The second movie of director shankar had a very simple plot - the love story of a middle class youngster prabhu (prabhu Deva) and governor Kakarla Sathyanarayana's (girish karnad)daughter Shruthi (nagma), laced with political villainy and terrorism elements, the involvement of Mallikarjuna (Raghuvaran) and how prabhu and Shruthi unite overcoming obstacles. Starring Prabhudeva, nagma, Raghuvaran, GirishKarnad, SPBalasubrahmanyam and Vadivelu, the movie with music by ARRahman turned out to be a blockbuster.
On eve of the 25th anniversary of the release of Kadhalan, here are some facts on the movie.
▪️ Following the success of Gentleman, KT Kunjumon gifted shankar a flat and a maruti 800 car, besides also gifting his ADs Madhesh and venkatesh scooters and gold to other technicians. The happy team decided to reunite for Kadhalan.
▪️The initial story narrated by shankar was that of a middle-class dancer falling for a rich girl, and Kunjumon who was a part of kerala wing of AIADMK wanted something bigger and infused the cold-war between jayalalithaa and the then governor Channa Reddy into the screenplay. Even as Kunjumon got calls from the governor's office to remove several scenes, jayalalithaa had supported him and after the release, Kunjumon contributed a day's collection to CM's welfare fund.
▪️ While shankar was hesitant on casting prabhu deva in the lead role, Kunjumon who had noticed him as a dancer in his production ventures Gentleman and Suriyan decided to cast him.
▪️ madhuri DIXIT' target='_blank' title='click here to read more about madhuri DIXIT'>madhuri dixit was the initial choice to play the female lead, but as she was busy, nagma entered the cast, making her Tamil debut.
▪️ While Kunjumon wanted to cast Goundamani as the hero's sidekick, the actor claiming he didn't have dates lead to Vadivelu doing the role.
▪️ Venky was roped in to do the visual effects for the film. For the Urvasi number, Thottatharani had designed a bus, which was blasted in another sequence in the movie.
▪️ Kadhalan had dialogues penned by Balakumaran.
▪️ While vairamuthu had penned 6 songs, vaali penned Mukkala number, shankar penned Petta rap and Indirayo ival sundariyo was penned by Thirikudarasappa Kavirayar (Kutrala Kuravanji).
▪️ Kadhalan was dubbed in Hindi as HumseHaiMuqabala and after a preview in mumbai, Sholay's producer GP Sippy had appreciated KT Kunjumon. The movie was dubbed in Telugu as Premikudu and both the Hindi and Telugu versions were successful.
▪️ Kadhalan won 4 national awards - Unnikrishnan for his first-ever Tamil song Ennavale, Venky for visual effects, AS Laxmi Narayanan and VS Murthy for Audiography and B Lenin and VT Vijayan for editing.
▪️The team shot scenes in the chidambaram Natarajar temple, and though they had the permission granted, it later leads to controversies and later there was a ban implemented on shooting inside the temple.
