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Kadhalan

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Kadhalan
Theatrical release poster
Directed byS. Shankar
Screenplay byS. Shankar
Story byS. Shankar
K. T. Kunjumon
Dialogues by
Produced byK. T. Kunjumon
StarringPrabhu Deva
Nagma
CinematographyJeeva
Edited byB. Lenin
V. T. Vijayan
Music byA. R. Rahman
Production
company
A. R. S. Film International
Release date
  • 17 September 1994 (1994-09-17)
Running time
170 minutes
CountryIndia
LanguageTamil
Budget₹3 crore

Kadhalan (/kɑːðələn/ transl. Loverboy) is a 1994 Indian Tamil-language romantic thriller film directed by S. Shankar and produced by K. T. Kunjumon, who co-wrote the story. The film stars Prabhu Deva and Nagma (in her debut in Tamil cinema), alongside Vadivelu, Raghuvaran, Girish Karnad and S. P. Balasubrahmanyam. In the film, a college student falls in love with the daughter of the state's governor, who has plans of toppling the state government.

Kunjumon decided to collaborate with Shankar for the second time after the success of Gentleman (1993) and the story Shankar developed was that of a romance between an ordinary man and a wealthy girl; to increase the scale of the project, Kunjumon incorporated the cold-war between the then chief minister of Tamil Nadu J. Jayalalithaa and governor Marri Chenna Reddy into the script. The dialogues were written by Balakumaran, while the music was composed by A. R. Rahman. The cinematography was handled by Jeeva and editing by B. Lenin and V. T. Vijayan.

Kadhalan was released on 17 September 1994 and became a major commercial success. The film earned several accolades, including two Filmfare Awards South and four National Film Awards. It was later dubbed into Telugu as Premikudu, where it also achieved success.

Plot

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Kakarla Sathyanarayana, the governor of Tamil Nadu, inaugurates a new open market in Madras, but as Mallikarjuna, a bomb specialist, planted a bomb the night before, the market area explodes minutes after Kakarla leaves, leaving the state government thrown into disarray.

Prabhu, the union chairman of a college and his friend Vasanth, the joint secretary, invite Kakarla as the chief guest for the college annual day. Prabhu sees Kakarla's daughter Shruti and instantly falls in love with her. Kakarla accepts the invitation and arrives on the function day with his wife and Shruti. Prabhu joins Shruthi's dance school to get close to her. Shruti hates Prabhu for disrespecting classical dance.

Prabhu's father Kathiresan, a police constable, advises Prabhu to impress her by learning classical dance properly and Prabhu accepts. He practices continuously for a month and becomes well-versed in the art. Shruti refuses to go to the Natyanjali festival at Chidambaram if Prabhu attends as he would insult the art. To disprove her, Prabhu secretly enters her house and demonstrates his dance skills, thus impressing Shruti. She agrees to attend Natyanjali, but Kakarla refuses to let Shruti attend Natyanjali due to fear of terrorism.

Unknown to anyone, Kakarla is an aide of the National ruling party and was paid heavily to topple the state government by horse-trading of MLAs. Kakarla instead chose to create law and order disarray and dismiss the legislature using Article 356 of the Constitution of India. He orchestrated the bombing at the market. Shruti escapes with Prabhu and Vasanth via motorbike, outwitting her bodyguards. Kakarla and Malli plan the next bomb blast at the Nataraja Temple, where Natyanjali is to take place.

Ajay, a commander, informs Kakarla that Shruti left with two men to attend Natyanjali. Kakarla orders Malli to remove the bomb, but he faces an accident on the way, resulting in a broken leg. Shruti realises Prabhu's love for her and reciprocates his feelings. They reach Chidambaram as planned. Due to Malli's inability to remove the bomb, Kakarla secretly informs the police and his guards. Ajay and the squad reach the temple, remove the bomb and bring Shruti back by helicopter.

Kakarla doubts Shruti's virginity as she was with Prabhu for a night. Upset at this, Shruti meets with Prabhu and asks him to marry her, but Ajay and his commandos imprison Prabhu and accuse him of planting the bomb. The police order Prabhu to confess, but he refuses and is tortured. Shruti becomes embittered over his imprisonment and expresses her love for him to her parents. Vasanth informs all the students about the happenings and a strike is called by the students against Kakarla.

Kakarla is embarrassed by Sruthi in an official dinner party, where they make a deal. In exchange for Prabhu's unconditional release, Shruti is sent to her paternal grandparents' house in Tadepalligudem. Some weeks later, Prabhu and Vasanth reach Tadepalligudem and find Shruti. Shruti's grandparents support their romance and unite them. Malli sees Prabhu and informs Kakarla, which Prabhu overhears. Prabhu discovers evidence of Kakarla's attempts to blast the temple and learns about his plans to blast the Government General Hospital. After subduing Malli, Prabhu and Vasanth escape with the evidence.

