Vakkaalaththu Narayanankutty
A fight against injustice
Rajeev Kumar, who had recently made the National award winning Jalamarmaram and then the Hindi film Raja Ko Rani Se Pyaar Ho Gaya, is on to his next venture Vakkaalaththu Narayanankutty. The film stars Jayaram with Manya. It also has Mukesh and Jagathy Sreekumar in major roles.

NarayananKutty is an advocate who can bear anything but breach of justice. When he sees law being broken anywhere, he reacts promptly. He doesn’t even care as to who is pitted against him and just goes on fighting. By presenting on the screen the story of Narayanankutty, popularly known as Vakkaalaththu Narayanankutty, the director is attempting to question the conscience of the modern, so-called civilised society, which never cares to question any sort of injustice.

Donning the role of Narayanankutty is Jayaram while Mukesh becomes Advocate Mathew LLB. Jagathy Sreekumar is in the role of Eeswara Subrahmanya Aiyar, an able advocate himself. Also in the cast is Bobby Kottarakara as Captain Bobby, a seller of books at the bus-stand and it was during the shooting of this film that Bobby Kottarakara passed away, leaving the team to continue the shooting without him. Rajan P Dev, Ponnamma Babu and P Sreekumar also play important roles in the film that is produced by Kalliyoor Shashi and B Rakesh. The script, by Rajeev Kumar and Jayaprakash Kuloor, is based on a story by the director himself. Dialogues are by Jayaprakash Kuloor. The film will be released by Khathilakam Release.

Dileep to star in Pappan’s film
Dileep, one of the most popular new generation heroes of Malayalam cinema, seems to be one of the busiest leading actors in Malayalam as well. He’s been getting a lot of offers lately.

His latest releases Joker, Darling Darling and Thenkaasipattanam are doing well at the box-office. DirectorPapan, who had earlier made Kottapuraththe Koottukudumbam, too seems to have decided to make a safe bet on this young star. Dileep will also play the lead role in Pappan’s next venture, to be scripted by Udayakrishna and Sibi K Thomas and produced by V Verghese under the banner of Soorya Creators. The film, most likely to be a family entertainer, will have a new leading lady. Jagathy Sreekumar too would play a key role. The film will be released during Vishu.

Puththooram Puthri Unniyaarcha
After Udaya’s Unniyaarcha and MT Hariharan’s Oru Vadakkan Veeragaatha, here comes another film based on the vadakkanpaattu, the folklore of the Malabar, which are ballads extolling the brave and valiant cheavars, who were warriors with a tradition of heroism and self-sacrifice.

PG Viswambharan’s Puththooram Puthri Unniyaarcha, produced by K Ramakrishnan under the banner of Shyni Films, is based on script by Shatrughnan and has focus on Unniyaarcha, the valiant heroine of the Vadakkanpaattu. In the words of the scenarist himself, Unniyaarcha was the first feminist in Kerala and hence deserves special mention. The film portrays Unniyaarcha as the embodiment of all virtues and also tries to say as to hy Chandu, her cousin, finally cheated his own cousin and Unniyaarcha’s brother Aaromal.

In the title role of Unniyaarcha is Vani Viswanath and as Chandu is Devan while Siddique plays Aaromal. Captain Raju is Kannappa Chekavar while Kunchacko Boban achieves a change of image as Aaromalunni, Unniyaarcha’s son.
The songs written by Yusuf Ali Kechery are set to tune by Usha Khanna and are likely to usher in an era of change in Malayalam film music. Art director Gangan Thalavil has transformed Cheloormana in Thriprayaar into the puththooram veedu, the house of Kannapa Chekavar, Aaromal and Unniyaarcha. Noted cinematographer Ramachandra Babu cranks the camera and Sreekar Prasad does the editing. Also in the cast are Jagadeesh, Mala Aravindan, Jayakrishnan, Anoop, Sreehari, Manya, Manka Mahesh, Sphadikom George and Mamookoya.

Suresh Gopi to star again
in a Shajoon Karyal film
Suresh Gopi is will once again star in a film by Shajoon Karyal, whose last release was Dreams with the actor. Shajoon Karyal, who started as an independent director with the Suresh Gopi-starrer Rajaputhran, then made the hit Thachchiledaththu Chundan, which was followed by Dreams. Now, in Shajoon Karyal’s new venture, Suresh Gopi is starring opposite Kavya Madhavan and forming the rest of the cast are Lalu Alex, Lal, Nedumudi Venu, Innocent, Narendra Prasad and Srividya. The film is to be scripted by Robin Thirumala.

Unni R Nair>>>