The film is known as Kadina Raja ‘85, a Sandalwood movie not only about preserving habitats but also about a wild man named Raja. Released in the 9th of April 1985, it is like both of the succeeding Jungle Love movies, in which it only has barely ridden on the coattails of anything officially or even canonically considered Tarzan stuff. Along with its most immediate inspiration released a year earlier on the 10th of March 1984, it likely predated many notable examples of the Kids' Wilderness Epic genre by about a few years.
The film was likely conceived by M.P. Shankar for writer Somu and director A.T. Raghu, but as a darker stealth sequel - disguised as a soft remake - to his and Geethapriya’s movie for a then-growing Sandalwood film studio. That was because another studio likely owned the rights to the preceding film released in the 25th of March 1969. Its conception was likely exacerbated by the release of Taito’s Jungle Hunt in America and the Japanese domestic film market flopping of an animated Kenya Boy Movie in 1984. It comes complete with a less popular Tamil remake-dub called Maveeran Tarzan, even though the latter film also has more to do with both Jungle Hunt and Kenya Boy rather than with ERB’s lord of the apes.
The film stars the tubby late action star Tiger Prabhakar (1948-2001) as the definitive Raja, a stubborn dude who is Wataru Murakami in all but ethnicity and clothes. Unlike in Kenya Boy, there is a delicious tomboy girlfriend played by the multitalented but semi-retired item number idol Anuradha, aka Sulochana Devi (born 1963). The film's real show stealer is Usha, played by a retired child actress turned Drama Queen named Deepa, aka Unni Mary Fernandes (born 1962), a southern Keralite who is herself from a Malabar (Latin rite) Roman Catholic family.
Fellow nutty cast members include Dwarakish as a minor comic relief, Sudheer (1947-99) as the Logging Cartel Boss, MP Shankar as a minor villain, and the late Lohitashwa (1942-2022) as Raja’s father. Also featuring are Supriya Pilgaonkar and Sulakshana as young women, and Sheela Ravichandran as a teacher.
Is it an unofficial Tarzan movie? Barely at all, apart from references to Johnny Weissmuller, Denny Miller and Miles O'Keeffe. Due to the characters being based loosely upon their (made in Japan) inspirations, the film’s immediate sources are most likely the two video games named Jungle King and Jungle Hunt, plus the Daiei and Toei adaptations (a live action film, a smash hit live action tv show and an anime film) of Sōji Yamakawa's Kenya Boy mixed together.
The film is also a comically transparent cash in on Taito’s (insanely plotless) Safari arcade game. Chances of the late actor-writer-director M.P. Shankar (1935-2008) not knowing of it being based on both Jungle Hunt and Kenya Boy are higher than he would like to admit.
Being the world’s first unofficial video game-to-film adaptation, the movie’s beginning was plausibly set in 1969, likely at the same time as the real life prequel’s release. Said beginning had a school aged boy named Raja going AWOL at the garden with his friends. A few days later, he had to come out of the house and go on a risky safari with his parents. Unfortunately, the mum and dad had to flee from and then were killed by a despicable army of illegal loggers. Thus, he had to become a wild young hero by making animal friends in the seedy Allappa-Muttodi Ghats forest. Instead of Wataru's African bush elephant friend named Nanda, his only main companion, until he befriended fellow humans again, by the way, was played by a brotherly Asian elephant.
Barely 2 decades later, Raja was now a mighty chest pounder with an affinity for leaving many animals alone unless when provoked. He and his wise elephant friend strode along through the monsoonal forest. Unluckily, he scarily found out that the same old logging cartel was destroying much of it. First he met a teenaged girl’s motorbike nut of a boyfriend in a super hard scenario, even though he had to restrain from accidentally killing the latter due to mistaking him for an illegal agro-logger. Later on, he met the tomboyish trickster and her long lost sis Usha, who turned out to be the movie's (somewhat sympathetic) main villainess.
The fight between the heroes, the messed up Queen’s army of more stereotypical mooks and the logging cartel would reach a crescendo and then slipped into the hilt. It finally ends when Raja's elephant friend had to roughly execute the logging cartel’s leader, the actual heavy who might've taunted, groped and cheated on the poor villainess ages ago! The main reason why? When said fiery Queen Usha was in her young adulthood, her terrible northern peasant parents had to sell her away into the prequel chief’s messed up harem. As a result, she had to climb out by becoming a cunning queen in her own right.
Unhappily, although she likely did marry the logging boss out of love, their home life was still messed up. Such a relatively vague situation was likely due to the ruling chief’s impact on their mental state and various other horrid circumstances.
The story would thus truly finish with the common-born Raja and newly crowned Honorary Chief Tomboy adventuring out of the prequel chief’s palace, by riding on the former's elephant friend. Cue the buddies behind their backs! As the ending suggests, they are on their way to become a married ruling couple of the forest.
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