Malli informs Kakarla, who orders the police to find Prabhu. The police arrest Prabhu and Vasanth and Kakarla tells Malli to make the bomb detonate after his visit to the hospital to see the Vice President of India undergoing treatment there. They plan to dump an unconscious Prabhu and Vasanth in the hospital. However, the two escape and Prabhu informs Kathiresan about the bomb. Malli plants it, but Kakarla tries to kill him with a bomb radio. Malli survives and, in revenge, re-times the bomb to detonate during Kakarla's scheduled visit. Prabhu searches for the bomb, while Vasanth brings students to vacate the patients. After meeting the Vice President, Kakarla is trapped in a lift with his wife and Shruti. Shruti and her mother are helped out, while Prabhu, having located the bomb, throws it into a river; the bomb detonates without killing anyone. Prabhu and Shruthi reunite, while Malli kills Kakarla with a live wire, and succumbs to his injuries.

Cast

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Production

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Development

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After the success of Gentleman (1993), producer K. T. Kunjumon of A. R. S. Film International decided to collaborate with director S. Shankar for the second time. Shankar narrated the plot of "a young dancer from a normal middle-class household falling in love with a girl from a very influential household". Kunjumon liked the plot and, "to turn this into as grand a film as was possible", he decided to incorporate the cold-war between the then Tamil Nadu chief minister J. Jayalalithaa and the then governor Marri Chenna Reddy into the screenplay.[5] The dialogues were written by Balakumaran, cinematography was handled by Jeeva, and editing by B. Lenin and V. T. Vijayan.[1]

Casting

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Shankar wanted Prashanth to be the lead actor, but due to other commitments he could not act in the film.[6][7] Prabhu Deva, who worked as a dancer for Kunjumon's previous ventures, was later finalised by Kunjumon. Shankar was initially reluctant to have him as the lead actor as distributors felt audience would not accept him in that role because of his "lean physique" and "bearded look". However Kunjumon was firm with his choice and wanted to prove distributors wrong.[5] Dubbing voice for Prabhu Deva was provided by the then struggling actor Vikram.[8] Madhuri Dixit was originally considered as the lead actress. Busy schedules meant that Nagma was instead chosen.[5] It is her first Tamil film.[9]

Kunjumon initially wanted to have Goundamani play Vasanth, but he did not accept, citing scheduling conflicts; Vadivelu was instead chosen. Girish Karnad was not initially interested in playing the governor, but after convincing by Kunjumon, he agreed.[5] While S. P. Balasubrahmanyam played the role of Prabhu Deva's father, Padmapriya was reluctant to portray Prabhu Deva's mother; she relented after believing the role would give her a break, like how Keladi Kannmanii (1990) did for Radhika who played Balasubrahmanyam's pair in that film. However, the majority of Padmapriya's scenes did not make the final cut.[10]

Filming

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The song "Urvasi Urvasi" was shot near the SPIC building in Guindy, Anna Salai and other landmarks across Madras.[11][12] Art director Thota Tharani specially created a glass framed bus for the song. Since the crew made a film with a relatively new cast it created doubts on the trade, so the crew decided "to use the newest technology at that time to make the film appealing to audiences. They decided to go all out with visual effects in the songs, making them the attraction."[5] Venki Sambamoorthy was chosen to handle the visual effects for the film,[13] and he had done by outsourcing the work to technicians from abroad. It became the final film to be shot inside the premises of Nataraja Temple after the film's crew was sued by court for shooting inside the temple.[5]

The song "Muqabla" was shot at Rajahmundry. Kasi, who designed costumes for the song had to design around 400 costumes within a short time as the dancers had only one day callsheet.[14] Lalitha Mahal at Mysore was shown as Nagma's home in the film.[15] The song "Ennavale" was shot at Kulu Manali.[11] Other filming locations included Kumbakonam, Chidambaram, Pollachi, Delhi, and it took eleven months to be completed.[16][11]

Music

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Main article: Kadhalan (soundtrack)

The score and soundtrack were composed by A. R. Rahman. with lyrics written by Vaali, Vairamuthu and director Shankar who penned the "Petta Rap" number. The song "Mukkabla" became popular and was plagiarised freely by tunesmiths. Nearly a dozen versions of the song were churned out, a feat that earned "Mukkabla" and Rahman a place in the Limca Book of Records.[17] New styles were experimented with, as in "Petta Rap", a Madras Bashai song which was written in a rap-like style, interspersing Tamil with English words. The synthesiser and the keyboard also feature while drawing from Tamil folk music. P. Unnikrishnan made his playback singing debut with the song "Ennavale Ennavale" which is set in Kedaram raga.[18]

