Little Soldiers

The story starts off Bunny aged three and Sunny aged nine, who are siblings. They quarrel a lot but love each other dearly. The children in the neighborhood are cautious about the sibling duo due to the mischievous nature of Bunny. Their father Aravind is a jingle composer estranged from his father for choosing music over a career in the army. Aravind marries Anita and raises his family without the blessings of his father. Anita is weary and has to constantly keep up with Sunny and Bunny's little tantrums.

Rajeswari, a wealthy widow of a royal family, disowns her daughter, Anita, for marrying a no-good guitar-strummer and wills her estate to her brother, Seshagiri. Some years on, Rajeswari suffers a stroke and a change of heart. She decides to bequeath her property to her daughter and sets Seshagiri the task of locating Anita and her progeny. Seshagiri and his wastrel son who were living off Rajeswari, are jolted. With the help of a professional killer, they hatch a plan to engineer the deaths of Anita and her family in the form of an accident, so as to avoid any suspicion.

Aravind, Anita and their two children go on a singing, road tour. They are followed by the killer in a truck. Meanwhile, Aravind explains to his children about their grandfather being an Army Major and how he fell in love with their mother. After a successful musical tour,the dreaded accident takes place on the way back home and the parents are killed. But Sunny and Bunny escape. As the two kids are alone at home, the professional killer makes an attempt to snuff them out with a gas leak. Fortuantely,they are saved by their grandfather who arrives on time.

General Harischandra Prasad is living alone on a farm after retirement. On learning that his son, Aravind and daughter-in-law, Anita have been killed in a road accident,he goes in search of his two orphaned grandchildren. He takes Sunny and Bunny to the village where they meet Gun(Bramhanandam) who befriends them. The killer tries to kill the children again by releasing a snake into the bathroom, but Sunny cleverly escapes, earning the praise of his grandfather. Seeing his bravery, Harishchandra Prasad decides to send him to a Sainik boarding school, which is only for boys. Sunny and Bunny are heartbroken on the separation and escape from te train station next day, with only a bag containing their maternal grandmother's address, who lives in Vizag. They climb into the trunk of a car, which coincidentally happens to be the car of Seshagiri's son and the killer. On finding them in the trunk, Seshagiri's son tricks them and throws them off of a bridge into a canal. Sunny and Bunny swim to the other side of the canal and escape. They reach Vizag in a bus and try to retrieve the bag containing the address from the car. They sneak into the house with the car (which unkown to them, happens to be their grandmother's house).Seshagiri finds them and tries to hand them over to the killer but Rajeshwari Devi (their grandmother) takes them in and decide to help them.

On the day of their mother's birthday, Rajeshwari realizes that Sunny and Bunny are her grandchildren and that her daughter was dead. They mourn for Aravind and Anita and Rajeshwari takes the children to their grandfather to make amends. Harishchandra Prasad, who realizes his mistake of forcing his dreams on his children, gladly accepts their apology and apologizes in return.

Meanwhile, Seshagiri realizes that the situation is going out of hand and plans to kill them, dump their bodies in the house and burn the house down on Diwali, on the pretext of passing it as an accident. Harishchandra Prasad takes his grandchildren to the nearby forest for camping and by the time they return, Seshagiri, his son and the killer attack them. Bunny and Sunny escape into the forest alone and the trio of villains chase them. The resourceful Bunny and Sunny confront the killers and give them their just deserts, with the help of the traps they set earlier with their grandfather while camping. During the chase, their grandfather arrives and joins them, and they succeed in eliminating the villains. The grandfather salutes them proudly as they turned into the soldiers he had wished for. (The credits roll.)

• Baby Kavya as Bunny
• Aditya as Sunny
• Sudhakar as Seshagiri's son
• Giri Babu as Seshagiri
• Rohini Hattangadi as Rajeshwari Devi, a wealthy widow who's a dog-lover & Anitha's mother
• Kota Srinivasa Rao as Major Harishchandra Prasad
• Brahmanandam as Gun ( House cook in Major's house )
• Heera Rajagopal as Anitha, Rajeshwari Devi's estranged/disowned daughter
• Ramesh Aravind as Aravind, Bunny and Sunny's jolly father
• Rallapalli as Gopal
• Banerjee

Writing for The News Minute in June 2019, Sankeertana Varma stated: "Little Soldiers plays a rather tricky yet ultimately rewarding game of perspectives where the audience is made to empathise with the character that’s on screen in the scene they're watching."[9]

National Film Awards

• Best Child Artist - Kavya Annapareddy.[7][10]

Nandi Awards - 1996[11]

• Second Best Feature Film - Silver - Gunnam Gangaraju
• Best Director - Gunnam Gangaraju
• Best Screenplay Writer - Gunnam Gangaraju
• Best Character Actor - Kota Srinivasa Rao
• Best Child Actor - Master Aditya
• Best Child Actress - Baby Kavya

Little Soldiers at IMDb