Sakalakala Vallavan

<p>Velu is a villager who manages the farm of his family. Ramaiah Pillai and his wife Parvathi are the landowners of the village. Parvathi cheats poor farmers and grabs their land and properties by lending money at a high rate of interest by mortgaging their properties. Their son Pazhani and daughter Geetha study in the city. Velu gets into issues with Parvathi’s henchman when they try to cheat poor people. Due to this, Parvathi gets angry with Velu’s family. Pazhani and Geetha complete their studies and return to the village. Geetha and Velu quarrel whenever they meet. Velu’s father Chinnaiah Pillai returns the money due to Parvathi through Pazhani. But when Velu goes to collect the from Pazhani, he lies that he has not received the money. Enraged, Velu beats him. Ramaiah comes to Velu’s house, returns the promissory note and advises Velu to be calm. As revenge on Velu, Pazhani kidnaps and rapes Velu’s sister Valli. Velu prevents her from committing suicide, and she decides to undo this disgrace is by marrying Pazhani. Velu pleads with Pazhani to marry Valli but he refuses, saying this is his revenge for the insult meted out to him. Some time later, Ramaiah and Parvathi attend a party and meet the former’s old friend Sundaram, a US-returned businessman with his children Sam and Bobby (actually Velu and Valli in disguise). Parvathi takes her family to Sundaram’s house and is impressed by his wealth and children. She proposes that they get married with her son and daughter. Both the marriages take place and later that night, Sam and Bobby reveal their true identities to their new spouses. Parvathi and her family try to end the marriage, but Ramaiah warns them of dire consequences and tells them to live together amicably. Though Geetha initially behaves indifferently, she gradually gets attracted to Velu and starts living with him normally. However, Pazhani does not accept Valli and ill-treats her. He also develops a relationship with Lalitha, a club dancer. Learning of this, Velu goes disguised as a -based and offers a large amount of money to Lalitha’s brother to live with Lalitha. Both Lalitha and her brother are happy and she spends more time with Velu. When Pazhani learns of this, he berates both Lalitha and her brother. Lalitha’s brother decides to eliminate both Valli and Pazhani as they are impediments to his plans. He convinces Pazhani to bring Valli to an isolated bungalow and once they both enter, he sets the house on fire. By then, Lalitha, who is upset about her brother’s plan, informs Velu about it, and he rushes to the place, defeats all the thugs (including Lalitha’s brother) and saves both Pazhani and Valli. Pazhani realises his mistake and apologises to Valli and Velu; the family unites. AVM Productions made the film to prove that Kamal Haasan was a “Master of all arts”, keeping with the title , which translates to the same. It was writer who came up with the title. The film was produced by , M. Balasubramanian and M. S. Guhan. Cinematography was handled by Babu, and editing by R. Vittal. The film was launched in March 1982 with attending the launch. The song “Illamai Idho Idho” was shot in a large king’s court set created for a film, after suitable modifications by art director Chalam to show it as a making it look like it has five sets. The set was decorated with night lamps and chandelier bought from Hyderabad. Shooting locations included in , in Madras (now ), and the AVM Garden Villa in Madras. The song “Nethu Raatri” was shot at Meiyappan’s bungalow and garden. The climax fight involving a burning building was shot in a set built at the eighth floor of AVM Studios in three days with three cameras. Haasan performed all the stunts in the film by himself. The final length of the film was 3,890 m (12,760 ft). follows the “taming of the shrew” paradigm that was popular in Tamil cinema as early as the 1960s: “the city-bred girl making fun of the rustic and the latter turning the tables on her”. Film producer and writer compared the film to the play for following the same concept. According to Saravanan, the film’s plot was inspired from various Tamil films such as , , , and . The music was composed by , with lyrics by . The song “Nila Kayuthu” is set in the known as . The song “Ilamai Idho Idho” remains one of the most popular New Year-themed songs in Tamil cinema, and is played on radio and television channels every New Year. According to Saravanan, the song initially did not have the words “Happy New Year”; , who realised the song is about New Year, decided to utter those words in high pitch. In June 2013, A. Muthusamy of Honey Bee Music enhanced the songs from their original version on the film’s soundtrack album to . The movie was dubbed into Telugu as Palleturi Simham and lyrics were written by Rajashri was released on 14 August 1982. The magazine , in a review dated 5 September 1982, rated the film 42 out of 100, saying it would most probably collect the highest money and run for many days for the commercial masala offered to the audience and grand making. Thiraignani of praised Haasan’s fights and dance, V. K. Ramasamy’s comedy, Babu’s cinematography and concluded calling the film as “Kalakala Vallavan”. Despite facing competition from another Muthuraman-directed film , released on the same day, emerged the bigger success, and ran for over 175 days in theatres. G. Dhananjayan considered the film to have grossed over (equivalent to 19 crore or US$2.2 million in 2023). The film was the highest-grossing film in until 1989 when the record was broken by . It was dubbed into -language as and released on 10 December 1982. widened Kamal Haasan’s audience base from the “classes” to a hero of the “masses”. G. Dhananjayan noted that while Haasan was then considered an “A-centre star”, the film took him “to the B and C centres”. Despite the film’s success, Haasan thought little of the film, feeling it showed him as a “paid performer” rather an actor. He added, “It cleared certain notions in my head about the mistakes I shouldn’t make.” inspired the title of a which was not related to this film. Sudhir Srinivasan of noted that both films were “about a gold-hearted villager and his taming of an urban woman”. “Illamai Idho Idho” was used as the title for one of the segments of the 2020 anthology film directed by .</p>