Chatrapathi (2005)

Sivaji and his family are among the Telugu refugees driven out of Sri Lanka. In the chaos of the escape he is separated from his mother and his stepbrother, who resents him, and he grows up as a labourer on the docks of Visakhapatnam, where refugees are exploited by a brutal gang. When he finally rises against their tormentors he becomes Chatrapathi, the hope of the oppressed, but the search for his mother and the jealousy of his brother remain the emotional core of the story. Chatrapathi was Rajamouli's third film and the one that turned Prabhas into a mass hero; its hero-elevation scenes, especially the shark fight and the interval block, are still celebrated. The father-son team of Rajamouli and Vijayendra Prasad later made Baahubali with Prabhas, and a Hindi remake of Chatrapathi was released in 2023.