Kuruthipunal 1995

Cast : Kamal Hassan, Arjun, Nasser, Gowthami, Nijalkal Ravi, Kasinathuni Viswanath, Ajay Rathnam , Aravind Krishna

Plot and Storyline:

Kuruthipunal (River of Blood) is a tamil Action thriller directed by veteran Cinematographer P.C.Sriram. It is a remake of the hindi film Drohkaal by Govind Nihalani. Starring ace actors like Kamal Hassan and Nasser the film is about an infiltration operation which the police have on a terrorist organisation and how it turns out to be. As you may know if Kamal acts in it then obviously there is a lot of influence on the direction and on the film as such. Kamal Hassan has also the credits for the Screenplay and dialogues in the film.

The film starts with Adhi Narayanan( Played by Kamal Hassan) and Abbas ( played by Arjun) , both honest police officer plotting a secret operation "Dhanush"( not to be confused with the the one referring to the actual events) to infiltrate the a terrorist group, They train two men - Aravind and Siva and send them undercover. the story begins to unravel when accidentally Badri( played by Nasser), the commander of the terrorist group gets caught by Adhi. The rest of the film is if the operation succeeds or not.

The interrogation which Aadhi has with Badri forms the most pivotal part of the film, Introduced as an interrogation expert Aadi's conversation and the way he gets truth out of Badri is quite interesting to watch , I would say such kind of scenes where unheard of even now. But Kamal Hassan's touch to the dialogues and the subject he chooses to speak with Nasser is what makes this really unique. We know that Kamal is know for introducing his point of view on matters regarding to God, ideology and social issues in his films and he does it so well that we believe that this is part of the character her personifies. The way he discusses the ideology of the terrorist leader and how his followers who are just mear disciples of television and not an idea as such ( the word he uses - Sidhantham, proves to be typical Kamal). There are some dialogues which have become really timeless from the film

"Do you know what is Courage, To act as if not having "the fear""
"Everyone has a breaking point and I will find yours very soon"

The first and second half of the film is complete opposite of what you would expect, Aadi Succumbs to Badri and there is a very good drama going on in the thriller. Kamal proves once again his mettle, they way he is unable to confront his commander Srinivasan( Played by K. Vishwanath) when he finds out that he is the traitor in the department and when he faces his friends death near the end of the film. At the end after a bloody torture he too to carry out the mission. It is really unlike for a film to take all the lead characters out both the protagonist and the antagonist, which proved to be really off-beat. Very convincing performance by Gowthami as Aadi's wife, very real and very authentic.

I really did not expect Aadi to die in the end, up until that point I had a very strange thought in my head, Why can't Kuruthipunal be a prequel for Vishwaroopam, I mean it is a very strange thought but why not both the film had an agent and both had a lot of intriguing characters. Wasim Ahamed Kashmiri, could very well be Aadhi, I got this thought when i saw Srinivasan die in the film, just before he commits suicide he says "You know nothing about me or what i had been through" a similar line in Vishwaroopam. But Aadi does die in the end. But I still could not shake the thought. Then if you watch real closely, the last undercover agent Siva could be Wasim, Yeah it is really preposterous right, but it makes sense in a way. Wasim's character in Viswaroopam is one which is the most difficult to understand, one who has so much pain inside, I could find that same character in siva. He buries his two senior officials finally so thats should sum up what kind of hardships he goes through which i think is similar to Wasim.  Just a theory! :D

Kuruthipunal became the first indian film to enter into the 68th Academy awards for the Best Foreign film category but did not get nominated. The film's action sequence and the amount of detail which was used in the film cannot be found in many films even now. A film really which did justice to the plot and with much detail given to interrogation methods, especially the way kamal looks before he dies. Such gruesomeness! The way he finishes the film is trademark Kamal leaving an open question to the audience and a good social message to the government and the next generation. Truly one of the best action films till date.