Epic filmography of Vetrimaaran - A filmmaker who not just carry success in his name

Revisiting the filmography of legendary filmmaker Vetrimaaran.

                 Tamil cinema has provided many legendary directors to us. Each of them are unique in their own ways. Some are good in directing commercial movies. Some filmmakers make movies that are always rooted in what subject they have touched without any commercial compromises.

                In these directors' movies actors will be visible as the character. Their off screen persona will never interfere in such filmmakers' movies.

               Director Vetrimaaran is one among them. He is one of the best filmmakers of this generation. His movies are like a filmmaker course. You can learn a lot from them.

              As in tamil cinema directors are misunderstood to be writers, most of the directors themselves write the stories for their movies which are not found to be an impactful stories.

             But director Vetrimaaran usually takes more time in shaping up his script. If he lacked the time, he buy a novel's rights and direct movies along with his imagination spinned in that. So far he directed five movies which are terrific in their own ways.

              In this article, we summarised the highlightsand ideologies and ideologies of his movies. Let us all enter the world of Vetrimaaran.

Polladhavan – A middleclass youngster’s thrilling journey in finding his stolen bike

Image credits: Flickr

                      This was director Vetrimaaran’s debut movie. Polladhavan full movie is gripping even now. It starred Dhanush and Divya in lead roles whiles Kishore, Daniel Balaji, Santhanam and Karunas played supporting roles. Music was done by G. V. Prakash while Dina and Yogi B composed one song each. This movie revolves middleclass youngster’s rift with a gangster’s brother in the event of losing his bike.

                 This movie exactly captures the life of middleclass people and their struggles. Polladhavan’s main pillars were Dhanush, Kishore, Daniel balaji who stunned everybody with their terrific performances.

                G. V. Prakash’s music was another major highlight of this movie. G. V. Prakash's  pulsating score  around elevated polladhavan full movie into a whole new level. The pulsar bike theme music is very famous as it is being used by most of the people while reversing their vehicles even now. Yogi B’s ‘Engeyum eppodhum’ song remake was a chartbuster at that time.

               One of the epic combos of tamil cinema Vetrimaaran – Dhanush - G.V.Prakash, born through this movie. Vetrimaaan’s control over all the departments of filmmaking is evident in his first movie itself. If you haven't watched polladhavan full movie, try it now itself.

Aadukalam – Conflict between a young rooster fight trainer and his mentor

Image credits: Imdb

                    Aadukalam is based on the least known rooster fight which is famous in Madurai. It starred Dhanush and Taapsee pannu in lead roles while Jeyabalan, Kishore and Naren played supporting roles. Music was done by G. V. Prakash Kumar. This movie’s major highlight was the realism and detailing. Before this movie release, people were not so aware about Rooster fight.

                  Through aadukalam movie, Vetrimaaran threw light on the passion, treachery and culture in Rooster fight and also exactly captured the lifestyle of Madurai people who was supported by terrific performances from Dhanush, Jeyabalan and Naren, rooted music by G. V. Prakash and extraordinary cinematography by Velraj. Especially Jeyabalan in Pettaikaran role and Naren in Rathnaswamy role were terrific. After this movie Naren earned fame and being called as ‘Aadukalam’ Naren after that. Dhanush lived in the role of K. P. Karuppu, a Madurai based rooster fight trainer.

                Aadukalam revealed that the rooster trainers will consider their rooster as a pride. This movie stressed that a person with head weight and ego will never succeed in life through Pettaikaran character. Aadukalam’s enthralling screenplay hold viewer’s attention from start to end. The whole rooster fight contest sequences were nail biting and refreshing. Aadukalam won six national awards including Best Actor, Best Director and Best Screenplay.

Visaranai – Cruelty exhibited on four daily wage workers in the name of interrogation

Image credits: Imdb

                   Vetrimaaran is always fond of literatures. He bought rights of novels that impressed him to make them as movies. ‘Lock Up’ novel by Auto driver, M. Chandrakumar caught Vetrimaaran’s attention. He decided to make a movie based on this novel and approached Dhanush to play the lead. As Dhanush was busy with his commitments, he was not able to act in this movie but he produced the movie.

                    Visaranai is a daring take on police cruelty over poor people. Visaranai reminded us that we are living in a country that is always do favour to people who are in higher positions leaving poor people in sufferings. A sense of fear and insecurity will definitely come after watching Visaranai.

                     Visanarai movie  was not entirely based on ‘Lock up’ novel. Only first half of the movie was based on ‘Lock up’ novel while second half was entirely Vetrimaaran’s imagination. This movie revolves around the sufferings of four innocent daily wage workers due to police cruelty in the name of interrogation.

