Kuselan


Kuselan is a forthcoming bilingual drama being directed by P. Vasu, who with Kuselan, will direct his fifth feature film featuring Rajnikanth. Rajnikanth, playing a guest role, is the one of the few common actors in the bi-lingual, the others including Nayantara and Meena, which is to be made into Tamil as Kuselan and Telugu as Kathanayukudu respectively. Various other regional actors have been signed up for the film, with Pasupathy, Meena, Prabhu Ganesan, Vadivelu, Santhanam and Livingston playing roles in the Tamil version, whilst, Jagapati Babu, Sunil and Brahmanandam portray roles in the Telugu version. Whilst, G. V. Prakash Kumar and Arvind Krishna have confirmed their parts as members of the technical crew. The film which is expected to be released in July 2008, will be produced by prominent director, K. Balachandar for the Tamil version and Ashwini Dutt for its Telugu version. The film is a remake of the Malayalam movie, Kadha Parayumb.

Following P. Vasu and Rajnikanth's film, Chandramukhi in 2005, Vasu had been keen to re-cast Rajnikanth in another role and prior to signing Kuselan, he had narrated a story entitled Vettaiyan, which would have been a sequel of a character featured in Chandramukhi.
Early in 2008, Rajnikanth signed up for S. Shankar's Robot, making it highly unlikely he would sign up to another film for a couple of years, due to Shankar's tendency to take two years shooting his films. However, in a sudden turn of events, Kuselan was launched at the Taj Coromandel in Chennai on January 14, 2008 coinciding with Pongal.[2] The director, P. Vasu signed up Rajnikanth and Pasupathy to portray the lead roles, while noted director K. Balachandar agreed to produce the Tamil version of the film along with G.P. Vijayakumar's Seven Arts Productions, while Aswani Dutt agreed to produce the film in Telugu with Rajnikanth and Jagapati Babu in the lead roles.[3] The film was announced to be remake of Malayalam film, Katha Parayumbol which was written and starred in by Sreenivasan, whilst Mammooty essayed a guest role in the film.

Vasu made it clear that Rajnikanth would not be doing an honorary role in the movie which Mammooty had portrayed, but will play a full role, describing that the "The whole story revolves around him [Rajnikanth]". The film's launch was helted on March 7, 2008 at the AVM Studios in Chennai with the leading artistes present.[4] P. Vasu, while talking to the media mentioned that the shooting lasted 82 days with the versions being shot simultaneously and that most of the movie was shot inside the Ramoji Rao film city, with other destinations inclusing Kerala and Pollachi.

Casting
Apart from the role of Rajnikanth, Vasu intended to use entirely different casts in either version of the bilingual film. Upon announcement, actor Livingston, Manobala and Santhana Bharathi were added to the cast of the Tamil version,[6] along with Vadivelu who pipped Vivek, Santhanam and Goundamani to land the role, even though Santhanam managed another role in the film.[7] Furthermore, yesteryear director S. P. Muthuraman agreed to play a guest role in the film.[8] However the selection of the heroines was far more time consuming. Despite Trisha Krishnan's request to appear opposite Rajnikanth, Nayantara accepted the role,[2] however finding a female lead opposite Pasupathy was more difficult for the director, with Simran Bagga,[9] Tabu[8] and Sneha all being considered for the role in the Tamil version.[2] However, Meena who played the role in the original, was offered the role in early February 2008 and accepted it.[10] Throughout the production stages, it had been indicated that several prominent film personalities will appear in cameo appearances throughout the film, however no leading actors were approached.[11][12] Indications later revealed that five actresses would appear opposite Rajnikanth in a song with the selected being Nayantara, Mamta Mohandas, Kushboo, Suja and Sneha all of whom apart from Nayantara, play minor roles.[13]
In the Telugu version, comedian actors Sunil, Brahmanandam, Tanikella Bharani and Venu Madhav all signed up to play the roles of Jagapati Babu's fellow villagers.[14] Ileana D'Cruz recently turned down an offer to act in the film, citing date problems.[3] Like the Tamil version, it has also been indicated that several prominent Telugu actors have been approached to be a part of a song in the project, but none were selected.[11] Technicians confirmed in the two films are G. V. Prakash Kumar who will operate as the music composer, whilst Arvind Krishna will be the cinematographer for the bilingual.

Soundtrack
The soundtrack of Kuselan was released on June 30, 2008 at the Le Royal Meredian Hotel. A grand function was held for the release and was attended by P. Vasu, G. V. Prakash Kumar, Rajinikanth, K. Balachander, A. R. Rahman, Arjun Sarja, and Dhanush. The background score has been composed by G. V. Prakash Kumar along with five melodious songs. One of the songs, (Cinema Cinema) commemorates the 75th anniversary of Tamil cinema.