Kochadaiiyaan: The Legend () is a 2014 Indian Tamil-language animated period action film written by K. S. Ravikumar and directed by Soundarya Rajinikanth. It is India's first photorealistic motion capture film, featuring characters whose designs were based on the appearance and likeness of their respective actors. The film stars Rajinikanth and Deepika Padukone (in her Tamil debut), with R. Sarathkumar, Aadhi Pinisetty, Jackie Shroff, Nassar, Shobana and Rukmini Vijayakumar in supporting roles. The narrative follows the quest of an 8th-century warrior who seeks revenge after witnessing the unlawful punishment administered to his father, a good-hearted warrior in his kingdom, by the jealous ruler.
The film was the result of a complex development process, starting with the director's idea of directing and co-producing Sultan: The Warrior with Eros International in 2007, which was to feature Rajinikanth as an animated character. After cancelling the project due to lack of financial support,Rajinikanth's 'Kochadaiiyaan' similar to his 'Sultan the Warrior'? . The Times of India. 12 September 2013. Retrieved 5 June 2014. Soundarya and Eros turned their attention to producing Rana, which was to be a live-action historical fiction film directed by Ravikumar starring Rajinikanth and Padukone. However, the project was put on hold after Rajinikanth fell ill and uncertainty remained whether Rana would resume. In the meantime, producer Dr. J. Murali Manohar felt impressed by Soundarya's draft work on Sultan and persuaded her to materialise her directorial ambitions with Kochadaiiyaan, featuring a plot which leads itself up to the events of Rana, which was later deciphered as a sequel script to Kochadaiiyaan. The team agreed and completed filming in two years with Centroid Motion Capture at Pinewood Studios in the United Kingdom using motion capture technology, after which animation work and post-production ensued in the United States, Hong Kong, and China for a year.Rajinikanth's magnum opus Kochadaiiyaan coming to screens on May 23 – Official press release . Twitter.com (7 May 2014). Retrieved on 11 May 2015. Music for the film was composed by A. R. Rahman and was performed by the London Session Orchestra. Rahman had been working with Kevin Lima for the later shelved film Bollywood Superstar Monkey and was inspired to bring motion capture technology to Indian cinema, hence he was also at the forefront in the film's development.
Kochadaiiyaan was promoted as "a tribute to the centennial of Indian cinema" and released worldwide in 3D and for traditional viewing on 23 May 2014 in Tamil and five additional languages, including Hindi, Telugu, Bengali, Marathi and Punjabi. Overall, the film received mixed to negative critical response worldwide, wherein critics drew comparisons to other films that have used motion capture technology, notably Avatar (2009), and noted general discrepancies in the animation. The film was heavily criticised for substandard motion capture animation and rendering. The film had a large opening in Tamil Nadu and across the world, while a less enthusiastic reception was seen in other parts of India. Though the film performed better in Tamil, it performed poorly in other parts of India, including Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. The film eventually bombed at the box office leaving distributors in huge losses and producers in financial tangle.
Plot
Rana, who hails from the kingdom of Kottaipattinam, leaves his family, despite his twin brother Sena pleading with him not to do so. The boy soon meets with an accident while rowing in the river and is eventually discovered by some fishermen from the neighbouring kingdom of Kalingapuri, a rival of Kottaipattinam. Rana grows up, he trains in weaponry, and becomes a fearless warrior. Due to his fighting skills and bravery, he soon wins the confidence of the king of Kalingapuri, Raja Mahendran, who promotes him as Commander-in-chief of the Kalingapuri army. The son of Raja Mahendran, Veera Mahendran shows Rana around the kingdom's mine where the captured soldiers of Kottaipattinam work as slaves. Veera says that this information is known only to a few people. After this, Rana promotes a war strategy to Veera that they release the slaves and have them trained in the army of Kalingapuri. Veera agrees and the slaves are freed. He then gets Raja Mahendran's approval to attack Kottaipattinam. However, during the war, Rana encounters his childhood friend, crown prince Sengodagan, the son of Rishikodagan, king of Kottaipattinam. Instead of fighting, it is revealed that the main motive of Rana's plan was to free the soldiers of Kottipattinam. Immediately signalling an end to the war, he, along with the soldiers disown Kalingapuri and return to Kottaipattinam, much to the disgust of Raja Mahendran and his son, crown prince Veera Mahendran, who swear revenge on Rana for tricking them and betraying Kalingapuri.
At Kottaipattinam, Rana and Sengodagan renew their friendship. Sengodagan introduces Rana to Rishikodagan, who is alarmed about seeing him. Rana also reunites with his younger sister Yamuna Devi whom he last saw as a baby and their uncle, who raised her, but soon learns that his mother Yaaghavi is dead and Sena is missing. He soon learns that Yamuna and Sengodagan are in love with each other. He accepts their relationship and decides to get them married. He cleverly convinces Rishikodagan, who is unwilling to get his son married to Yamuna since she is a commoner. Meanwhile, Rana also rekindles his love with his childhood sweetheart, princess Vadhana Devi, the daughter of Rishikodagan. Soon, Sengodagan and Yamuna get married. But following the wedding, Rishikodagan disowns Sengodagan.
