Kaaviya Thalaivan () is a 2014 Indian Tamil-language historical drama film written and directed by Vasanthabalan and produced by S. Sashikanth and Varun Manian under their production companies YNOT Studios and Radiance Media Group. It stars Prithviraj Sukumaran and Siddharth in the lead roles along with Vedhika, Anaika Soti, Nassar, Thambi Ramaiah, Ponvannan, Mansoor Ali Khan and others in supporting roles. The film's music was composed by A. R. Rahman. Set in the early 20th century, the film is about the lives of two theatre artistes and the competition that exists between them in a small drama troupe.
The project was announced by YNOT Studios in September 2012, and principal photography of the film commenced in June 2013. The soundtrack and background score were composed by A. R. Rahman; while cinematography was handled by Nirav Shah and editing by Praveen K. L.. The costume designs were done by Perumal Selvam and Niranjani Ahathian, and Pattanam Rasheed was the make-up artist.
The film was released on 27 November 2014, and won positive reviews from critics. It received awards in four categories at the Tamil Nadu State Film Awards, including Best Actor (Siddharth), Best Villain (Prithviraj), Best Music Director (A. R. Rahman) and Best Make-up (Mohammed Rashid). At the 2015 Vijay Awards, the film was nominated into eight categories, with receiving a win in two of them – Best Costume Designer and Best Make Up. The film was dubbed into Malayalam as Pradhi Nayagan, which was released in 2014 and into Telugu as Premaalayam, which released in 2016.
Plot
Thavathiru Sivadas Swamigal runs a drama troupe in which Thalaivankottai Kaliappa " Kali " Bhagavathar and Melachivilberi Gomathi Nayagam " Gomathi " Pillai are his direct disciples. Gomathi is left by his father in Swami's troupe. Kali is found by Swami during a train trip where the boy is singing and begging for alms. Impressed by his singing talents, Swami takes the boy with him. Gomathi and Kaliappa have a relationship like brothers. They grow up together and stage many plays where Gomathi often plays the "sthripart" (female role), and Kali plays the "sidepart" (supporting characters). Vadivambal joins as the female member of the group and soon falls in love with Kali. Meanwhile, Gomathi falls for Vadivu; however, Kali loves Rangamma, the princess of the zameen. S. V. Bhairava Sundaram, who is another student of Swami, is a popular "Rajapart" (performing main title characters of a stage play). He becomes headstrong over his acting capabilities and does not attend the rehearsals, for which he gets scoldings from Swami. After a quarrel, he leaves the troupe as he could not bear Swami's torture. Swami does not give up and conducts an audition for the main character role of Soorapadman, in which Kali and Gomathi perform. Kali gets selected, which leaves Gomathi angry. The reason behind Swami's bias towards Kali is never answered clearly by Gomathi, which leaves him more frustrated.
After following Kali secretly, Gomathi informs Swami about Kali's love to take revenge on him. Swami scolds Kali and curses him that he will never play any characters on stage, but Kali wants Swami to pardon him and keep him with the troupe as a servant. Swami agrees and asks him to forget the princess if he wants to continue in the troupe. Kali promises, but Swami agrees to keep him with the troupe like a servant but does not take back the curse. The following day, the entire troupe leaves the village and heads to another place. Kali cannot forget Rangamma, and she is also shown to be searching for Kali, and one night, a man from the village comes to Kali while he was sleeping to inform him that Rangamma has committed suicide due to the forcing of her parents to get married. The man also says that she was pregnant when she died. Kali, fully drunk, comes to the troupe and curses Swami that he is the reason for Rangamma's and his unborn child's death. Swami gets ill suddenly and dies, but before dying, he blesses Kali, who pardons to forgive him, which drives Gomathi into more anger and jealousy. After Swami's death, Gomathi takes charge of the troupe and wants Kali to be out of it. Kali fights with Gomathi and leaves.
It is shown that the troupe travels to Ceylon, Malaysia, and Singapore in five years' time and becomes popular. Now, Gomathi is a famous "Rajapart" as he wished to be, and Vadivu is known to be the famous "Ganakokilam" Vadivambal. They return to Madurai and join hands with a famous stage play producer named Contract Kannaiah, who produces the plays. When they are getting ready to stage the play "Karnamotcham", Gomathi falls severely ill. He asks the people from his troupe to go in search of other drama actors to perform his role. A man goes and brings Kali, who is a drunkard now. Feeling delighted to see his troupe members, he agrees to play the role of "Karnan", though he is given the role of "Arjuna" by Gomathi, who says that it has been long since they performed together. Gomathi performed well, but was surpassed by Kali as he sings a song and drives the attention of the audience to himself, Gomathi still feels ill and could not perform in any plays. Meanwhile, Kali fills the gap and earns a good reputation as "Rajapart", which makes Gomathi even more jealous. He knows the interest of Kali towards freedom movement stage plays and arranges for a person to get Kali arrested for performing in plays, which is against the British. Gomathi visits him in jail on the pretext of taking him on bail.
