Kuruthipunal (film)

Kuruthipunal

Poster
Directed by P. C. Sreeram
Produced by Charuhasan
Kamal Haasan
Written by Kamal Haasan (dialogues)
Screenplay by Kamal Haasan
Story by Govind Nihalani
Starring Kamal Haasan
Arjun
Nassar
Gouthami
Geetha
Music by Mahesh Mahadevan
Cinematography P. C. Sreeram
Edited by N. P. Satish
Production
company
Distributed by Raaj Kamal Films International
Release dates
  • 23 October 1995 (1995-10-23)
Running time
 143 minutes
Country India
Language Tamil
Budget ₹4 crore (equivalent to ₹17 crore or US$2.5 million in 2016)
Box office ₹22 crore (equivalent to ₹92 crore or US$14 million in 2016)

Kuruthipunal (River of Blood) is a 1995 Tamil buddy cop action thriller film directed by veteran cinematographer P. C. Sreeram. The film stars Kamal Haasan in the lead role, with Arjun and Nassar in supporting roles. The film featured songs and the background score was composed by Mahesh Mahadevan. Produced by Kamal Hassan, the story is a remake of Govind Nihalani's Hindi film Drohkaal,[1] The film met with critical acclaim upon release and became a trendsetter for action films during that period of time. The film was India's official entry for the 68th Academy Awards Best Foreign Language Film category, but was not nominated.[2] The film was dubbed in Telugu as Drohi.[3]

Summary

Kuruthipunal is a stylish cop thriller revolves around a police officer with familial obligations and a strong desire to curb terrorism in the country.

Plot

Two honest and bold police officers Adhi Narayanan, (Kamal Hassan) and Abbas (Arjun Sarja) devise a masterful plan to bring a terrorist group in control, and send two secret vigilance officers, named Anand and Shiva on an operation called Operation "Dhanush". The objective is to infiltrate a terror group headed by a man named Badri (Nassar), and relay information back to Abbas. A leak from inside the police camp leads the terrorist to oust Anand as a spy but before they are able to torture him and get information on the second spy, he commits suicide.

Through Shiva, Adhi and Abbas learn of the arrival of an RPG expert shooter into the city to assassinate a Central Govt. minister who is to arrive soon. Adhi and Abbas manage to corner the RPG shooter in a railway station but he manages to escape the police in an intense shoot out. The police duo captures Badri, the driver of the car that had come to pick up the shooter.

Thus starts the mind game between Adhi and the Driver. Adhi tortures the driver for information on the terrorist head Badri and the spy inside the police camp but the driver maintains his innocence. Adhi, convinced that the driver holds a mid-level position in the terrorist camp, refuses to believe him.

Meanwhile, Adhi and Abbas change the route of the minister who was to be assassinated at the last minute. But the terrorist knew about this plan and the RPG shooter kills the minister but is then captured by the police. The shooter identifies Srinivasan (K. Vishwanath), a senior police officer who is Adhi’s mentor, as the spy who had alerted the terrorists of the change of plan. Before he can be arrested, Srinivasan commits suicide, after confessing to Adhi that he was threatened by the terrorist group, that they would kill his family if he didn’t act as a spy. This enrages Adhi and he beats up the driver even more.

The driver then used one of his men inside the prison he is kept in to pass instructions to kill Adhi’s pet to show Adhi that he can kill Adhi’s family just as easily. The Driver reveals himself as Badri, the head of the terrorist group and threatens to kill Adhi’s family if he is not allowed to escape. Adhi, cooperates with Badri to let Badri escape. Adhi acts as the new spy for the terrorist group. Abbas gets a little suspicious and follows Adhi when he goes to meet Badri. Abbas is caught, tortured and killed by Badri.

Overcome with sadness, Abbas’s wife Zeenath (Geetha) and their teenage daughter come to live with Adhi, his wife, Sumitra (Gouthami) and their son. Badri, again threatens Adhi to let a couple of terrorists come and live with him to keep a closer eye on Adhi. Overcome with guilt and grief over Abbas’s death and his betrayal of his duty, he realizes that he is travelling down the same path Srinivasan had done and decides to end the arrangement.

Adhi manages to find the safe house the terrorists reside in. Meanwhile, the terrorist staying at Adhi’s house tries to rape Abbas’s teenage daughter. Sumitra intervenes and seduces the terrorist. While he gets a bit too excited, she gets the gun off him and manages to kill him.

As Adhi approaches the safe house, he is captured and the roles are reversed as Badri tortures Adhi to reveal the information of the second spy in the terrorist’s camp. When only Adhi, Badri and Badri’s second in command, Shiva is left in the room, Badri reveals to Adhi that the group has even found the radio used by the spy and that Danush (the codename of the spy) can no longer contact the police. This surprises Adhi and he looks at Shiva, who is the spy, for confirmation. Badri notices this and realizes that Shiva is Dhanush. Adhi breaks free and tussle with Badri when Badri tries to kill Shiva. This leads to a tussle in which Adhi kills Badri.

Adhi, who believes that the mission to bring down all the terrorist organizations is more important than his life, orders Shiva to shoot him so that Shiva could continue being the spy. Shiva shoots and kills Adhi just as the other terrorist members enter the room hearing the commotion inside. Shiva convinces the others that Badri was killed by Adhi and he killed Adhi. He proclaims that as Badri is dead, he, the second in command, will take over the reins of the group.

The story shows its ending as the beginning of a new era with the sons of Adhi and Narasimham (John Edathattil) confronting each other.

Cast

Production

The film was a remake of Hindi film Drohkaal and it was the second film directed by cinematographer P. C. Sriram.[4][5] The film was initially titled Drohi which was later named for Telugu dubbed version of the film.[6] Nassar who portrayed the role of Naxal commander revealed that he had the freedom to interpret the character in his own way and also said he "didn't act in the film, The context of every scene was so well established, that I did nothing more than maintain a stoic expression in most scenes. That my character was torturing someone and yet my face was so calm contributed to the impact."[7] Kamal approached Arjun to portray a police officer and actor agreed to do the film even without hearing the narration.[8]

Release

The film won the Cinema Express Award for Best Film – Tamil, while Kamal Haasan won Filmfare Award for Best Actor – Tamil for his portrayal of Adhi Naarayanan.[9] The film was featured as part of a retrospective to Kamal Haasan under the category "Director in Focus" at the International Film Festival Rotterdam.

Box-Office

The film was commercially successful at the box office and was a super hit(link broken and goes to an advertisement page).[10] This was the first Tamil film to use Dolby Stereo surround SR technology.

Actor Vikram rendered his voice to the Asst. commander of the Terrorist group. Actress Rohini rendered her voice to Gouthami.

See also

References

External links

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