''Kempe Gowda'' is a 2011

Kannada Kannada (; ಕನ್ನಡ, ), originally romanised Canarese, is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by the people of Karnataka in southwestern India, with minorities in all neighbouring states. It has around 47 million native s ...

-language

action film Action film is a film genre in which the protagonist is thrust into a series of events that typically involve violence and physical feats. The genre tends to feature a mostly resourceful hero struggling against incredible odds, which include life ...

starring

Sudeepa Sudeep Sanjeev (born 2 September 1971), also known as Sudeepa, is an Indian actor, director, producer, screenwriter, television presenter and singer, who primarily works in Kannada films. He has also worked in Hindi, Telugu and Tamil films. He ...

and

Ragini Dwivedi Ragini Dwivedi (born 24 May 1990) is an Indian actress and model who works primarily in Kannada films. She made her entry to filmdom with ''Veera Madakari'' (2009). She rose to fame starring in successful Kannada language films, ''Kempe Gowda' ...

in the lead roles. The film was directed by

and produced by Shankar Gowda. It is a remake of the Tamil-language film ''

Singam ''Singam'' () is a 2010 Indian Tamil-language action film written and directed by Hari, and produced by K. E. Gnanavel Raja under his Studio Green banner in association with Reliance Big Pictures, and distributed by Sun Pictures. It stars Sur ...

'' directed by

Hari Hari ( sa, हरि) is among the primary epithets of the Hindu preserver deity Vishnu, meaning 'the one who takes away' (sins). It refers to the one who removes darkness and illusion, the one who removes all obstacles to spiritual progress ...

Arjun Janya Arjun Janya (born Lokesh Kumar) is an Indian Film composer, film score soundtrack composer and singer. Arjun made his film debut in the 2006 Kannada film ''Autograph Please''. Since then he has composed and scored music for successful films suc ...

has composed the music. A namesake sequel titled ''

Kempegowda 2 ''Kempegowda 2'' is a 2019 Kannada action film directed by Shankar Gowda. The film stars Komal Kumar, Rakshika Sharma in lead roles alongside Sreeshanth and Yogesh in supporting roles. The film was produced by A. Vinodh under Panchamukhi Hanu ...

'' was released in 2019.

Plot

Kempe Gowda is a sub-inspector in a dusty village of Rona in Hubli in North Karnataka, his hometown, where he is adored. His bumbling colleague Pashupati is cheerful and always helps him with his work. His family business is provisional stores and Kempegowda wants to join it but he joined the police due to his father's wishes. He resolves most of the problems in his village with non-violence and mutual counselling. He uses force only when the situation demands it, thereby gaining much reputation and love from the villagers. Mahadev an industrialist based in Bangalore and a friend of Kempegowda's father comes to the village along with his beautiful daughter Kavya. Eventually Kempegowda and Kavya fall in love with each other. Bangalore-based Armugam, a big-time extortionist with shady mafia dealings who blackmails people by complaining to the Income Tax Department, is required to travel to Hubli to sign a conditional bail. He instead, sends one of his allies to do the formalities, much to the anger and rage of Kempegowda who demands that Armugam sign the bail in person. Humiliated, Armugam reaches Hubli but is unable to take any revenge on Kempegowda fearing the immense love and devotion of the entire village towards Kempegowda. Using his political contacts, he gets Kempegowda transferred to Bangalore to teach him a lesson. Kempegowda, unaware of Armugam's hand behind his transfer, joins Magadi Road police station. His co-worker, Sub-Inspector Bose, hates Armugam for his crimes but is unable to take any action because of Armugam's political powers. The assistant commissioner, Kempegowda's senior, is on Armugam's payroll and takes care in concealing and eliminating the evidence of Armugam's crimes from the eyes of the law. The police commissioner also does not help Kempegowda as there is no evidence against Armugam and the assistant commissioner and in turn, warns him to stay away from Armugam's case. Unable to take on Armugam in his stronghold, Kempegowda wants to return to his village but is stopped by Kavya who encourages him to fight against the evil and not run like a coward. Being mentally tortured by Armugam, Kempegowda arrests Armugam's brother Vaikunta in a fake case of illegally smuggling alcohol. He thwarts off the assistant commissioner in full view of the public when the assistant commissioner, bounded by his duties to Armugam, tries to protect the henchman. Meanwhile, Armugam kidnaps Kavya's younger sister Divya for ransom. Rescuing her, with unexpected help from the Home Minister Kempegowda successfully traces the origins of the kidnapping racket to Armugam. Kempegowda also gets promoted to Assistant Commissioner of the specially-formed Anti-kidnapping Task Force. Mahadev, who was hostile to Kempegowda following an altercation with Kempegowda's father back at Hubli, softens up and agrees to give him Kavya's hand in marriage. The police officers, including the police commissioner, and the assistant commissioner, now on Kempegowda's side, decide to help Kempegowda fight Armugam. They manage to kill Armugam's brother in an encounter at a hospital and begins to target everyone and everything related to Armugam. In retribution Armugam starts targeting everyone close to Kempegowda including Kavya whom he shoots but is saved by Kempegowda and Bose who is hacked to death by Armugam's henchmen. Finally in a bid to escape the arrest warrant issued out to him, Armugam kidnaps the Tamil Nadu Home Minister's daughter. He falsely tells Kempegowda that he is going to Mangalore with her when he is actually going to

