A (1998 Kannada film)

A foreign woman, Marina, wants to distribute the unreleased controversial film A directed by Soorya. However, the censor board permits only twenty random minutes to be screened and the climax is censored to such an extent that it no longer made any sense. She suggests its producers re-shoot the film. However, Soorya is not in a position to participate in the film's shoot as he became a drunkard after actress Chandini, who debuted with his film, rejects his love. Soorya's family is unable to meet their ends after he stops directing films. Lost in her thoughts, he wanders near her house every night drunk, only to be expelled by her henchmen.

Chandini, unable to bear Soorya's torture, asks him to jump from a building to prove his love. Soorya jumps without hesitation, while he survived the fall, he's badly wounded and admitted to the hospital by Marina and the team. There, one of Soorya's former assistant directors explains Soorya's past to Marina. Soorya was a successful director who had no feelings, especially for a woman's love. After his current female lead fails to act properly, he casts Chandini after a chain of events. Initially, Soorya rejects Chandini's love, but after frequent run-ins, and days of pursuit, Soorya falls in love with her madly. He later meets a rich and busy Chandini, who lives in a big bungalow and as the mistress of a wealthy married businessman. She defends herself saying that Soorya's views on the materialistic world influenced her to give priority to money over everything else after her father's death. He tries to explain to her that she is wrong, but is expelled.

Since then, Soorya gave up everything and became an alcoholic, wandering near her house every day with the hope that she would accept him. He escapes from the hospital and is confronted by Marina, to whom Soorya explains about his love for Chandini. He then saves a novice actress named Archana from a group of henchmen who are revealed to be Chandini's. Archana reveals that Chandini is used as bait by the politicians to trap Soorya and stop his A from release and Chandini, in turn, exploited the weakness of those politicians by a way of the casting couch. She proves this to Soorya, who along with his father and Archana, is arrested on charges of prostitution. The police were bribed by Chandini who abducts Archana while Soorya and his father are arrested.

Soorya and his father are released on bail by Marina and the plight of his family makes Soorya swear revenge. He restarts the shoot of A and meanwhile turns out to be a superstar due to the success of the films starring him. The climax shoot is pending and Soorya wants to shoot it real, which actually is the murder of Chandini in a burning house. The camera rolls and Soorya kidnaps Chandini from her house where she kills the businessman. He brings her to the location and sets it on fire after rolling the camera. She knocks him out who falls unconscious after hitting a rock. Archana, Marina, and the producers come to the spot to save him.

Archana shows him the footage of the film that was shot after revealing that Chandini is actually a good woman who wanted to bring Soorya back to normal by acting as a ruthless criminal who is destroying the lives of many actresses like Archana. The footage shows a naked Chandini dying and revealing the truth. She says that the businessman was a friend of few corrupt politicians who wanted to have sex with her. They kill her father and raped her. This process is captured on a camera and the businessman blackmails Chandini of showing them. As per their directions, she had to cheat Soorya. But with the help of Archana, she brings him back to normal and gives A a perfect ending. Soorya tries to save her by entering the house but she dies asking him to live long and make films that could make his people proud.

• Upendra as Surya
• Chandini
• Archana
• Marina
• Kote Prabhakar as film producer
• Biradar
• Malathi
• Suchitra as Surya's sister
• Saroja Srishailan as Surya's mother
• Michael Madhu as Michael
• Aiyappa MM as Businessman Teja
• Tumkur Mohan
• Suresh Babu
• Gurukiran as actor
• Shankar Bhat
• Sriraj Kothari
• Balu Murugaraj
• M.V.Joshi
• Raghunath
• Roopa Iyer
• Bhushan Geechi
• Narendra Babu
• Vijaya Sarathi
• Damu
• Puttaraju

Upendra and three others B. G. Manjunath, B. Jagannath, and B. V. Ramakrishna, founded the film production company Uppi Entertainers in October 1996, with the equal partnership. After Kannada film distributors refused to purchase the distribution rights following the producers themselves not being confident of the film doing well, it was purchased by a newcomer by the name Yash Raj.[1] This was Upendra's debut film as a lead actor.

The film was given an U(Universal) certification from CBFC

Gurukiran composed the music for the film and the soundtracks which marked his debut. The album has five soundtracks.[12] The daughter-in-law of Kannada poet G.P. Rajarathnam alleged that a song by the late poet, "Helkollakondooru thalemyagondhsooru," for which she held the copyright, had been used by Upendra in the film without her consent.[10]

• Udaya Film Award for Best Male Actor – Upendra
• Udaya Film Award for Best Music Director – Gurukiran
• Karnataka State Film Award – Best Sound Recording – Murali Rayasam
• Karnataka State Film Award – Best Editing – T. Shashikumar

• A at IMDb