Chevalier Dr. Kamal Haasanin Mayyam - Part 9

[hattori_hanzo]

how could I leave kurudhipunal out ???!! Not sure if Soora Samhaaram and Sattam were BB's or SHs ...

Soora Samharam and Sattam were both flops. They were both really bad movies. SS at least had a nice first half. Till the scene were Kamal gets drugged and sent back home, the movie was quite different. From there, it turned worse. Especially "Vedhaalam Vandhu nikkudhu" song.
Sattam was Mattam(Comment in Ananda Vikadan review) from beginning to end.


Kurudhippunal was/is/will be a classic forever. Yet another example of "Kombinil paal konjam surandhaal Adhu dhaan saadhanai"

Drohkaal directed by Govind Nihalani was Ashish Vidyarthi's first movie. Om Puri played Kamal's role, Naseeruddin Shah played Arjun's and Ashish did the villain's role which was done by Nazar in Tamil. It was critically acclaimed but did very poor business. With a star cast like this it was dissed an art movie. Kamal apparently was interested in the script and bought the rights from Govind Nihalani to make it in Tamil. He was sure of making a successful movie without any songs, comedy track or duets, debut MD, many unknown faces, Telugu lip-sync(It was made in Telugu and Tamil). It was released along with Muthu on Diwali 2006. Muthu directed by K.S.Ravikumar(fresh after the success of Naattaamai) had Rajinikanth in two roles, Meena who was the top heroine of those days, A.R.Rahman whose songs were already chartbusters, several supporting actors including Raghuvaran, Radharavi, Ponnambalam, Vadivelu, Senthil and others - a complete masala movie.

Still Kuruthippunal gave a tough fight & managed to open very well in all centers. It ran for more than 100 days in many theatres. I watched it on the 3rd day in AVM by paying Rs.150 for a Rs.25 ticket. In a suburban theatre like Tambaram (not sure if it was Vetri or Rakesh; Muthu ran in Vidhya), KP ran for 80 days. For the first three weeks, it shared the No.1 spot with Muthu in Sun TV's Top 10. In the fourth week, it went to No.2 and slowly came down. Muthu was in No.1 for few more weeks & obviously had a better run. But KP which probably was made in less than 1/2 of Muthu's budget was a Super-hit. KP's Telugu version Drohi was an even bigger hit.