This week’s Tamil releases are Vikram Prabhu’s Thuppakki Munai and Prashanth’s Johnny; in Malayalam, it is Mohanlal’s Odiyan. There are no major releases in Telugu and Hindi.
Thuppakki Munai
Directed by Dinesh Selvaraj, a former assistant to Mani Ratnam, the film is a thriller starring Vikram Prabhu and Hansika Motwani in the lead. It also features Velu Ramamoorthy and MS Bhaskar in pivotal roles. Rasamathi is the cinematographer of this film. LV Muthu Ganesh has composed the songs while Pulamaipithan and Pa Vijay have written the lyrics.
Vikram Prabhu plays an encounter specialist in the movie. Thuppaki Munai’s tagline reads – ‘Each bullet has a story’ – and producer Thanu had said that this best described the film. “The bullets that are fired from Vikram Prabhu’s gun have a purpose.
Talking about her character, Hansika told Deccan Chronicle, “I am doing a character which I have not tried so far. It’s not the routine heroine that you see in every commercial film. It is something quirky and interesting.”
Johnny
Johnny, a remake of the Hindi film Johnny Gaddar, is directed by Pa Vetriselvan, and produced by Prashanth’s father – actor-stunt master Thiagarajan. Starring actor Prashanth and Sanchita Shetty in the lead, the film also features Prabhu, Anandaraj, Ashutosh Rana, Sayaji Shinde, Kalairani, Devadarshini and Sugunthan in pivotal roles. The cinematography of the movie has been handled by M V Panneerselvam, with editing by Shiva Saravanan.
Music for the film has been composed by Jai Ganesh. The original film marked the debut of actor Neil Nitin Mukesh.
Talking about the film, actor Prashanth told Silverscreen, “The story of Johnny has been tweaked to make it palatable for the Tamil audience, and the protagonist won’t be entirely evil. Nobody can take a complete villain. He has to have a soft spot somewhere. There will be songs. There will be dances. There will be romance. I was trained to do all of this. It went out of fashion at some point. But it will come back. No trend is a sure thing. They don’t last forever.”
Odiyan
Written by Harikrishnan and directed by debutant Shrikumar Menon, an ad-film maker, the film stars Mohanlal and Manju Warrier in lead roles, along with Prakash Raj, Manoj Joshi and Naren. Prakash Raj’s role is said to a be prominent one.
Produced by Antony Perumbavoor under Aashirvad Cinemas, the music for the film is composed by M Jayachandran, while Sam CS has composed the background score. Shaji Kumar is the cinematographer, and John Kutty is the editor.
Recommended
It is the first Malayalam film to be simultaneously released in Tamil and Telugu, and will be dubbed into Hindi and other languages as well.
Talking about the film, writer Harikrishnan told The Hindu: “Odiyan is not a myth, it’s a clan that really existed. Each village had at least one Odiyan family, who was paid to give people a scare. Attached to their profession were a whole lot of mythical stories about their supernatural ability to assume the figure of different animals in split seconds, among other things.”
*****