Veerabhadraiah is a feudal lord presiding over a village along with his henchmen, including his assistant and the village sarpanch. Veerabhadraiah lends money to Venkateswarlu, a local farmer living with his widowed daughter. Venkateswarlu's son, Suryam, is a hardworking student living in a nearby city, and he falls in love with Veerabhadraiah's daughter, Madhulatha. When Veerabhadraiah realizes this, he asks Venkateswarlu to persuade his son to stop seeing Madhulatha, but Venkateswarlu refuses.

Veerabhadraiah kills Venkateswarlu and asks Suryam to pay the money which he had given as a loan. Suryam asks for some time and with the help of his elder sister raises crops to repay. Just as the crops are ready for harvest, Veerabhadraiah and his henchmen not only destroy the crops but also try to sexually abuse Suryam's sister, during which she commits suicide.

As the village head, Veerabhadraiah frames Suryam for his sister's death, claiming that he was forcing her into prostitution, resulting in her suicide. Suryam is arrested by the Police. The remainder of the movie follows Suryam's escape from jail and his quest for revenge against Veerabhadraiah and his accomplices. With the assistance of Sujatha, a doctor, Suryam seeks to avenge the destruction of his family.

• Chiranjeevi as Suryam^[6]
• Madhavi as Madhulatha^[2]
• Rao Gopal Rao as Veerabhadraiah^[6]
• Sumalatha as Sujatha^[6]
• Nutan Prasad as Munsiff^[6]
• Rallapalli as Sarma^[2]
• Ranganath as Police Inspector Dinesh^[2]
• Chalapathi Rao as Forest officer^[2]
• P. L. Narayana as Venkateswarlu^[6]
• Chidathala Appa Rao as the barber^[2]
• Samyuktha as Rosy^[2]
• Sangeetha as Suryam's elder sister^[2]
• Suthivelu as Beggar^[2]
• Sivaprasad as Beggar^[2]

Development edit

The film presenter M. Tirupathi Reddy and director A. Kodandarami Reddy contemplated doing a film together with Chiranjeevi starring.^[7] Tirupathi Reddy asked the Paruchuri brothers to develop a story based on the American film First Blood (1982), and they did so; Kodandarami Reddy wrote the screenplay, and the Paruchuri brothers wrote the dialogues. In the original script, the protagonist was a villager, but in the final script he was written as a student. The title Khaidi was Tirupathi Reddy's choice.^[7] The film was produced by K. Dhanunjaya Reddy, S. Sudhakar Reddy and K. Narasa Reddy under Samyukta Movies, photographed by Lok Singh and edited by Kotagiri Venkateswara Rao.^[2][8]

Casting and filming edit

Madhavi had never worked with Kodandarami Reddy before; as a result, Tirupathi Reddy decided to cast her as the lead actress of Khaidi. Tirupathi Reddy was impressed with actress Nitya's performance in a Tamil film, and cast her as the character Rosy; the actress was renamed Samyuktha to match the production company's name. Principal photography began at Prasad Film Labs on 10 May 1983, with the muhurat shot involving Chiranjeevi and Madhavi. The film was predominantly shot in the village Rebala, while the climax was taken at Porur. Principal photography was completed within three schedules over the course of 40 working days. Chiranjeevi was paid ₹175,000, Madhavi and Kodandarami Reddy received ₹40,000 each.^[2][8]

The music was composed By K. Chakravarthy. All lyrics were penned by Veturi.^[9] The song "Ragulutondi" was remixed by S. A. Rajkumar in Punnami Naagu (2009), also directed by Kodandarami Reddy.^[10]

Khaidi was released on 28 October 1983.^[2] The film was a massive commercial success, grossing around ₹8 crore (equivalent to ₹136 crore or US$17 million in 2023),^[3] and Chiranjeevi rose to stardom.^[11] The title of the film was considered "lucky" for Chiranjeevi, and used for two subsequent, unrelated films starring him: Khaidi No. 786 (1988) and Khaidi No. 150 (2017), which make up his successful Khaidi trilogy.^[12]

In 1984, Khaidi was remade in Hindi as Qaidi, and in Kannada under the same title. Madhavi reprised her role in both remakes.^[13][14]

• Rajadhyaksha, Ashish; Willemen, Paul (1998) [1994]. Encyclopaedia of Indian Cinema. British Film Institute and Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-563579-5.

• Khaidi at IMDb