Muthu () is a 1995 Indian Tamil-language masala film written and directed by K. S. Ravikumar, and produced by Kavithalayaa Productions. The film stars Rajinikanth and Meena and Sarath Babu in the lead roles, with Radha Ravi, Senthil, Vadivelu, Jayabharathi, Subhashri and Ponnambalam in supporting roles. It is a remake of the Malayalam film Thenmavin Kombath (1994). The film revolves around a zamindar and his worker falling in love with the same woman who, unknown to the zamindar, loves the worker exclusively.
After Rajinikanth narrated the outline of Thenmavin Kombath, he told Ravikumar to develop the screenplay of the remake without watching the original film. Although largely written to suit the tastes of Tamil-speaking audiences, the remake retains the core premise of the original, while adding new plot details and characters. Ashok Rajan acted as the film's cinematographer. Principal photography began in June 1995 and took place in Mysore, Madras and Kerala. The film was edited by K. Thanikachalam and the music composed by A. R. Rahman, with lyrics written by Vairamuthu.
Muthu was released on 23 October 1995, during the Diwali holiday period, and became a silver jubilee hit. Rajinikanth won various awards for his performance, including the Tamil Nadu State Film Award and the Cinema Express Award, both for Best Actor. The film was released in Japan under the title Muthu Odoru Maharaja () in 1998 and became the highest-grossing Indian film in Japan, a record it held for 24 years. It sparked a short-lived boom of Indian films released in Japan and helping Rajinikanth gain a large fan following there. The film was remade in Kannada as Sahukara in 2004.
Plot Muthu is a charioteer working for zamindar Raja Malayasimman. While watching a play, Raja falls in love with an actress, Ranganayaki, when the garland she throws inadvertently falls on him. When Raja sees another of her plays and witnesses her being harassed by a local village chief, he tells Muthu to rescue her. Muthu fights the village chief's goons and rescues Ranganayaki. When more goons appear, Raja advises Muthu to take Ranganayaki safely away in their two-horse chariot while he deals with the goons. Muthu agrees and escapes with her.
Ranganayaki dislikes Muthu's company but is forced to continue accompanying him. They both become tired and leave the horses to seek their own route, landing in Kerala. Muthu, not knowing Malayalam, gets into trouble for asking passersby for a kiss as wrongly tutored by Ranganayaki before she comes to his rescue. After learning what she had meant, Muthu surprises Ranganayaki by kissing her. They fall in love and return to Raja's palace.
Ranganayaki is secretly escaping her abusive brother-in-law, Pratap Rayudu, who killed her sister and is now searching for her. She requests to continue staying at the palace and her associates also join. Raja's maternal uncle Ambalathar, keen to take control of Raja's wealth, plans to get his daughter Padmini married to Raja. Raja's mother Sivakamiyammal keeps requesting her son to marry, referring to Padmini. Raja, dreaming of marrying Ranganayaki, nods his head, and Sivakami sends word to her brother Ambalathar. When Ambalathar arrives and speaks of marriage, Raja reveals his intention to marry Ranganayaki. Angered, Ambalathar brings Rayudu to the palace, who forcibly tries to take Ranganayaki until Muthu subdues him and sends him away.
To remove Ranganayaki and Muthu from the palace and get his daughter married, Ambalathar provokes Raja, through his informer Kaali at the palace, by alleging that Muthu is romancing Ranganayaki. Kaali deliberately misinterprets the discussions between Muthu and Ranganayaki (who are at a distance) as Muthu compelling Ranganayaki to marry him. Believing Kaali's words and what he had seen, an enraged Raja throws Muthu out of the palace after having him beaten up by Kaali. Muthu, who is in shock, does not fight back. Sivakami, who had gone to a temple with Ranganayaki, returns and is shocked on learning what happened. She berates Raja, revealing that Ranganayaki only loves Muthu, as well as the truth about Muthu's past.
Years ago, Muthu's father was the zamindar of the estate. Since he was childless, he named Raja, the son of his cousin Rajasekharan, his successor. Soon after, his wife conceived and died while giving birth to Muthu. At Ambalathar's instigation, Rajasekharan fraudulently obtained the zamindar's signature on blank papers and plotted to have all of the property transferred to his name. Oblivious, the zamindar donated land to the villagers who returned to complain that the lands were not in his name. The zamindar realised what happened, but instead of punishing Rajasekharan, handed over the entire property to him and decided to leave the palace with his infant son Muthu. Sivakami pleaded that she be given the responsibility of raising Muthu. The zamindar agreed but said that his son must be raised as a commoner. After the zamindar left, a remorseful Rajasekharan committed suicide, and Sivakami moved to another village.
Sivakami says she had lied to the public that the zamindar's son had died, and that the zamindar currently lives nearby as a mystic nomad. Raja, realising his mistake, decides to go meet the zamindar and bring him back. Kaali, having overheard this conversation, reports to Ambalathar, who decides to murder Raja and frame Muthu so that he can take over the property. Kaali beats Raja, throws him into a waterfall and informs everyone that Muthu killed Raja. Muthu beats Kaali and makes him reveal that Ambalathar asked him to kill Raja. The villagers chase Ambalathar until Raja arrives with his bride Padmini. Raja was rescued by the zamindar and married Padmini. He forgives Ambalathar. Raja tells Muthu of his true identity, and Muthu rushes to meet his father, only to find that he has already left the place. Muthu becomes the new zamindar but prefers to identify as a worker.
