A topical Tamil film without a song? Running to packed houses in Tamil Nadu and Kerala, while its Teluguversion tops the box office in Andhra Pradesh? To crown it all, it gets selected by the Film Federation of India as the official Indian entry to seek an Oscar nomination in the Best Foreign Film category despite it being a remake of a Hindi production.
Well, with Kamal Hasan in the lead, Kuridhi Punal (River Of Blood) being a runaway hit comes as no surprise. And proves the point that it's still possible to make a blockbuster despite a glut of regional satellite TV channels and fickle audience tastes.
A remake of Govind Nihalani's Drohkaal , Kuridhi Punal's ( Drohi in Telugu) story revolves around two tough cops dedicated to wipe out terrorism in the country. They attempt to accomplish this by infiltrating a militant outfit and defeating its designs. Half a dozen action sequences, a couple of seemingly realistic terrorist attacks, and long-drawn conversations in the interrogation rooms later, the two officers sacrifice their lives to their cause after being betrayed by their boss. Nothing earth-shattering really, compared to the fervour created by Roja and Bombay , two recent topical Tamil films which attracted national attention and accolades.
While Roja and Bombay had chartbusting music contributing to their success, Kuridhi Punal can boast of technical finesse and good acting by Kamal Hasan—imperative ingredients for all productions which aim at pleasing the audience and raking in the moolah. Besides, a cast with leading stars like Arjun and Gauthami also helps. "Frankly, I didn't expect the public to react so positively," says P.C. Sreeram, director-cinematographer of Kuridhi Punal. "The fact that the film did not have songs or comical interludes made industry pundits sceptical. The film's commercial success is unbelievable."
Not that Rajkamal, Kamal Hasan's production house which produced the film, didn't use some gimmicks to bring in the masses. Publicity posters and stills of Kuridhi Punal showed Kamal Hasan and Gauthami kissing passionately, a movie scene that Sreeram admits was only for publicity. Says he: "We couldn't have all publicity material showing just Kamal and Arjun. We needed to have some variation. Kuridhi Punal 's success, Sreeram feels, is largely because people were forced to come to the the-atres to see it. The film offered no songs which could be watched in the comfort of their living rooms on the numerous satellite TV channels beamed into Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. "Cinema has become monotonous after the entry of 24-hour satellite TV channels showing mostly film-based pro-grammes. So Kamal and I took a very conscious decision not to include songs in Kuridhi Punal ," says Sreeram. "The film is successful also due to its fast pace. Before the audience begins to miss a song, it's all over. If the pace of the film had dropped, the film, too, would have dropped."
Speaking on Drohkaal , Niha-lani says itwas neither a successnor a failure. He recovered the costs to fund his next venture. He says the success of Kuridhi Punal indicates the birth of a very healthy trend in audience tastes. "Kamal made some changes in the script to suit his image, upscaled the movie to a big screen format and included two big names—Arjun and Gauthami—in the cast. So obviously, it was a good proposition for the audience," says Nihalani, who received the best director award at the recent Damascus International Film Festival. "In fact, when I watched the movie at the premiere, the first time when my film was made by someone else, I felt I was watching a new film because Kamal and Sreeram had given it a stamp of its own. This, when remakes are strongly influenced by the original."
However, what made the Film Federation of India panel pick Kuridhi Punal and not Mani Ratnam's Bombay and Jahnu Barua's Hagorilo Ansk Door (The Sea is Far Away)? Its international relevance apparently. Says Pinaki Mukherji, member of the Eastern India Motion Picture Association and head of the panel which unanimously zeroed in on Kuridhi Punal in Madras last month. "The film is contemporary as it coincided with the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin. It stands a better chance of appealing to the American audience and getting an Oscar nomination, unlike Bombay which deals with a domestic issue." Sreeram, though, is elated by the commercial success of Kuridhi Punal . Says he: "More than being selected for seeking an Oscar nomination, Kuridhi Punal's success shows that we can successfully go into newer areas of film-making, experiment and set a trend."
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