Director Chidambaram surged to prominence on account of his 2024 survival thriller, Manjummel Boys. Especially with the use of the famous ‘Kanmani Anbodu’ song from the 1991 Kamal Haasan starrer Gunaa in a crucial scene of the film that earned appreciation not just from the general audience but also from Santhana Bharathi, the film’s director.
In early 2024, when Manjummel Boys became an overnight sensation, Kamal met the team behind the film, including the director and the cast, and expressed his appreciation for it.
Recently, however, Chidambaram revealed that he got to watch a clip from Kamal’s unfinished film Marudhanayagam. In an interview with Galatta Plus, the filmmaker disclosed that he watched a 10-minute clip from the 4K restored version of the film on the big screen with Kamal Haasan himself.
Reminiscing about the experience of witnessing Marudhanayagam in 4K with the legend himself, the filmmaker expressed, “It was crazy”.
He added, “There is some footage of it online. However, the remastered 4K version has more content, and I think Mahesh Narayanan edited it. It was a great scene.”
Marudhanayagam is one of Kamal’s shelved projects that was announced back in 1997 at a big event involving Queen Elizabeth II as an honourable guest. Kamal co-wrote the script alongside the famous novelist Sujatha for the film. The film had a proposed budget of around Rs 80 crore, becoming one of the costliest. Most ambitious and highly anticipated film projects in India at that time. However, due to budget constraints, the film was shelved altogether.
Recently, Kamal had expressed his interest in reviving the project. In a conversation with a reporter at the International Film Festival of India (IFFI) in Goa, he said, “I have an interest in reviving it. With today’s technological advancements, I hope that this is also possible.”
Circling back to Chidambaram, the director’s latest film Balan: The Boy had opened in cinemas last weekend to rave reviews from critics and the general audience.