Cast
Production Development Rajinikanth wanted K. S. Ravikumar to direct a film for him, and Ravikumar agreed to do so once he finished work on Periya Kudumbam (1995). After buying the rights to remake the 1994 Malayalam film Thenmavin Kombath, Rajinikanth narrated the outline of that film and so told Ravikumar to develop a screenplay of the remake, but he did not let Ravikumar watch the film. The project did not initially have a producer, so Rajinikanth offered to take care of financial matters, but Ravikumar refused. Ravikumar developed the screenplay at the Woodlands Hotel with help from his assistant directors including Ramesh Khanna, while occasionally going to Rajinikanth's office. The film was initially titled Velan before being retitled Muthu. This also marks Rajinikanth’s first collaboration with the director. Ravikumar's remuneration was , his highest at the time. Although Ravikumar was the primary dialogue writer, Rajinikanth wrote certain "punch" dialogues like "Kedaikkaradhu kedaikkama irukkadhu. Kedaikkama irukardhu kedaikadhu" ().
After completing three-fourths of the script, Ravikumar got permission to watch Thenmavin Kombath and was shocked to see the film's lack of resemblance to his screenplay. Rajinikanth told Ravikumar he did not want him to watch the film to avoid getting "inspired". Though Ravikumar took enough liberties to suit the tastes of Tamil-speaking audiences, the remake retained the original's core premise of a boss and his worker falling in love with the same woman and several other plot points such as the worker and his lover losing their way and ending up in a new land. New plot details and characters were added, including the protagonist's zamindar father and flashback scenes revolving around him. According to Kalaipuli S. Thanu, he was originally going to produce the film, but could not due to "various reasons". It was soon picked up by K. Balachander's Kavithalayaa Productions, and produced by Rajam Balachander and Pushpa Kandaswamy. The cinematography was handled by Ashok Rajan, and editing was handled by K. Thanikachalam. R. Sundaramoorthy provided the makeup for Rajinikanth.
Casting Rajinikanth played two roles: Muthu and his unnamed father. According to Madhuvanti Arun, Rajinikanth offered her to do the role of Ranganayaki, but she was not selected because she was considered too young. Pepsi Uma said Rajinikanth offered her the role as well, but she declined. Ravikumar, however, has stated that Meena was his first choice for the role. Her mother was concerned about the amount of screen time Meena would receive when compared to Subhashri (who was cast as Padmini), but Meena still took the role. Arvind Swamy was initially approached to portray Raja Malayasimman but was hesitant to act the scene where his character would slap Muthu. He was a fan of Rajinikanth and felt slapping the actor would anger his fans. Jayaram was later approached for the role but hesitated for the same reason. Though Jayaram suggested making changes to the scene, Ravikumar refused to do so. Sarath Babu was finally cast for the role, at Rajinikanth's suggestion.
Vadivelu and Radha Ravi were cast as Valayapathy and Ambalathar, characters not present in the Malayalam original but created by Ravikumar. Radha Ravi was not initially interested in playing Ambalathar since he had grown weary of playing negative roles, but Rajinikanth insisted. Urvashi was initially signed on to play Padmini, but given the actress' popularity at the time, Rajinikanth advised her against taking up the small role, which later went to Subhashri. Rajinikanth wanted Ravikumar to make a cameo appearance as a Tamil-speaking Malayali. Ravikumar agreed after initial reluctance and dyed his hair white to portray the character. The film's introductory credits shows the actors credited with their character names instead of their actual names. Malayalam actress Kulappulli Leela made her Tamil debut through this film.
Filming Principal photography began on 1 June 1995. The first shooting schedule took place in Mysore. While filming the introductory song "Oruvan Oruvan", the team brought two horses via lorry to each place where the film was to be shot. Ravikumar did not want to allocate four or five days for filming the song; instead he "used up about 2030 minutes every day at all the locations we shot at". After filming the opening scenes of the song, the team shot the climax scene involving a crowd of more than 5,000 people. Following this, scenes including Muthu's father were shot at the Lalitha Mahal. The rest of the film was shot at Travancore Palace in Madras (renamed Chennai in 1996), and Kerala. A blue skirt Meena had worn while shooting some scenes had faded as a result of her sitting under the "scorching" sunlight for so long, so an identical skirt was prepared before she began filming the "Kuluvalile" song sequence.
The song "Thillana Thillana" was shot at AVM Studios, during the final shooting schedule which took place alongside post-production. According to Ravikumar, the song's dance choreographer, B. H. Tharun Kumar, told him "he just needed one set on a single floor in AVM and that he'd change the colour of the set to suit the mood of the song. Everything – from the costumes of Rajini and Meena and dancers to the background – were matching". He added, "We'd pack up by night and the technicians would change the colour of the entire set overnight, and be ready for shoot at 7 am again. The top lights had already been fixed, so they'd do the other small lights and we will go for take by 9 am. We'll wrap up by 6 pm, and then, the technicians would start work on the colour of the set again". The introductory "Super Star" title card first used in Annaamalai (1992) was also used here.
Music