Nellore Nellore is a city located on the banks of Penna River, in Nellore district of the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. It serves as the headquarters of the district, as well as Nellore mandal and Nellore revenue division. It is the List of cities in ...

in Andhra Pradesh to put the police off the track. However Kempegowda manages to pursue them till Gudur near Nellore, where he rescues the home minister's daughter and kills Armugam in an encounter. In the end as the post credits roll, Kempegowda is seen with Kavya heading back to Mysuru, and as when Kempegowda is stopped briefly by the Home Minister who offers an undercover mission, to which Kempegowda willingly agrees.

Cast

as Kempe Gowda *

as Kavya *

P. Ravi Shankar Pudipeddi Ravi Shankar (born 28 November 1966), also known as Sai Ravi, is an Indian actor, dubbing artist, director and writer. He predominantly appears in Kannada films, in addition to Telugu language, Telugu and Tamil language, Tamil films. ...

as Armugam * Ashok Kheni as Home Minister * Prashanth as Bose *

Girish Karnad Girish Karnad (19 May 1938 – 10 June 2019) was an Indian actor, film director, Kannada writer, playwright and a Jnanpith awardee, who predominantly worked in South Indian cinema and Bollywood. His rise as a playwright in the 1960s marked the ...

as Mahadeva, Kavya's father * Ashok as Kempe Gowda's father * J. Karthik as Vaikunta, Armugam's brother * Sharan as Pashupathi,

constable A constable is a person holding a particular office, most commonly in criminal law enforcement. The office of constable can vary significantly in different jurisdictions. A constable is commonly the rank of an officer within the police. Other peop ...

* Tara as Kavya's Mother *

Chitra Shenoy Chitra Shenoy is an Indian actress and producer in South Indian movies and television series. She has acted in more than 600 films in Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu, Tulu, and Hindi. She is known as the 'young mother' in the Kannada film ind ...

as Kempe Gowda's mother *

Bullet Prakash Bullet Prakash (2 April 1976 – 6 April 2020) was an Indian actor who worked in Kannada cinema. Known for portraying comic roles, Prakash appeared in over 325 films. He earned the nickname "Bullet" because he used to ride the motorbike, Roya ...

as Thirupati * Chiranjeevi Sarja as Ram (cameo) *

Jai Jagadish Jai Jagadish (born 29 June 1954) is an Indian actor, director and producer in the Kannada film industry. Starting his career as an actor in '' Phalitamsha'' (1976), he went on to feature in over 300 films as an actor. In 1998, he turned produce ...

as ACP Shankar * Vaibhav Rao * M. N. Suresh as Armugam's lawyer * Patre Nagaraj * Arasu Maharaj * Shiva manju * Manmohan Rai * Mohan Juneja * Ba. Ma. Harish * Killer Venkatesh *

Vinayak Joshi Vinayak Joshi is an Indian film, television, web-series and theatre actor, Winner of best director in Thespo8. Former Radio jockey, Former Head of Digital communication at Flipkart, host of Saregamapa season 6, lead host of IPL 2019 in Starsport ...

Tharun Sudhir Tharun Kishore Sudhir is an Indian Kannada film actor, director. He is known for his directorial debut film ''Chowka''. Tharun's next project as a director was ''Roberrt'' and this film was released on 11 March 2021. The movie has Darshan in ...

Tarun Chandra Taarun Chandrra (born 27 April 1983) is an Indian actor based in Kannada Film Industry. He made his film debut in the multi-starrer '' Khushi'' (2003) and has since then acted in various films, notably being, ''Geleya'' (2007), '' Love Guru'' ( ...

* Rahul Inapur * Kiran Rao * Avinash Narasimharaju *

Kishori Ballal Kishori Ballal (1937/1938 – 18 February 2020) was an Indian actress who was known for her works in Kannada cinema. The actress made her debut in 1960 with ''Ivalentha Hendthi'' and since then in a career spanning over 15 years, she has app ...

Kavya's grandmother * H. G. Dattatreya as Kavya's grandfather * Ravi Varma * Rajeev Gowda

Soundtrack

The soundtrack of Kempegowda was released by Anand Audio. The songs were composed by

with lyrics by V. Nagendra Prasad.

