This Indian Knockoff of ‘Ted’ Looks Like ‘Squid Game’ Meets ‘Snowpiercer’ Meets ‘Ted’
Remember way back in 2012 when Seth MacFarlane’s Ted came out and everyone wondered why it was missing a brutal subway fight scene choreographed to blasting hip-hop and exploding with neon lights like a high-budget cyberpunk homage to the Old Boy hallway fight?
Yesterday, the trailer for the upcoming Telugu action-comedy Buddy was released, rapidly accruing a seven-figure view count as fans of star Allu Sirish and music group Hiphop Tamizha, who wrote the film’s score, flooded the comment section with rabid hype. However, one American with limited knowledge of Indian cinema who accidentally stumbled upon the video had a very different reaction to the teaser: I thought, “Is that the fucking bear from Ted???”
Based on the talking teddy that is perfectly identical to the Bostonian bear that smoked weed with Mark Wahlberg a decade ago, it’s easy for a Westerner to assume that Buddy is some bizarre action-comedy knockoff of Seth Macfarlane’s hit film that grossed over half a billion dollars. However, this is not exactly the case — Buddy is actually a knockoff of a different bizarre action-comedy adaptation of Ted, the 2021 Tamil-language film Teddy.
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Apparently, Indian filmmakers have been repeatedly inspired by the premise of Ted (as well as the aesthetics of Squid Game, Snowpiercer and every other Korean-directed action project) leading to an entire subgenre of films where a teddy bear and a guy who definitely isn’t Mark Wahlberg are a pair of ass-kicking best friends.
Basically, Buddy looks like how watching Ted would feel if you were 36 hours into a drug-induced delirium. And it’s incredible.