The dubbed Hindi version of the soundtrack, Humse Hai Muqabala, sold 2.5 million units in India.[19] "Urvasi Urvasi" inspired the 2014 song "It's My Birthday" by American rapper will.i.am.[20] It was remade in Hindi as a single, "Urvashi" in 2018, sung and composed by Yo Yo Honey Singh, with the music video starring Shahid Kapoor and Kiara Advani.[21] "Mukkabla" was remade as "Muqabla" in Hindi for the 2020 film Street Dancer 3D, in which Prabhu Deva stars as one of the leads, and an accompanying video song was released in late 2019 as promotion for the film.[22]

Release

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Kadhalan was released on 17 September 1994.[23] The film was a major success, and by the end of January 1995 was expected to gross ₹15 crore (US$1.8 million) against a budget of ₹3 crore (US$350,000) in South India alone.[24]

Reception

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Malini Mannath of The Indian Express said, "[Kadhalan] is better than expected, and will appeal to the college crowd."[3] K. Vijiyan of New Straits Times said, "Sadly, the love story is not all that endearing as it is eclipsed by the dance songs."[25] R. P. R. of Kalki praised the film for its grandeur, but criticised its story and Prabhu Deva's performance for being overshadowed by his dancing.[26]

Accolades

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P. Unnikrishnan won the National Film Award for Best Male Playback Singer with his first ever film song for "Ennavale Ennavale".[27]

Ceremony Award Awardee Ref.
42nd National Film Awards Best Male Playback Singer P. Unnikrishnan [28]
Best Audiography A. S. Laxmi Narayanan
V. S. Murthy
Best Editing B. Lenin and V. T. Vijayan
Best Special Effects Venky
42nd Filmfare Awards South Best Director – Tamil S. Shankar [29]
Music Director – Tamil A. R. Rahman

Controversy

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Congress MP Era. Anbarasu submitted a petition to the Madras High Court to ban the film, citing the negative portrayal of the governor; the High Court admitted the petition.[30] Kunjumon said he received calls from governor's office ordering him to remove certain scenes from the film. However, Jayalalithaa was impressed with the film, supported Kunjumon and no scenes were removed.[5]

Legacy

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The song "Urvasi Urvasi" inspired the title of the 1996 film Take It Easy Urvashi.[31] Furthermore, the gibberish line "Jil Jung Juk" which was spoken by Vadivelu in the film inspired the title of a 2016 film.[32] "Petta Rap" was remixed in the 2024 film of the same name, also starring Prabhu Deva.[33]