Track listing

Release

''Kempe Gowda'' was released in 100+ theaters on 10 March 2011 across the state.

Reception

Critical response

A critic from ''

The Times of India ''The Times of India'', also known by its abbreviation ''TOI'', is an Indian English-language daily newspaper and digital news media owned and managed by The Times Group. It is the third-largest newspaper in India by circulation and largest ...

'' scored the film at 4 out of 5 stars and says "Ragini does due justice to the role as the lively and exciting girl next door. Sharan as a cop excels in tickling your funny bone. Tara, Girish Karnad, Jai Jagadish and Ashok Kheny play their part to a T. Cinematography by Krishna of `Mungaru Male' fame is noteworthy. Equally good is music by Arjun Janya. Ravi Varma and Different Danny deserve special mention for their brilliant stunt works". A critic from

The New Indian Express ''The New Indian Express'' is an Indian English-language broadsheet daily newspaper published by the Chennai-based Express Publications. It was founded in 1932 as ''The Indian Express'', under the ownership of Chennai-based P. Varadarajulu Naid ...

wrote "Ragini has done a neat job. She is very good in the song sequences. Sharan makes audience giggle for a while with his performance. The movie is worth watching and also proves to be a family entertainer with a number of scenes loaded with sentiment".

Response

''Kempe Gowda'' earned in its first week.

Awards and nominations

59th Filmfare Awards South :- * Filmfare Award for Best Film - Kannada – Nominated *

Filmfare Award for Best Actor - Kannada ''Filmfare'' is an Indian English-language fortnightly magazine published by Worldwide Media. Acknowledged as one of Indian most popular entertainment magazines, it publishes pieces involving news, interviews, photos, videos, reviews, events, an ...

– Nominated –

Filmfare Award for Best Actress - Kannada ''Filmfare'' is an Indian English-language fortnightly magazine published by Worldwide Media. Acknowledged as one of Indian most popular entertainment magazines, it publishes pieces involving news, interviews, photos, videos, reviews, events, an ...

– Nominated –

* Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actor - Kannada – Winner –

1st South Indian International Movie Awards :- *Best Actor (Male) – Kannada – Nominated –

*Best Actor (Female) – Kannada – Nominated –

*Best Actor in a Supporting Role – Kannada – Nominated – Tara *Best Actor in a Negative Role – Kannada – Nominated –

*Best Playback Singer (Male) – Kannada – Nominated –

Vijay Prakash Vijay Prakash (born 21 February 1976) is an Indian Playback singer and also a Music Composer from Karnataka. He has given his voice for predominantly Kannada and Telugu language films. In addition, he has also sung in Hindi, Tamil, Malayalam ...

for the song "Thara Thara Hidiside" *Best Lyricist – Kannada – Nominated – Ghose Dheer for the song "Thara Thara Hidiside" Sandalwood Star Awards :- *Best Film – Nominated *Best Actress – Nominated –

*Best Actor in a Negative Role – Nominated –

*Rising Star (Female) – Winner –

*Best Music Director – Nominated –

*Best Stunt Director – Nominated – Ravi Varma *Best Stunt Director – Nominated – Different Dyani *Best Cinematographer – Nominated –

Krishna Krishna (; sa, कृष्ण ) is a major deity in Hinduism. He is worshipped as the eighth avatar of Vishnu and also as the Supreme god in his own right. He is the god of protection, compassion, tenderness, and love; and is one ...

*Best Editor – Nominated – N.M Vishwa 4th Suvarna Film Awards :- *Best Editor – Winner – N.M. Vishwa Bangalore Times Film Awards :- *Best Actor in a Negative Role – Winner –

*Best Film – Nominated *Best Music Director – Nominated –

*Best Lyricist – Nominated –

Yogaraj Bhat Yogaraj Bhat (born 8 October 1972) is an Indian Kannada film-maker, director, screenwriter, lyricist and producer. He is most known for the 2006 film ''Mungaru Male''. The film recorded the highest box-office collections in the history of Kannad ...

for the song "Hale Radio" *Best Playback Singer Male – Nominated –

for the song "Hale Radio" *Best Playback Singer Female – Nominated –

Shamitha Malnad Shamitha Malnad (born 9 June) is an Indian Dentist, voice artist, playback singer. She is known for her works in the Kannada film industry, as well as her works from Sugama Sangeetha and Devotional albums. Career Shamitha Malnad was first introd ...

for the song "Hale Radio" 1st Kannada International Music Awards (KiMA):- *Best Composer (Film Album) – Nominated –

*Best Background Score – Winner –

References

External links

* * {{Sudeepa Films set in Bangalore 2011 films 2010s Kannada-language films Fictional portrayals of the Karnataka Police Kannada remakes of Tamil films Films scored by Arjun Janya Singam (film series) 2011 masala films Films shot in Bangalore