That night, a masked man barges into the palace and attempts to kill Rishikodagan. Vadhana immediately goes after him, fights him, and gets him captured. Rishikodagan unmasks the assassin who is revealed to be Rana, and immediately throws him into prison, sentencing him to death. An upset Vadhana rushes to the cell where Rana is imprisoned, where Rana tells her why he attempted to kill Rishikodagan. Rana tells Vadhana that he is the younger son of Kochadaiiyaan, the former Commander-in-Chief of Kottaipattinam's army. Kochadaiiyaan is extremely respected in Kottaipattinam for his bravery and is more popular than Rishikodagan himself.
Due to this, Rishikodagan becomes jealous of Kochadaiiyaan. One night, when Kochadaiiyaan is returning by ship to Kottaipatinam with his army after buying horses and ammunition, they are attacked by the rival army of Kalingapuri. Kochadaiiyaan defeats them but allows them to return to their kingdom as an act of chivalry. However, the Kalingapuri army, before leaving, poisons the food on the ship. The Kottaipattinam army men consume this food, and fall ill. Despite knowing that he had been tricked by the Kalingapuri army, Kochadaiiyaan immediately rushes to Kalingapuri itself, because it is the only land body close enough to provide medicines to the sick and dying soldiers. He orders Raja Mahendran to provide medical assistance to his soldiers. Raja Mahendran, in turn, cunningly proposes a deal that, if he wants his men to be saved, he has to leave all the horses, ammunition, and the sick army men in Kalingapuri as slaves. Only if Kochadaiiyan agrees to this, his soldiers will be nursed back to health. Kochadaiiyan thinks that his men rather be alive as slaves than die from poisoning, and also thinks that when they officially wage a war in the near future, all of them could be easily rescued. So he accepts Raja Mahendran's offer and leaves Kalingapuri all alone. When he returns to Kottaipattinam, the jealous Rishikodagan seizes this opportunity to strip Kochadaiiyan off all respect and dignity and sentences him to death for becoming a traitor to Kottaipattinam because of surrendering his army men, horses, and ammunition to Kalingapuri.
Though all his subjects are dismayed at Kochadaiiyaan being sentenced to death, and his wife Yaaghavi even goes to the extent of publicly rebuking Rishikodagan for his injustice, Rishikodagan stands firm in his decision. Kochadaiiyaan is beheaded the following morning before Rana's eyes. In present, Rana tells Vadhana that he ran away to Kalingapuri, with the intention of freeing the soldiers of Kottaipattinam and to take revenge on Rishikodagan for unjustly killing his father. Vadhana is shocked on hearing about her father's actions and reconciles with Rana. She then pleads with her father to release Rana, but to no avail. Meanwhile, Rana escapes from the prison. When Rishikodagan learns of Rana's escape, he immediately arranges for Vadhana's marriage with prince Veera Mahendran after consulting with an astrologer and learning that his life is at Rana's mercy. Despite the enmity between Kottaipattinam and Kalingapuri, he arranges this marriage with the hope that their united armies and their mutual hatred for Rana can subdue him. On the day of the marriage, Rana arrives just when the marriage is about to take place. He and the people of Kottapattinam berate Rishikodagan for becoming a traitor and surrendering the whole kingdom of Kottaipattinam to Raja Mahendran for his own personal interests and commitments, which was the same charge that Rishikodagan had placed on Kochadaiiyaan years ago.
Following this, a war starts between Rana and the united armies of Kottaipattinam and Kalingapuri. Rana successfully manages to subdue the armies of both kingdoms and along with a majority of Kottaipattinam's army, he kills Raja Mahendran and allows Veera Mahendran to return as he was defeated, reminding him of their friendship. He then fights Rishikodagan and beheads him. Finally, as Rana and Vadhana reunite, a young soldier comes towards them riding a horse. This soldier is revealed to be Sena, who is angry as their father had asked him to protect the king but Rana had killed him, indicating that a fight awaits.
Cast
Deceased actor Nagesh's likeness was recreated in the film, by means of a 3D model. Actors who sound like him were hired to voice his character while Ramesh Khanna performed the character physically, portraying the role of Shambumithrar (Rana's maternal uncle). Director Soundarya Rajinikanth, uncredited, appears as a dancer clad in blue in the song "Engae Pogutho Vaanam".
Production Development
After the release of Enthiran (2010), actor Rajinikanth approached filmmaker K. S. Ravikumar to help complete an animated feature that the former's daughter Soundarya had begun in 2007. The project, titled Sultan: The Warrior, had run into problems with its production and Rajinikanth hoped that they could salvage the project by adding a historical back plot which would make the film partially animation and partially live action. Ravikumar then developed a story for fifteen days with his team of assistants and after being impressed by the script, Rajinikanth felt that Ravikumar's story should be an entirely separate film. Thus the team launched a venture titled Rana, to be jointly produced by Ocher Picture Productions and Eros International. The film would have featured cinematographer R. Rathnavelu and music would have been composed by A. R. Rahman. Principal photography for Rana began on 29 April 2011. However, during the first schedule of filming, Rajinikanth fell ill on sets and was admitted to hospital where he was treated for dehydration and exhaustion for over a month, resulting in an indefinite postponement of filming. Further attempts for the film to continue production throughout the year failed.