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Tamizh film industry is going through an interesting phase. While the big two stars are doing bigger glossy pictures, attention seems so be also in smaller scare flicks and many young directors and stars are emerging and are garnering deserving respects in their own field.
Rajini and Kamal, correct me if I am wrong, are bigger in terms of fan following now than was MGR and my beloved NT. The latter two legends fandom was torn by fractions, backed by political or religious belief. It is not so with Kamal and Rajini, their fans overlap each other.
And speaking of fans, there can only be one actor, though these are not hardcore fans, can comman fans that encompasses fans of any heroes, of past, present and possibly, future. It is non others than Prabhu Ganesan.
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I have contributed mildly to threads involving the younger heroes. I have visited and made contributions to Sathyaraj as and when I can. But there were nothing for Prabhu? Why? No thanks to the huge Himalayan shadow cast by his dad, this true talent did not received the adulation he should.
Well, he did at one point. At late eighties and early nineties, Karthik, Sathyaraj and Prabhu did fine, had many fans, most of them who are also the fans of the big two. And I was one of them.
My love for Prabhu’s talent came before I really began to appreciate NT’s. He was there, and I was growing up in the eighties. NT was neglected, because under the influence of my dad and my aunt (his sister) I came under MGR’s spell. And I recall reading - during first or second anniversary of MGR’s passing on - that Prabhu was a closet fan of MGR’s. That must have influenced my liking for him.
Then, few of his films warmed my heart, particularly his partnership with Rajini (the hilarious Guru Sishyan and delightfully masalaic Tharmattin Talaivan), Kamal (A good Bourne Identity remake, Vetri Vizha), Karthik (notorious cheap flicks in the early eighties and then, Agni Natchatiram) and, of course, the one and only Sathyaraj (Chinnathambi Periyathambi, Palaivana Rojakkal).
In short, he is an able actor, able to blend in any genre flick, and star with any big stars, bigger, or peer in status, with no difficulty at all. His appearance towards the end of Anjali was god send for me, when I was getting supremely annoyed by the obvious darkness of Mani’s flick, and constipation-reflex acting that Mani encourages his lesser experienced actor.
When Prabhu appeared in the Tamil Film scene in 1982, in Sangili with his father, he was 26 years old. In the film, his performance was much more matured, and in fact, he inherited his father’s mature looks. He had hardly aged much since then. Under his dad’s shadow, sometimes literally, he began to appear more and more in that colossal, volume centric 80s that saw a barrage of films splitting the seams of theatres. Too many, too many films. I hear that he did about twenty plus film with NT alone.
Prabhu’s biggest problem at that time was simply this - his father. That NT was a gigantic talent became a hindrance to his own. True, he inherited many mannerism and a little bit of that wonderful voice, but he had something of his own. And this is not helped by the fact that someone - who deserves to be pelted with rotten Takkali - gave him the title Ilaya Thilagam. He took it proudly. If someone call me Ilaya Prem, I’d kill the guy. My dad is my dad and I am me. Period.
Slowly he found his footing and was making modest hits. I am not yet an authority of his films, but he was good enough that in 1988, he was cast with his buddy and fellow cast member of a couple of films, Karthik, in Manirathnam’s followup to his smash hit, Nayagan.
The film, Agni Natchathiram had a simple story. The Godfather factor so evident in Nayagan was also here - the Gordon Willis lighting and the changing of room in hospital scene. Anyway, Prabhu was great, as did Karthik. Both took off that moment onwards, playing films of variety of genre.
Prabhu especially struck gold in 1991 with Chinnathambi. Though I personally felt the film plot was a bit silly, Prabhu excelled in his role as a simpleton. Sure, it reminds us of NT in, say, Padikatha Methai, but then so does many other performances of Rajini’s and Kamal’s., except that whatever came through Prabhu was inherited - bloodwise!
His career peaked the next few years, and then faltered. Choices of films were getting bad, not helped by the fact by his own struggle with weight issue. He can’t do much with that: as he said in Duet: “It’s genetic”. He was making low budget comedies in which he seemed to be hardly engaged, non of that charisma and only smart move to cross over as a character actor that saw him emerge as the actor we know and love about.
He had a meaty role in Unakkum Enakkum (Something, something) and the reviews were good. He was the only reason to watch Thamirabarani, I think (since I never completed watching the flick for reasons Selvakumar and I know). His chemistry with Ajith was great in Billa, again proving that he can work with anytime. Oh, of course, he was in Chandramukhi, but somehow there was nothing much between him and Rajini. Maybe they should do a sequel and we can see that spark again.
But here, I’d like to talk about some of the better films he did earlier as a leading star. Like NT, he was an original actor. Organic, home grown talent, who never stole performances from Hollywood. Whatever NTism you saw in him was inherited, it is not his fault.
But comparison with NT is inevitable. He did not inherit NT’s capability to melt into most roles given (I’d argue that NT can do any role, but not all with great result, he can do many roles with great result). But he carries them off with his own trademark charm, which NT possessed in some of the comedic roles he played in the 60s. And most importantly, Prabhu was not afraid to mock his own weight on screen.
I am sure spurred by this piece, my fellow fans (fans of other stars have never once mentioned that they disliked Prabhu) would post their own feelings about this underrated actor and talk about some of his own films.
For a starter here are my favourite Prabhu films in rating order.
1.Uzhavan (Powerful, one of the greatest performance ever)
2.Agni Natchatiram (Volcanic, underplaying with fire)
3.Duet (Emotional, lessons on how to suffer quietly)
4.Aruvadai Naal (Tragic, organic, tear-jerking)
5.Guru Sishyan (Silly fun, comic chemistry of two leads never seen again)
6.Vetri Vizha (Fun balance to a taut thriller)
7.Sathanai (Shades of real artistic father son relationship)
8.Chinna Mappilai (Good Crazy Mohan farce)
9.Palaivana Rojakkal (Tough guy in a Kalaignar written good script)
10. Chinnathambi (Soul of the otherwise pedestrian movie)
Originally Posted by groucho070
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