The biopic stars Vivek Oberoi as Pratap Ravi and Suriya as Suryanarayana Reddy. Priyamani plays Bhawani, Radhika Apte portrays Nandini, Abhimanyu Singh plays the role of Bukka Reddy, Shatrughan Sinha portrays Shivaji Rao, Kota Srinivasa Rao plays Nagamani Reddy, Tanikella Bharani plays the role of Ram Moorthy, Ashish Vidyarthi plays Manda, and Sushant Singh portrays Shankar. Other cast members include Ashwini Kalsekar, Zarina Wahab, Sushmita Mukherjee, Rajendra Gupta and Sudeep.

Rakht Charitra follows the life of South Indian political leader Paritala Ravindra, who was assassinated in January 2005. Ravi, described by Ram Gopal Varma as a soft spoken guy, became a rebel in order to revenge the deaths of his father and brother. He set up camp in the jungle of Andhra Pradesh where he allegedly planned numerous assassinations of his political enemies.

Ram Gopal Varma describes Ravi as “a rebel, a feudal lord, a Robin Hood, a killer of hundreds and savior of thousands till the day he was gunned down by a death squad.” But Ravi didn’t stay a rebel all his life as he worked as a minister during N.T. Rama Rao’s time as Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh.

The movie tries to portray the blood feud between two men, Ravi and Suri, and how in the end, after spending time in prison planning his revenge, Suri manages to kill Ravi in January 2005. Because director Ram Gopal Varma had a hard time making the movie shorter than 4-5 hours, he decided to release it in two parts, one releasing on October 22 and one on December 3.

The movie’s soundtrack was composed by Imran-Vikram, Dharam-Sandeep, Bappi-Tutul and Sukhwinder Singh.