There are some special things about the Kannada movie Om which was released in 1995 and became a trendsetter of gangster genre in the Kannada Cinema.
Om is the first Kannada film which is based on gangsters, underworld mafia in a full fledged manner, it remained as a cult classic movie in the Kannada cinema and became an inspiration for gangster movies in the Kannada Cinema.
Om is the film which was written and directed by Upendra before he became an actor. He got basic inspiration to write the story on the basis of the real life person Purushottam, ‘ Purshi’, his brother's friend.
Parvatamma Rajkumar produced the film under their Vajreshwari Combines with the budget of 75 lakhs and this was the costliest film for them at that time. The film made 2 crore pre-release business.
The most special thing about the film Om is that it has a Limca record for re- releasing it for more than 550 times on the demand of the film's fans. Reportedly this is the highest screened film in the history of the Kannada cinema.
In the Kapila theatre in Bangalore Om was released for 30 times and it is a record.
Shivrajkumar did the leading role of Satyamurthy, ‘Satya’ son of a Brahmin priest who becomes a gangster due to circumstances but in the end of the film he becomes a completely changed man who becomes the owner of a small dabha and leads a happy life with his wife Madhuri and children. But when he has decided to get free from underworld mafia, the goons chopped his legs and did acid attack on his wife Madhu. But still they begin a new life, live happily by running a dhaba. Satya becomes an inspiration for other gangsters to get free from the underworld and to lead a happy peaceful life with their families. In the end the film gives a message of peace ☮️.
One more speciality of this film was the real life gangsters, Bekkinakannu Rajendra, Korangu Krishna, Tanveer Ahmed and Jedarahalli Krishna did cameo roles in Om.
Initially Upendra had given the working title Satya for the film Om and he was eager to cast Shivanna for the leading role. He approached Rajkumar and narrated the story within 10 minutes. Rajkumar got impressed by the storyline and he gave him 50,000 to proceed with the film. When Rajkumar wrote Om on the screenplay material of the film using Kumkum, they decided to make it as the title of the film.
Shivrajkumar, until he acted in the film Om mostly did romantic roles in his early 8 years of filmy career. With Om his get-up got changed in the Kannada cinema. He had given an outstanding performance in Om.
Earlier the makers had planned to cast other actresses including Bollywood’s Juhi Chawla but Rajkumar suggested to cast Prema for the leading actress role of Madhuri, at that time she was a newcomer and already collaborated with Shivarajkumar in the film Savyasachi.
Rajkumar himself had sung 2 songs: Hey Dinakara…. and O Gulaabiye….under the direction of Hamsalekha had become big hit songs.
It was also remade in Telugu as Omkara, Upendra himself directed the film.
Om was unofficially remade in Hindi as Arjun Pandit, Sunny Deol and Juhi Chawla were in the leading roles. The film was a box-office hit but some criticized it for modifying the storyline that lost its originality.
Shivrajkumar, Prema and Upendra‘s work in Om is outstanding. All the 3 had won Karnataka Film State Awards for their excellent works. Shivarajkumar also won Filmfare Award South for Best Actor. It was Upendra's 3rd directorial film after Tarle Nann Maga and Shhhh. Om completed 30 years, remained as a cult classic and one of the biggest hits of all time in the Kannada Cinema.