Chinnayya (Chiranjeevi) works for a rich man Peddayya (Vijayakumar) in a village. Despite being a labourer, Chinnayya has great respect and affection towards Peddayya. Peddayya too takes care of Chinnayya with great affection and looks after him as his own son. Peddayya hates his elder daughter Gowri (Sitara) and her husband Peddabbayi (Prakash Raj). Prabhavathy (Meena) is Peddayya's younger daughter and she arrives to the village after completing her education from the US. Prabhavathy loves Chinnayya, but Chinnayya does not reciprocate, thinking this would be a betrayal of Peddayya's trust on him. Later Chinnayya too understands Prabhavathy's true love and accepts it.

One day, suddenly Prabhavathy accuses that Chinnayya tried to rape her. This angers Peddayya and he hits and sends Chinnayya out of his house. At this time, Simhadri (also Chiranjeevi), Chinnayya's father is released from jail and comes to meet Peddayya. Simhadri also worked under Peddayya before and has won Peddayya's trust so much. But Prabhavathy gets angry on seeing Simhadri and asks him to leave the house because Simhadri has been sent to jail for murdering Peddayya's wife Lakshmi (Sujatha) a few years back. Prabhavathy also reveals the truth that she staged a drama to send Chinnayya away from her father. Peddayya gets shocked knowing the truth and feels bad that he has misunderstood Chinnayya, believing his daughter's false words.

Chinnayya also hates his father Simhadri from childhood days as he was accused of killing Lakshmi. The story moves to a flashback. Simhadri was a loyal servant in Peddayya's home. Peddabbayi is the younger brother of Lakshmi and his wedding is arranged with Gowri. On the day of marriage, Lakshmi gets to know about Peddabbayi's plans to rob Peddayya's properties and decides to cancel the wedding. But Peddabbayi injures Lakshmi badly and hides her in a room and the marriage is done. But Simhadri finds Lakshmi and gets to know all the truth about Peddabbayi. Before he could go and stop the marriage, it is already done and so he does not want Peddabbayi to go to jail as that would impact Gowri's life. Lakshmi is dead and Simhadri accepts that he has murdered Lakshmi for money and gets arrested by police. This makes Gowri and Prabhavathy to hate him and his family.

But Peddayya does not believe this and goes to jail to meet Simhadri and asks the truth. Simhadri tells all the truth to Peddayya and gets a promise that Peddayya should not reveal this truth to anyone else as Gowri will be alone then. Peddayya agrees but sends Peddabbayi out of his home. Gowri also leaves his home without knowing the truth and understanding her father. The story comes to the present and a wedding is planned between Prabhavathy and Peddabbayi's younger brother Chinababu (Ranjith), the third of the siblings. On the day of marriage, Peddayya tells this truth to everyone and Peddabbayi tries to kill Gowri. But Simhadri comes in between and gets stabbed and dies. Peddabbayi gets killed by Chinababu after knowing the truth that his sister Lakshmi is killed by none other than Peddabbayi. Meanwhile, Peddayya cries in front of Simhadri's dead body and he also dies along with him. The movie ends with Chinnayya and Prabhavathy getting married.

In December 1997, Rajinikanth announced that his next film would be directed by K. S. Ravikumar, who had made the successful 1995 film Muthu with the actor. Filming was initially slated to begin in April 1998, but the FEFSI strike delayed proceedings and Ravikumar was only able to complete his previous film Natpukkaga by June 1998. A. M. Rathnam, who produced Natpukkaga requested Ravikumar to remake the film in Telugu with Chiranjeevi in the lead. Though initially reluctant, he accepted to quickly remake the film in Telugu as Sneham Kosam. The film's shooting was completed in fifty-six days.^[1]

The music and background score was composed by S. A. Rajkumar. Music was released by Aditya Music Company. Rajkumar later remade "Gundello" as "Megham Udaithu" for Tamil film Maayi.

The film was scheduled to release in November 1998 but was delayed.^[2]

Reception edit

Rakesh P. of The Deccan Herald wrote that "On the whole a family entertainer".^[3]

The film was a huge grosser and one of the biggest hits in 1999. The film ran for 50 days in 89 centres and 100 days in 52 centres.^[4] There was also a Hindi dubbed version of the Telugu version titled Main Hoon Rakhwala.

• Sneham Kosam at IMDb