Apoorva Sagodharargal (1989 film)

Sethupathi is an honest and upright police officer. When he arrests four bigwigs – Dharmaraj, Francis Anbarasu, Nallasivam and Satyamoorthy – they escape justice easily and return to take revenge. They kill him and poison his pregnant wife Kaveri. However, she manages to survive. She gives birth to twins with the help of a woman named Muniyamma, but the babies are separated due to circumstances. One of the twins, Raja, grows up as a mechanic with Muniyamma, while the other, Appu, a dwarf, grows up in the circus with his mother.

Appu falls in love with Mano, the daughter of the circus owner, mistakenly thinking that she was asking him to elope with her, but she actually had asked him to be a witness to her marriage with her fiancé Vincent, which was not approved by her father. Appu becomes heartbroken and insecure about his height, and he attempts suicide but is stopped by his mother, who then reveals that his dwarfism might have been because of the poison force-fed to her when she was pregnant. This leads Appu to learn about his father's murder and decides to avenge him. Meanwhile, Raja falls in love with Janaki, who happens to be Satyamoorthy's daughter. As Raja resembles Sethupathi, Satyamoorthy and his three accomplices become interested in him.

Appu uses two of his circus Indian Spitz puppies to lure Francis to an abandoned building, and kills him using a Rube Goldberg machine; Francis's corpse falls into a lorry covered with hay. Raja and Janaki have car trouble and hitchhike a ride in the same lorry, oblivious to the corpse. The lorry driver discovers the corpse when he reaches his destination and calls the police. The inspector in charge of the case traces the car number given by the lorry driver and comes to suspect Raja of the murder.

Appu kills Nallasivam in a golf course using a tiger from his circus, but Nallasivam's caddie sees Appu's face, and the tiger's tail from afar. This leads the inspector to Raja again, who, coincidentally, is wearing a tiger costume while performing a song at a festival in the street. Janaki becomes enraged when she learns that Raja is suspected of killing her father's friends and breaks up with him. Raja is released from custody as the postmortem examination has revealed real tiger wounds.

Raja goes to Janaki's house to reconcile, with the inspector following him covertly. While Raja is talking to her, Appu tricks Satyamoorthy into killing himself with a circus handgun that shoots backwards. Appu escapes, but Raja and Janaki enter Satyamoorthy's room, having heard the gunshot a few moments before the inspector arrived. Janaki faints when she sees her father dead, and the inspector now believes that Raja shot Satyamoorthy. Raja escapes and becomes a fugitive. When he is spotted in a market, Raja takes a woman hostage and threatens to kill her, not knowing that the woman is his mother Kaveri. When the crowd backs down, he releases Kaveri and flees. Kaveri realises that Raja is her first son and seeks out Muniyamma. Together they realise that the murders were committed by Appu, and that Raja has been mistaken for Appu, who overhears their conversation.

Dharmaraj believes that it is Raja avenging his father's death and that he is the next target. He is shocked to see Kaveri, whom he believed to be dead. Nonetheless, he kidnaps both Muniyamma and Kaveri, and threatens to kill them unless Raja surrenders to him. Appu escapes, helps Raja evade the police, and tells him everything. They team up and go to the circus where the women are held captive. In the ensuing battle, Appu and Raja overpower Dharmaraj's henchmen and Dharmaraj ends up hanging by a rope. With Kaveri's silent approval, Appu shoots the rope, causing Dharmaraj to fall and be eaten by circus lions. Appu surrenders to the police, while Raja and Janaki reunite.

The title Apoorva Sagodharargal was taken from the 1949 Tamil film of the same name, an adaptation of the novella The Corsican Brothers by Alexandre Dumas. The idea of brothers coming together to avenge the death of their father is the common thread in both films.[6] V. Ramji of Hindu Tamil Thisai felt the names of the villains – Nagesh's Dharmaraj, Jaishankar's Satyamoorthy, Nassar's Nallasivam and Delhi Ganesh's Francis Anbarasu – were in contrast to their personalities.[4] Haasan compared the film to Yaadon Ki Baaraat (1973) because it features the concept of "a family being destroyed by the villain, brothers being separated and reunited".[36] Balaji of Indolink compared it to Twins (1988) as both films feature "a pair of 'imperfect' twins".[37]

The music was composed by Ilaiyaraaja.[6] All the songs were written by Vaali,[38] while Prem Dhawan and Rajasri wrote the lyrics for the Hindi and Telugu versions.[39][40] According to Ilaiyaraaja, Haasan explained a particular situation in the story and Ilaiyaraaja composed a tune, but Haasan, despite liking the tune offered, was not overall satisfied. He then presented the song "Naan Paarthathile", composed by M. S. Viswanathan for Anbe Vaa (1966) and based on that Ilaiyaraaja composed the song "Puthu Maappillaikku".[41] Haasan has stated that, after watching a performance at an Academy Awards ceremony, he wanted Ilaiyaraaja to compose a song like that; this resulted in the lines "Bababa... Bababari... Pudhu Mapillaikku".[42]