Inside the jail, Kali meets other people involved in the freedom movement and encouraged by them, he agrees to do stage plays on that topic. Meanwhile, Gomathi falls in love with Vadivu and pesters her to marry him. Meanwhile, her mother makes arrangements to make her the mistress of a Jamin king. Distressed Vadivu leaves the troupe and waits for a call from Kali to join his "Bharatha Gana Sabha", in which he stages plays based on the freedom movement, due to which he frequently goes to jail. Meanwhile, the audience becomes interested in Kali's plays rather than Gomathi's epic plays. Vadivu gets a call after so much persuasion for which she was waiting and joins there eagerly. She expresses her love, and it is lately accepted by Kali. Gomathi's life changes, and he turns from a rich man to a poor man. Kali is informed about Gomathi's situation. Therefore, he approaches Gomathi and asks him to join his troupe and offers him the "Rajapart" role with fondness, to which Gomathi agrees. They get ready to stage a play on Bhagat Singh, for which the British announce a shooting warrant. However, a brave Kali performs on stage, but when the play ends, the police come and chaos starts. The troupe people ask Gomathi, Kali, and Vadivu to escape. Police follow them, Kali goes alone, and Vadivu and Gomathi escape together inside a forest. A gun sound is heard, and Gomathi leaves back Vadivu to go and see what it was. He meets Kali, who is safe. Kali tells a plan to meet the next morning. While he leaves, he is shot by Gomathi.
Kali is shocked and asks why he did this to his brother. Gomathi vents out his anger for the first time to Kali saying that Kali snatched the "Rajapart" role of Soorapadman, his love interest Vadivu, regained his "Rajapart" status when he fell ill and states that he is now poor because of the increased popularity of Kali's plays. Kali says that he knows it was Gomathi who told Swami about his frequent visits to Rangamma's place, and he also says that he knows the person who made him sent to jail was Gomathi's arrangement, but he took all these as good deeds that his elder brother did for him for positive changes in his life and forgave Gomathi each and every time. Gomathi now feels guilty, but Kali asks Gomathi to shoot him to death and fights with Gomathi. During the quarrel, the trigger is accidentally pressed, and Kali dies.
In the last rites ceremony, when everyone is mourning, Vadivu says that she is pregnant with Kali's child and says that he will be reborn. Gomathi feeling guilty for killing Kali takes his ashes to Varanasi, and while dipping in the Ganges, he drowns himself.
Cast
Production Development Through one of the discussions between director Vasanthabalan and script writer Jeyamohan about old drama schools of Madurai, Jeyamohan introduced Vasanthabalan to a book called Enathu Naadaga Vazhkai, an autobiography of theatre doyen Avvai Shanmugham which helped him script the film. Vasanthabalan was inspired by the musical drama based 1979 film Sankarabharanam and the 1983 film Salangai Oli by director K. Viswanath.
Kaaviya Thalaivan was announced in September 2012 as a venture by the production house YNOT Studios teaming with Vasanthabalan and Siddharth, the latter as the lead actor of the film. The team signed A. R. Rahman to compose the music for the film in December 2012. Research work for the final script was carried out for nearly a year wherein facts, references and whereabouts were collected from veteran theatre artists belonging to different theatre clubs existing in Madurai, Dindigul, Karur and Pudukottai. As the film portrays the lives of theatre artists, the facial looks of characters were given prime importance for which make-up artist Pattanam Rasheed was signed. Perumal Selvam and Niranjani Ahathian have designed the costumes for the characters. In May 2013, convinced by the script, Prithviraj Sukumaran was signed to play the other leading role alongside Siddharth. In a press release of June 2013, the team revealed that actresses Vedhicka and Anaika Soti were also added to the cast thereafter, as were supporting actors Nassar and Thambi Ramaiah. Lakshmi Rai was also linked to play a role in the film but her inclusion remained unconfirmed. Pre-production works had begun by May 2013. Niranjani Ahathian did additional make-up for the film.
Filming