Underplayed Gems

Muthu (1998)

Muthu poster
Original title
முத்து
Directed by
K. S. Ravikumar
Genre
musical film
Country
India
Runtime
2h 46m
Rated
U
Rating
6.9 of 10 from 37 voters
Elsewhere
IMDb
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How it feels

A zamindar and his worker both fall for the same woman. She only loves the worker, but the zamindar does not know this.

romanticlighthearteddramaticmusicalemotionalupliftingclassicmelodramatic

What happens

Muthu (transl. Pearl) is a 1995 Indian Tamil-language masala film written and directed by K. S. Ravikumar, and produced by Kavithalayaa Productions. The film stars Rajinikanth and Meena and Sarath Babu in the lead roles, with Radha Ravi, Senthil, Vadivelu, Jayabharathi, Subhashri and Ponnambalam in supporting roles. It is a remake of the Malayalam film Thenmavin Kombath (1994). The film revolves around a zamindar and his worker falling in love with the same woman who, unknown to the zamindar, loves the worker exclusively. After Rajinikanth narrated the outline of Thenmavin Kombath, he told Ravikumar to develop the screenplay of the remake without watching the original film. Although largely written to suit the tastes of Tamil-speaking audiences, the remake retains the core premise of the original, while adding new plot details and characters. Ashok Rajan acted as the film's cinematographer. Principal photography began in June 1995 and took place in Mysore, Madras and Kerala. The film was edited by K. Thanikachalam and the music composed by A. R. Rahman, with lyrics written by Vairamuthu. Muthu was released on 23 October 1995, during the Diwali holiday period, and became a silver jubilee hit. Rajinikanth won various awards for his performance, including the Tamil Nadu State Film Award and the Cinema Express Award, both for Best Actor. The film was released in Japan under the title Muthu Odoru Maharaja (transl. Muthu – The Dancing Maharaja) in 1998 and became the highest-grossing Indian film in Japan, a record it held for 24 years. It sparked a short-lived boom of Indian films released in Japan and helping Rajinikanth gain a large fan following there. The film was remade in Kannada as Sahukara in 2004. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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