Bruce Lee: The Fighter is a 2015 Indian Telugu-language masala film directed by Sreenu Vaitla who co-wrote the film with Kona Venkat and Gopimohan. Produced by D. V. V. Danayya under the banner DVV Entertainments, the film stars Ram Charan, Arun Vijay, Rakul Preet Singh, Kriti Kharbhanda, Sampath Raj and Nadiya Moidu. The film features music composed by S. Thaman, while Manoj Paramahamsa took charge of the film's cinematography and M. R. Varma edited the film. It follows Kartik who sacrifices his studies for his sister and becomes a stuntman. Often mistaken for an undercover policeman, he helps to unearth the evil designs of drug dealers Deepak Raj and his father Jayaraj.
Srinu Vaitla narrated the script to Charan in March 2014, and planned to work on the storyline post the release of Aagadu (2014). The film was launched on 5 March 2015, and the principal photography of the film took place on 16 March, which was ended on 6 October. Filmed across Hyderabad, Spain and Bangkok, The film was shot in 110 working days with 15 working hours per day. Bruce Lee: The Fighter was released on 16 October 2015, coinciding with Dasara. Originally shot in Telugu, it was dubbed and released in Tamil and Malayalam. The film mainly received negative reviews from critics and audience with praise for the film's music, cast performances and action sequences but criticism for the writing, humour and dialogues. The film was a commercial failure. One of the sub-plots of the film where the protagonist Karthik (Ram Charan) is mistaken for a police officer by Ria (Rakul Preet Singh) was reportedly inspired from the 2006 French film The Valet. The film was remade into Bengali Bangladesh as Beporowa (2019).
Plot
Karthik and Kavya are the children of Rama Chandra Rao. Rama Chandra Rao wants to make Karthik as an IAS officer. The only problem is that Kavya wants to become a collector as well, but Rama Chandra Rao cannot afford to pay for both of their studies. Because of this, Karthik sacrifices his exams so that his sister can join Delhi Public School in order to become a collector.
Years later, Karthik aka Bruce Lee is a stunt performer working under Dangerous David, and Kavya is studying for CSE Exam. Once, Karthik goes in the middle of a shoot to a hotel to save his friend's sister, who was being kidnapped. Ria is a game designer, who came there to meet a cop for marriage sees Karthik in his police costume and mistakes him for a cop. She becomes his fan and rejects the other cop, as he is corrupt.
Some days later, Karthik finds out that Ria uploaded the video of him fighting in a police costume on Facebook. When he goes to meet her, he falls for her and finds out that she is designing a video game called Super Cop based on him. From then on, Ria spends time with him continuously, while Karthik is still afraid of revealing his identity as he fears that she might leave him. Meanwhile, a terrorist attack occurs in a hotel where Karthik's cousin brother Ravi finds evidence to prove that it was not a terrorist attack but an attempt to kill two IB officers by a drug peddler named Deepak Raj.
Ravi goes to Commissioner Marthand, but Marthand is actually in cahoots with Deepak, who knocks Ravi unconscious. Ria keeps getting Karthik into fights thinking that he is an undercover cop. Kavya writes her final exams needed and while she is returning, Deepak drugs her forcefully and arrests her to trick Ram Gopal to think that the kidnapped girl was his daughter. Karthik learns of the incident and thrashes up Deepak, sending him into a coma and returns in time for Kavya's engagement with Rahul, the son of Jayaraj and Vasundhara who are bosses of Rama Chandra Rao.
It is revealed that Deepak is the first son of Jayaraj with an unofficial wife, Malini. Later, Ria takes Karthik to meet her family and father is IB Chief Bharadwaj, who knows Karthik's identity and reveals Jayaraj's background to Karthik where they start a mission to bust and capture Jayaraj and Deepak. Following the plan, he joins Jayaraj's company as his assistant and uses Suzuki Subramanyam, an undercover cop, to reveal Jayaraj's secrets to Vasundhara, causing her to leave him. During Kavya's marriage, Karthik and Bharadwaj gathers evidence against Jayaraj-Deepak with Ravi's help (who was rescued by the officials).