Indian Film Movie

[Orville Marquez]

Indianis a 1996 Indian Tamil-language vigilante action film directed and co-written by S. Shankar. The film stars Kamal Haasan in a dual role, Manisha Koirala, Urmila Matondkar and Sukanya, with Nedumudi Venu, Manorama, Goundamani, Senthil, Kasthuri, Nizhalgal Ravi and Ajay Rathnam in supporting roles. It is the first installment in the Indian film series. In the film, a retired freedom fighter rebels against corruption in India, which puts him in conflict with his son who lives by corruption.

The film was produced by A. M. Rathnam, while the dialogues were written by Sujatha. The soundtrack and musical score was composed by A. R. Rahman, with cinematography handled by Jeeva and editing by B. Lenin-V. T. Vijayan.

Indian was released on 9 May 1996 worldwide and became the highest-grossing Tamil film upon release.[3] It was selected by India as its entry for the Best Foreign Language Film for the Academy Awards in 1996, but was not nominated. The film won three National Film Awards, including Best Actor (Haasan), two South Filmfare Awards and two Tamil Nadu State Film Awards. A sequel Indian 2 was released in July 2024 and a third film is in production, for a January 2025 release.

Chandrabose "Chandru" is a small-time broker stationed outside the RTO at Chennai. Chandru and his assistant Subbaiah aid people in bribing the right officials inside the RTO in getting permits and licenses. At the same time Chandru's love interest Aishwarya, an animal rights activist, also comes into conflict with Sapna, a medical student and the daughter of an RTO official. Chandru attempts to win over Sapna and her family to secure a job as a brake inspector at the RTO. Aishwarya is irked by the fact that Sapna and her mother are exploiting Chandru's situation, getting him to do household chores. Sapna realises that Chandru loves Aishwarya and gives up her love. It is revealed that Chandru is Senapathy's son. They had fallen out due to Senapathy's excessive insistence on honesty and righteousness, which Chandru considers irrelevant in present day.

Krishnaswamy manages to trace his way to Senapathy's house, posing as a freedom fighter eligible for Swathantra Sainik Samman Pension Scheme. When Krishnaswamy tries to arrest him, Senapathy and his wife Amirthavalli, escape with his expertise in Varma kalai. Later, Senapathy murders a corrupt doctor on live television as the doctor refused to treat Senapathy's daughter Kasturi, who was suffering from third-degree burns unless given a bribe, but Senapathy refused, leading to her death. The public support surges for Senapathy as he exposes many corrupt individuals. Senapathy does not do any favours for Chandru either. Chandru, who managed to bribe a job as a brake inspector, takes a bribe and gives a safety certificate to a school bus with faulty brakes, which eventually kills 40 school children and the driver in an accident.

Chandru tries to frame the deceased driver for drunk driving and manages to bribe a cop and a doctor on the same. Senapathy catches him in the act and tries to kill him for corruption, but is caught by Krishnaswamy and sentenced to prison, but later escapes. Despite pleas from Amirthavalli and Aishwarya to spare Chandru's life, Senapathy heads for the airport where Chandru is attempting to flee to Mumbai. A chase culminates at the airport, where Senapathy mournfully kills his son and apparently dies in an explosion involving an aeroplane and a jeep. While investigating recorded footage, Krishnaswamy discovers that Senapathy escaped moments before the jeep exploded. Senapathy calls Krishnaswamy from Hong Kong and says that he will be back whenever the need for his presence should arise.

Soon after the release of Gentleman (1993), Shankar narrated a script titled Periya Manushan to actor Rajinikanth, but the pair did not end up collaborating. Since the subject revolved around a father and son, he considered Rajasekhar for the father role, with either Nagarjuna or Venkatesh as the son, but the plans did not materialise. The film eventually materialised under the title Indian, produced by A. M. Rathnam, with Kamal Haasan playing both roles.[4] Haasan was initially reluctant to do the film because of its similarities to his 1977 film Naam Pirandha Mann, but relented after Rathnam paid him the entire salary before he began acting.[5] On 17 February 1995, the official muhurat pooja for this film took place, with Rajinikanth attending the event as its chief guest.[6]

