Punnagai Mannan

Punnagai Mannan (1986)

புன்னகை மன்னன்

Chandram and Ranjani are in love with each other, but when their parents go against their union, they decide to commit suicide by jumping from a cliff. Unfortunately, Ranjani loses her life instantly but Chandram survives, and becomes a dance master.

Date of release
1986-11-01
TMDB
7.2 / 10 (8)
Genres
Romance, Drama
Director
K. Balachander

Casting

Interesting facts

Punnagai Mannan is a 1986 Indian Tamil-language musical romantic drama film written and directed by K. Balachander. The film stars Kamal Haasan and Revathi in the lead roles, with Srividya, Rekha, Delhi Ganesh, Sudarshan and Sundar Krishna Urs in supporting roles. Its plot revolves around a man who, after surviving a suicide attempt that killed his lover, finds new love, but their romance faces obstacles.

Production

K. Balachander, who directed the Telugu film Maro Charitra (1978) and its Hindi remake Ek Duuje Ke Liye (1981), wondered what a new story would be like if it starts from the end of Maro Charitra. Kamal Haasan, who starred in both films, pitched to Balachander a story based on a true incident about two lovers attempting suicide via poison, with the male surviving and the female dying.

Haasan was cast in two roles; Sethu, and his uncle "Chaplin" Chellappa. Revathi was cast as Malini, a Sinhalese girl, and her voice was dubbed by Sulakshana. Rekha's character was named Ranjani after the Carnatic raga of the same name. G. M. Sundar made his feature-film debut as a dance student. Ramesh Aravind was cast as Malini's lover in flashbacks, but his scenes did not make the final cut.

Many scenes of Punnagai Mannan were filmed at Athirappilly Falls at Chalakudy, Kerala in 27 days. Balachander suggested Kala as a dance choreographer to fill in for Raghuram, her brother-in-law who was busy. Suresh Krissna, who worked as an assistant director, said of the picturisation of the song "Mamavukku", Haasan had the novel idea of lip sync being perfect while dance movements are fast.

The film includes a scene in which Haasan and Rekha, who was 16 years old at the time, kiss. In a 2019 interview, Rekha stated she was not told of the kiss before filming the scene. During the filming, Haasan suddenly grabbed and kissed Rekha on her lips. After the shoot, Rekha protested and asked to remove the scene but the crew did not comply.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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