The song "Unna Nenachen" was rewritten by Vaali multiple times and Haasan was still unhappy with it; only his sixth attempt satisfied Haasan.[43] The song "Raja Kaiya Vachchaa" has two versions, one by Haasan, which was used in the film and in the audio cassette, and another sung by S. P. Balasubrahmanyam, which was included in the audio LP.[6] Elements of "Annatha Aadurar" were used in the song "Saroja Saman Nikalo" from Chennai 600028 (2007).[44] Following Vaali's death in 2013, The Hindu included "Unna Nenachen" among his best songs in their collection, "Best of Vaali: From 1964 – 2013".[45]

Apoorva Sagodharargal was released on 14 April 1989 (Puthandu).[4] Despite facing competition from other Puthandu releases such as Pudhea Paadhai, En Rathathin Rathame and Pillaikkaga, it became the highest grossing Tamil film at the time, beating the record of Sakalakala Vallavan (1982).[23] It was the first Tamil film to run for 100 days in five theatres in Bangalore,[46] and overall completed a theatrical run of 200 days.[47] The film was dubbed into Telugu as Vichithra Sodarulu,[48] and into Hindi as Appu Raja and released in 1990.[49][50]

Haasan had considered making a sequel to Apoorva Sagodharargal, which would revolve around Appu escaping from prison. He even had one scene ready, and described it in 2021 as being "high up in the mountains with a high tension cable walk and Appu would be the only man to walk across the high tension cable but unfortunately, he chooses a windy day and that's how he loses his pole". The film was later dropped because, according to Haasan, "we wanted to stop being technobrats and become entertainers".[58]

After the success of Apoorva Sagodharargal, Haasan and Mohan worked together on numerous films, including Michael Madana Kama Rajan (1990), Magalir Mattum (1994), Sathi Leelavathi (1995), Avvai Shanmugi (1996), Kaathala Kaathala (1998), Thenali (2000), Panchatanthiram (2002), Pammal K. Sambandam (2003) and Vasool Raja MBBS (2004).[59] The Times of India wrote that Haasan "created history by playing a dwarf who was almost half his original height".[60] In 2010, Rediff wrote: "Under Singeetham's very able direction, the movie blended mainstream cinema and emotion very well, [...] and marked the beginning of what was to be a long career, for Kamal Haasan, in getting more into the skin of his character, and setting higher standards for himself with the aid of superior make-up and body language."[61] On Haasan's birthday, 7 November 2015, Latha Srinivasan of Daily News and Analysis considered Apoorva Sagodharargal to be one of the "films you must watch to grasp the breadth of Kamal Haasan's repertoire".[62]

The film was included by Rediff in their list of Kamal Haasan's ten best films.[63] Malathi Rangarajan of The Hindu noted that Haasan's commitment to playing a dwarf in Apoorva Sagotharargal "helped him scale heights, not many can reach".[64] Baradwaj Rangan compared I (2015) to Apoorva Sagotharargal, saying that in both films, "a noxious substance results in the hero's ‘deformity’, and when he discovers how he came to be this way, he doles out punishment in inventive ways".[65] Director Vinayan said that his Malayalam film Athbhutha Dweepu (2005) was inspired by Apoorva Sagodharargal.[66] Rangan compared Mersal (2017) to Apoorva Sagodharargal, saying that in both films, "A father is brutally murdered. A son takes revenge. The other son is thought to be the killer."[67]

The 1990 film Raja Kaiya Vacha was named after the song from Apoorva Sagodharargal.[68] The theme music from the film was humorously remixed as the "Gopi Bat Theme" in Chennai 600028 II (2016).[69] In Periya Marudhu (1994), Sodalai (Goundamani) imagines himself as a dwarf similar to Appu and dances to the song "Pudhu Mappillaiku".[70] The scene where Appu uses a Rube Goldberg contraption to kill Francis Anbarasu was parodied in Thamizh Padam (2010), with Delhi Ganesh reprising his role.[8][71]

• Cultural depictions of dwarfism

• Dhananjayan, G. (2011). The Best of Tamil Cinema, 1931 to 2010: 1977–2010. Galatta Media. OCLC 733724281.
• Raj, Maya (July 2010). "Style Evolution: Kamal Haasan's Stupendous Style Journey". South Scope. Vol. 1, no. 10.
• Rajadhyaksha, Ashish; Willemen, Paul (1998) [1994]. Encyclopaedia of Indian Cinema. British Film Institute and Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-563579-5.

• Apoorva Sagodharargal at IMDb