Raghupathi, Raghava and Rajaram are brothers. Raghupathi is the only breadwinner of the family, Raghava is preparing for the Civil Services Examination, and Rajaram is an unemployed freelance dancer who spends time with his four friends in search of jobs. They roam in the city until midnight. Rajaram comes home at midnight and sleeps until noon; his grandmother Sabari yells at him for his irresponsibility and callousness. One day, Rajaram makes Kanyakumari vacate the house on a payment basis as she is not paying the rent to the landlord. Consequently, she barges into Rajaram's house for accommodation. At one situation, Rajaram goes to custody for money so that he can support Raghava, who is in need of funding for his IAS preparation.
Meanwhile, Ekambaram, a dreaded gangster known for contract killing and extortion, alongside his brother Kanakambaram, kill Raghupathi as he witnessed a homicide. Rajaram was spending time in prison when this incident happened. However, his friends are aware of Raghupathi's death. Rajaram, on the other hand, thinks that his brother's death was an accident. Raghava becomes an IAS officer and marries Latha, which was a scheme planned by Ekambaram and Kanakambaram so that they can escape cases with his support. Latha hates Raghava's family members, whereas Kanyakumari loves Rajaram and his family members. Meanwhile, Rajaram learns of his brother's death and begins to investigate, whereas his friends are also murdered by Ekambaram and Kanakambaram at the time.
Rajaram is framed for his friends' death, and Raghava disowns him. With Kanyakumari's help, Rajaram escapes from prison, and Kanyakumari reveals that she is Ekambaram's daughter, who ran away from home after her father killed her mother, and thus she began moving into other people's houses. After revealing this, Kanyakumari proposes to Rajaram, who accepts. Rajaram finds the evidence and goes to his brother's house, only to find that Ekambaram and Kanakambaram has held them captive. Rajaram and Kanyakumari arrives, where they kill Ekambaram and Kanakambaram, and the broken family finally leads a happy life.
After previous collaborations such as Maga Maharaju, Hero and Magadheerudu, Bapineedu decided to make a different kind of film with Chiranjeevi and narrated a plot to which he rejected. Bapineedu later narrated this story to Paruchuri Gopalakrishna (of Paruchuri Brothers) who found some flaws and made some changes in the script. Chiranjeevi agreed to the story as he had faith in Paruchuri Brothers. Allu Aravind who was initially sceptical of the film's plot point of Chiranjeevi's friends dying at the same time and expressed his concerns to Gopalakrishna to which he agreed and rewrote that aspect.[5]
The music was provided by Bappi Lahiri and the lyrics were penned by Veturi and Bhuvanachandra.[6] The soundtrack was an instant hit and "Papa Rita" and "Vaana Vaana Velluvaye" were a rage in the entire state at that time. The song "Paala Bugga" is loosely based on Bappi's own song "Tutak Tutak Tutiya" from Ghar Ka Chiraag.
Bhuvanachandra noted that "Vaana Vaana" was his first song on rain, he was initially apprehensive about writing this song since other songs of the same nature were popular. Bappi composed the tune at Suresh Guest House, initially, the tune was rejected however Bhuvan insisted that the tune should be retained.[7] Later, the song "Vaana Vaana Velluvaye" was re-mixed by Mani Sharma for the 2012 film Rachcha.[8]
Sold for ₹2.2 crore (US$260,000), the film grossed more than twice that amount.[10] It is considered to be one of the top movies in Chiranjeevi's career. Gang Leader had a 162-day run at Sudharshan theatre in Hyderabad. The film successfully completed 100 days in more than 50 theatres.[3]
Notably, the 100-day celebrations of the film were a major event in the Telugu film industry, with festivities arranged simultaneously in four centres—Tirupati, Vijayawada, Eluru, and Hyderabad. Chiranjeevi and some crew members flew in a helicopter to attend all the celebrations, marking the first time such an event had been organized.[11]
Gang Leader was dubbed into Tamil with the same title. It was a success in those areas also.[3] The film was re-released in 4K quality on 4 March 2023.[12]
Legacy
Video footage of the film's 100 days celebration was used in the Telugu comedy film Appula Appa Rao (1992).[13]
