Rahul Ravindran made his debut as actor and then turned his attention to film direction. His maiden film was the Telugu movie Chi La Sow which fetched him the National Award for Best Original Screenplay.

Chi La Sow was a breezy romantic entertainer that had Sushanth and Ruhani Sharma in the lead roles. The star cast also included Rohini, Anu Haasan, Vennela Kishore, Rahul Ramakrishnan, Sanjay Swaroop, and Vidyulekha Raman. The technical crew of the film comprised Prashanth R Vihari for composing music and M Sukumar for cranking the camera.  

Following its success, Rahul went on to direct Manmadhudu 2 with Nagarjuna in the lead role.  Reports at that time were that Nagarjuna chose Rahul Ravindran to wield the megaphone for the Manmadhudu sequel after he was impressed with the director’s debut directorial Chi La Sow. 

Manmadhudu 2 had Vennela Kishore, Rao Ramesh, Nassar, Lakshmi, Devadarshini, Jhansi, etc. in the supporting roles with the technical crew comprising Chaithan Bharadwaj for music. The film was bankrolled jointly by Nag’s Manam enterprises and P Kiran’s Anandi Art Creations. Rakul Preet Singh played the female lead in this flick

Despite strong backing from Nagarjuna, Rahul Ravindran could not get Manmadhudu 2 to be a box office hit. Recalling the days immediately after the film’s release, Rahul said in an interview to the Indian Express that he was very down but it was Nagarjuna who cheered him up. He has been quoted as saying, “Post the release of the film, Nagarjuna sir called me and said that we should not let a bad Friday spoil all the good memories created over the course of the shoot. He advised me to fight back and come back strongly.”

It may be noted here that Rahul is yet to announce his next directorial.