Manichithrathazhu was the finest thrillers made in the Malayalam industry. This triumph of Fazil was written by Madhu Muttam which has been released 25 years ago was given life by the finest actors of the industry. Stared by Mohanlal, Suresh Gopi, Shobhana, KPAC Lalitha, Nedumudi Venu, Sridevi, Innocent, Kuthiravattom Pappu, Ganesh was released during a Christmas season built a beautiful portrayal of terror, suspense, fear and made us travel along the rationslist couple “Ganga” (Shobhana) and “Nakulan” (Suresh Gopi) who arrives in the ‘tharavadu’ where they are made to know about the suspicious characters who lived long ago. Ganga learns more about Nagavalli – the dancer; Shankaran Thampi – The native king and Ramanadhan – the singer.
Now, these three characters are recreated by a group of film aspirants headed by Murali Krishnan, inacted by Devaki Rajendran (Nagavalli), Rahul Nair R( Shankaran Thampi) and Anand Manmadan (Ramanadan).
Here unlike the narrative said by the original motion picture, the crew had tried a different visual aspect making “Ramanadhan” as the handsome antagonist and the protagonist shade was given to Shankaran Thampi without hampering the original story structure.
The photo story begins from Shankaran Thampi bringing Nadavalli, a dancer from “Tamizhakam” to his mansion. He has an attachment towards Valli and consider her as his own daughter and he cares for her. Ramanadhan, the singer at the king’s mansion finally meets Valli and starts falling for her beauty and he starts developing a bad interest on her in parallel. Valli too falls for Nadhan and finally discovers that she has true feelings for Nadhan.
Finally when Thampi leaves for the feast at the next village province, Nadhan takes advantage over Valli but she counted this as his love towards her and without knowing his evil intentions, Valli gave a try on him and surprisingly Thampi had returned from his journey due to bad weather and finds out the evil intentions of Nadhan and finishes him off. Seeing this Valli relinquishes her life.
Conceptualisation
The crew had done a wonderful job considering from lightning to recreating the nuke and corner of the time period in the photo story. The effort made by the crew needs an applause.
The actors have done their part well. Setting the backdrops under martial art set ups gave more natural beauty to the story taken. The lighting was perfect and the usage of natural light sources was a brilliant decision by the crew. Recreating the characters of a magnum opus which has been remade into most Indian languages and gained blockbuster title in all regional languages would be tough. But this tribute by this crew which includes, Vishnu Ravi Raj, Ananthu Rajan, Varun, Vinesh Viswanathan, really needs an appreciation.
The photo story by Murali Krishnan is given below:
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