References

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  1. ^ a b c d Dhananjayan 2014, p. 331.
  2. ^ a b Dhananjayan 2014, p. 332.
  3. ^ a b Mannath, Malini (30 September 1994). "Better than expected". The Indian Express. p. 6. Retrieved 4 May 2017 – via Google News Archive.
  4. ^ "HBD நடிகர் தாமு: ரசிகர்கள் வாழ்த்து!" [HBD Actor Dhamu: Fans Wish]. Webdunia (in Tamil). 31 August 2021. Archived from the original on 27 June 2024. Retrieved 27 June 2024.
  5. ^ a b c d e f g Suganth, M. (17 September 2019). "How Kadhalan established Prabhudeva as an actor – 25 years of Kadhalan". The Times of India. Archived from the original on 17 September 2019. Retrieved 17 September 2019.
  6. ^ Rajitha (17 April 1998). "Vim and vigour". Rediff.com. Archived from the original on 21 February 1999. Retrieved 9 May 2021.
  7. ^ Suresh, M. G. (1 May 1998). "What makes baby-face Prasanth tick?". The Indian Express. Archived from the original on 4 September 2013. Retrieved 22 September 2019.
  8. ^ Ramanan, V. V. (5 July 2014). "Cinema Quiz". The Hindu. Archived from the original on 1 February 2015. Retrieved 1 February 2015.
  9. ^ "Nagma tests positive for COVID-19 days after her first shot of vaccine". The Times of India. 8 April 2021. Archived from the original on 5 September 2022. Retrieved 5 September 2022.
  10. ^ நட்சத்திரன் (1 December 2023). "'காதலன்' படத்தில் வெட்டப்பட்டேன்! - பத்மப்ரியா நேர்காணல்" [I was cut from Kadhalan! - Padmapriya interview]. Hindu Tamil Thisai (in Tamil). Archived from the original on 11 December 2023. Retrieved 12 December 2023.
  11. ^ a b c பிரபுதேவா (7 July 2016). "இதுதான் நான் 33: வடிவேலுவும் நானும்!". Hindu Tamil Thisai (in Tamil). Archived from the original on 20 June 2023. Retrieved 19 June 2023.
  12. ^ Tripathi, Apoorva (23 February 2017). "Tamil films: How north Chennai marks its presence while Kodambakkam thrives". Hindustan Times. Archived from the original on 17 September 2019. Retrieved 22 September 2019.
  13. ^ "They did Tamil cinema proud". The Hindu. 14 July 1995. p. 26. Archived from the original on 22 December 1996. Retrieved 1 August 2023.
  14. ^ "ஐஸ்வர்யா ராய் கேட்ட ஆட்டோகிராஃப்!" (PDF). Kalki (in Tamil). 4 November 2001. pp. 68–71. Retrieved 1 August 2023 – via Internet Archive.
  15. ^ "முத்து, KGF, லிங்கா, மதராசப்பட்டிணம் போன்ற பல திரைப்படங்கள் எடுக்கப்பட்ட அரண்மனை இது தானாம்!". Native Planet (in Tamil). 14 December 2023. Archived from the original on 17 December 2023. Retrieved 7 March 2024.
  16. ^ "Take it easy? Not for Me!". Kalki (in Tamil). 4 December 1994. pp. 58–59. Archived from the original on 25 February 2023. Retrieved 11 February 2023 – via Internet Archive.
  17. ^ Srinivasan, Gopal. "The Complete Biography of A.R.Rahman – The A.R.Rahman Page". Gopalhome.tripod.com. Archived from the original on 15 June 2014. Retrieved 1 June 2014.
  18. ^ Mani, Charulatha (15 March 2013). "Mood enhancers". The Hindu. Archived from the original on 17 September 2019. Retrieved 31 October 2015.
  19. ^ "Music Hits 1990–1999 (Figures in Units)". Box Office India. 2 January 2010. Archived from the original on 5 February 2010. Retrieved 3 December 2017.
  20. ^ "A R Rahman collaborates with will.i.am on Urvashi song remake". The Times of India. 22 May 2014. Archived from the original on 29 May 2014. Retrieved 1 June 2014.
  21. ^ "Honey Singh recreates A R Rahman's 'Urvashi'". Daily News and Analysis. 8 August 2018. Archived from the original on 23 November 2019. Retrieved 23 November 2019.
  22. ^ Raghuvanshi, Aakanksha (21 December 2019). "Street Dancer 3D Song Muqabla: Prabhu Deva And Varun Dhawan Recreate The Magic Of AR Rahman's Iconic Track". NDTV. Archived from the original on 27 December 2019. Retrieved 6 January 2020.
  23. ^ "Kadalan". The Indian Express. 17 September 1994. p. 4. Retrieved 7 May 2018 – via Google News Archive.
  24. ^ Pillai, Sreedhar (22–28 January 1995). "Just Like Jackson" (PDF). Sunday. pp. 70–71. Retrieved 26 February 2024 – via Internet Archive.
  25. ^ Vijiyan, K. (1 October 1994). "Love story eclipsed by the dance songs". New Straits Times. p. 15. Archived from the original on 7 April 2023. Retrieved 13 March 2019 – via Google News Archive.
  26. ^ ஆர். பி. ஆர். (30 October 1994). "காதலன்". Kalki (in Tamil). p. 96. Archived from the original on 29 July 2022. Retrieved 25 October 2021.
  27. ^ Pradeep, K. (6 December 2012). "Making it big on the right pitch". The Hindu. Archived from the original on 29 November 2020. Retrieved 23 November 2019.
  28. ^ "42nd National Film Festival". International Film Festival of India. p. 34. Archived from the original on 23 May 2015. Retrieved 23 November 2019.
  29. ^ "The 42nd Annual (South) Filmfare Winners". Filmfare. 1995. Archived from the original on 7 February 2017. Retrieved 23 November 2019 – via Internet Archive.
  30. ^ "Cong MP moves HC to ban Kaadalan". The Indian Express. 9 November 1994. p. 4. Archived from the original on 7 April 2023. Retrieved 10 October 2019 – via Google News Archive.
  31. ^ Kareem, Rehna Abdul (25 October 2017). "Benny Dayal is bringing back the classic with Project Urvasi". Indulge Express. Archived from the original on 1 November 2021. Retrieved 1 November 2021.
  32. ^ "Jill Jung Juk review: Not funny at all". Sify. 12 February 2016. Archived from the original on 19 January 2020. Retrieved 1 November 2021.
  33. ^ "Prabhu Deva's iconic 'Pettai Rap' song gets a re-mix version for his upcoming film". Cinema Express. 18 September 2024. Archived from the original on 19 September 2024. Retrieved 22 December 2024.

Bibliography

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