) morning in Bengaluru.

Bhagavan directed 49 movies, of nice versatility and many of them blockbusters, together with his collaborator B. Dorai Raj, with the pair popularly generally known as Dorai-Bhagavan. He directed his final movie, his fiftieth alone, in 2019. The filmmaker duo was intently related to Dr. Rajkumar, with whom they made a number of iconic movies of Kannada cinema together with Kasturi Nivasa. Later, the duo made a number of hit movies with Ananth Nag and Lakshmi. 

A successful combo with Dr. Rajkumar

A local of Bengaluru, Bhagavan began out as a theatre actor with Hirannaiah Mitra Mandali and entered the movie business in 1956 as an assistant to Kanagal Prabhakara Shastry. He collaborated with Dorai Raj and the pair made their unbiased debut with the progressive James Bond-style movie Jedara Bale starring Dr. Rajkumar and went on to make a number of movies within the style, with the matinee idol.

The iconic 1971 movie Kasturi Nivasa directed by the duo cemented their collaboration with Dr. Rajkumar additional. They went on to make super-hit and critically acclaimed movies with him like Eradu Kanasu, Giri Kanye, Hosabelaku, Jeevana Chaitra and Odahuttidavaru. He additionally made the movie Yarivanu, tailor-made to showcase the appearing chops of the just lately deceased actor Puneeth Rajkumar as a toddler actor. 

Collaboration with Ananth Nag

The duo’s collaboration with Ananth Nag started with the now iconic movie Bayalu Daari in 1976 and so they made a number of hit movies, particularly pairing Ananth Nag with Lakshmi, together with Chandanada Gombe, Benkiya Bale, Bidugadeya Bedi and Sedina Hakki. Most of those movies had been based mostly on widespread novels and earned Ananth Nag an enormous following amongst ladies. The duo’s final movie was Baalondu Chaduranga in 1995 starring Saikumar and Sudharani. Dorai Raj died in 2000 and Bhagavan desisted from making movies after that. 

In later years, he had an extended stint because the principal of the State authorities’s Adarsha Film and Television Institute the place he nurtured many cine skills. In 2019, he made a comeback to filmmaking and directed Aduva Gombe, starring Ananth Nag and Sanchari Vijay which marked his fiftieth as a filmmaker. However, the movie obtained a lukewarm response and light away.