Upendra, (popularly also called Uppi) is a Kannada film actor, director, screen writer, lyricist and singer. He is recognised as an established Superstar actor and director of the Kannada film Industry. Born in a middle class family at Koteshwara near Kundapura, he belongs to Tulu speaking Koteshwara Magane Madhwa Brahmin community. Upendra started his career under the director Kashinath as a writer and an assistant director. His first directorial venture was Tharle Nan Maga. In the late 90s he broke into the scene with the extremely violent Om, which portrayed actual Bangalore gangsters, and this movie is still not yet released in CDs, DVDs and Satellite Rights. He followed this up with A, in which he appeared as Surya. Upendra, his next film, starred Raveena Tandon, a Bollywood actress. After a decade of acting in Kannada, Telugu and Tamil films,[1] he returned to the role of director with the multi-lingual movie Super, which was well-received critically and commercially.[2] Throughout his career as a director, he has directed many record breaking blockbusters such as Tharle Nan Maga, Shhh!, Om, A, Upendra and Super. His directional movies like A, Swasthik, Upendra and Super resembles the neo-noir film genre where he narrates the story through reverse screenplay and multiple number of flashbacks within flashbacks and thus forces the audience to watch the film multiple number of times to understand the story. As an actor, he acted in many commercially successful films like A(1998), Kanyadaanam (1998), Upendra(1999), Preethse(2000), Raa (2001), H2O(2002) which was based on the Kaveri River water dispute, Stupid(2002), Hollywood(2002), Kutumba(2003), Rakta Kanneeru(2003), Gokarna(2003), Omkara(2004), Gowramma(2005), Auto Shankar(2005), Aishwarya(2006), Anatharu(2007), Buddhivantha(2008) and Super(2010). In contrast to the many Indian movies where the hero usually has a stereotypical 'good-boy' character, Upendra's roles have both negative and positive aspects. His character in the film A had many negative shades such as hatred towards women. In the film Upendra, he plays one such character who is initially the protagonist but later transforms into the antagonist of the film. In the films Preethse and Nagarahaavu, he stops at nothing to achieve his goal and goes on committing series of murders. His character in Rakta Kanneeru was extremely egoistic with many negative shades. In the film Omkara, Upendra plays an underworld gangster. In the film Buddhivantha he plays a most wanted conman who marries four women one after another to rob them of their wealth. Thus Upendra has proved that a hero can have both positive and negative aspects. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.