Shankar tried to cast Aishwarya Rai to make her debut and portray the leading female role. Her commitment to her advertisement agency until October 1995 meant that she was unavailable to sign the film.[7] Subsequently, Manisha Koirala was selected after Shankar was impressed with her performance in Bombay. The producers wanted Radhika to play the pair of the older Kamal Haasan in the film, but her television commitments meant that she was unable to sign a contract. Urvashi subsequently replaced her, only for Shankar to throw her out for missing a day's schedule to attend her sister's wedding. The role was finally handed to Sukanya, who had previously appeared alongside Kamal Haasan in Mahanadhi. Bollywood actress Urmila Matondkar was signed to play another leading role after the producers were impressed with her performance and the success of her 1995 Hindi film, Rangeela.[7] Malayalam character actor Nedumudi Venu signed on to play the role of CBI officer Krishnaswamy at Haasan's recommendation,[8] while Nassar dubbed his voice.[9] The producers engaged Hollywood make-up artists Michael Westmore and Michael Jones to work on the designs for the senior Kamal Haasan's and Sukanya's look in the film.[10] The senior Kamal Haasan's look for the character Senapathy was based on Haasan's father.[11] Shankar initially wanted P. C. Sreeram to handle cinematography; however due to his other commitments, Jeeva was chosen as cinematographer.[12] One of the assistant directors chanced upon a book by varma kalai practitioner R. Rajendran about the martial art, and Rajendran was hired to teach Haasan the same.[13]

For production work, Shankar visited Las Vegas to learn about new technology and purchased cameras for production. Furthermore, the director visited Australia alongside cinematographer Jeeva and music director A. R. Rahman to location hunt and to compose tunes.[7] The film's unit was given strict orders to maintain privacy, with Hindi actor Jackie Shroff being notably turned away from visiting the shooting spot. A song for the film was shot at Prasad Studios featuring Haasan and Matondkar alongside 70 Bombay models.[14] This led to a protest from the Cine Dancers Union who argued that Tamil dancers should have been utilised instead, with Shankar opting to pay them off to avoid further hassle. Another duet between Haasan and Koirala was shot near the Sydney Opera House in Sydney and Canberra for fifteen days.[15] A flashback song was canned with four hundred dancers and a thousand extras at Gingee with Kamal Haasan and Sukanya, while another song featured shooting in Jodhpur, Rajasthan.[7][10] A fight scene was shot at Irungkaattukottai Motor Racing Track.[16] The flashback sequences, set during pre-Independent India, were in black-and-white.[17] Graphic designer Venky noted that Indian was his most difficult project to date (in 1997) with a scene constructed to feature Kamal Haasan's character alongside Subhas Chandra Bose. Venky had to remove blemishes on the film reel of Bose provided by the Film Division's archive before merging Haasan on to the shot to make it appear that the pair were marching in tandem.[18]

The soundtrack album includes five tracks composed by A. R. Rahman,[23] and was released in 1996 by Pyramid. The soundtrack was also released in Hindi as Hindustani by TIPS and in Telugu as Bharateeyudu by T-Series.[24] The lyrics were written by Vaali and Vairamuthu for the original version, P. K. Mishra for Hindustani and Bhuvanachandra for Bharateeyudu.

The Tamil soundtrack of Indian was a major success, having sold about 600,000 records within days of release.[25] The Hindi soundtrack, called Hindustani, sold a further 1.8 million units,[26] bringing total sales to at least 2.4 million units.

Indian was released worldwide on 9 May 1996.[27] Prior to the release of the film, the team also planned a Hindi version of the film. It was partially reshot in Hindi as Hindustani with Aruna Irani in place of Manorama. The Hindi version also did well after its release on 23 August 1996.[28] The film was also dubbed in Telugu as Bharathyeedu and in Malayalam under the same title. In 2015, the Hindi version Hindustani was screened at the Habitat Film Festival.[29] It has recently been released on Netflix, hinting that Indian 2 will come on Netflix too.

Nirupama Subramanian from India Today praised Shankar's script, noting that "with the right mix of pop patriotism, anti-establishment diatribes and other commercial cinema ingredients, Shankar's latest creation has south India applauding" before adding that "the real triumph of the film is the effective make-over that believably transforms the actors".[31] Tharamani of Kalki praised for romance in dignified manner, for narrating flashback in black-and-white and keeping the beauty shining and budding everywhere without being blinded but panned the film for giving a wrong message of justifying the murders.[32] The Hindu wrote, "Shankar establishes himself as one who thinks big and executes what his mind has conceived in a lavish style on the screen be it the dance sequences or action and thrills the Tamil viewers have not witnessed before". The critic added, "Kamal is simply superb as Senapathy, his thick voice and the dhoti-jubba attire adding to his portrayal. As Chandru he underplays his part".[33]

Indian cinema is composed of multilingual and multi-ethnic film art. In 2022, Hindi cinema represented 33% of box office revenue, followed by Telugu representing 20%, Tamil representing 16%, Kannada representing 8%, and Malayalam representing 6%.[33] Other prominent film industries are Bengali, Marathi, Odia, Punjabi, Gujarati, and Bhojpuri cinema.[33] As of 2022, the combined revenue of South Indian film industries have surpassed that of the Mumbai-based Hindi-language film industry (Bollywood).[34][35] As of 2022, Telugu cinema leads Indian cinema's box-office revenue.[36][37][10]

3a8082e126