                  ‘Attakathi’ Dinesh played the lead role. He played the role with utmost dedication as it was a physically demanding role. But I personally feel that he don’t get the recognition he deserved for this movie. Another major asset of Visaranai was Samuthrakani who played the role of a good police officer. He lived in that role. He won National award for best supporting actor for this movie. Visaranai won accolades in various film festivals across the globe for it’s utmost realism and extraordinary making. Visaranai was being sent to Oscar from India for best foreign movie category.

Vadachennai – A young carrom player’s life turned other way after he accidentally murders a gangster

Image credits: Studio flicks

                   Vadachennai was Vetrimaaran’s dream project. He developed this movi’s script since Polladhavan. Vadachennai’s story line was not simple as I mentioned in the title. It’s a complex story that covers the events happened in North Madras spanning over a period of twenty years. Vetrimaaran started developing this script based on the experience of a resident of north madras while he went there for research for his debut movie Polladhavan.

                   Vadachennai is an epic gangster thriller that was supported by epic performances from Dhanush, Ameer, Kishore, Samuthrakani, Pavan, Andrea, Daniel Balaji and Aishwarya Rajesh. Each of them lived in their roles. After watching the movie, we remember them by their character name. The reason for this is not only their performances but also their strong characterization.

                 Initially the movie’s duration was 5 hours then it was edited to 3 hours. It has a gripping nonlinear screenplay and the story was told chapter wise. Through Vadachennai, Vetrimaran first collaborated with Santhosh Narayanan.  Santhosh Narayanan’s music was a major highlight of Vadachennai. Vadachennai album has a very special place in Santhosh Narayanan hits. Also Velraj’s extraordinary cinematography and Dhilp Subbarayan’s stunt choreography assisted Vetrimaaran in creating this epic.

                  Vadachennai was planned as a triology as still plenty of things are left to told. Through Aadukalam, Vetrimaaran captured the life of Madurai people with utmost perfection. In the same way, he realistically captured the life of north madras people. Vadachennai – Rise of Anbu was announced but yet to began production as it requires a big budget. Vadachennai is one of the best gangster movies of India. If you missed this epic, watch it right now (It is A certified).

Asuran – A father’s attempt to save his son from the battle between oppressors and oppressed

Image credits: V Creations (Twitter)

                   Asuran was Vetrimaaran’s latest outing which is based on ‘Vekkai’ novel written by Poomani. This movie was set in 80s.This movie was shot within a short span of time. But Vetrimaran didn’t compromised in quality. He yet again delivered a riveting movie about the struggles faced by the oppressed in the past and their fight back.

                 Dhanush who played the role of Sivasami, an aged farmer and a father of two boys was praised for his terrific performance. The actors who played supporting roles such as Manju Warrier, Pasupathy, Prakash Raj, Ken, Teejay, ‘Aadukalam’ Naren and Abirami are perfect fits in the world of Asuran. We can feel the heat of Kovilpatti through Velraj’s cinematography and Jacki’s art direction. G. V. Prakash’s pulsating background score elevated the movie to a whole new level. Asuran songs were chartbuster and it helped the movie to reach more audience. Peter hein’s stunt choreography was one of the major highlights of Asuran. Dhanush video songs in asuran especially blood bath and kathari poovazhagi are major crowd pullers.

                  Vetrimaaran once again proved with Asuran that he can successfully capture the lifestyle of the people of a particular region. Asuran also insisted that Education is the powerful weapon for the oppressed to fight for their rights. Asuran became blockbuster and proved people are always in support of good content. Through asuran G. V. Prakash again proved that he is an extraordinary composer. This made us curious to know G. V. Prakash new movie name as a music director.

                      Over a period of 12 years Vetrimaaran directed only five movies which are epic in their own way. Asuran’s blockbuster status opened many gateways for Vetrimaaran to tell his story.

                    

Image credits: V Creations (Twitter)

                    His upcoming movies list is exciting which includes a movie with Soori which is about the struggles of people who are going to work in gulf countries, Vaadivasal with Surya which based on the novel of the same name, a movie with Vijay and a movie with Dhanush. After seeing this list, I’m pretty sure that we are going to witness a set of epic movies from Vetrimaaran in upcoming years.

What is your favorite film of Vetrimaran? Mention that in comment section.

Hope this will be an entertaining article to you.

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Today's English word

Enthralling

This means capturing and holding ones attention.

Sentence Usage

The movie 'Aadukalam' has an enthralling screenplay.

Let's all learn together and enlighten others.

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