Arjun
I was curious to meet Arjun who is called Action King. It
was quite easy as Arjun was working in multiple films and shooting of Arjun
films was always on at any studio. He was termed the most economical actor as
he slogged day and night and charged very little. His fans lapped up his flying
kicks and his rugged physique. For Producers mostly in small budget group, he
was their savior. His films guaranteed them modest profits. It was in 1986,
that AVM produced a film with Arjun and directed by Raja. The film Shankar Guru
was a huge hit. Not just sticking to acting alone, he was a shrewd businessman.
He carved a market for himself in Kannada and Telugu film industries. Most of
the time he took the dubbing rights as payment. His Telugu films got dubbed
into Tamil and he made Kannada films and dubbed them into Tamil and Telugu.
He turned producer and distributor. He took to direction and
as he knew his strength and weakness and so he crafted a good script that
showcased his ability to do stunts. He
realized with the huge success of `Jai Hind’, the audience had liked his
patriotism pitch. After a few flops, came `Gentleman’. We had gone to Ooty to cover the shoot. Sources in the film production house said
that a dispute had arisen between director Shankar ( then a debut director) and seasoned Arjun over the
climax. Two versions were shot but finally Arjun put his foot down and his version came out. The film was a blockbuster.
It saw the emergence of
producer K T Kunjumon ,who was the first producer to put up his cutout outside
the theatre. He came to be known as `Gentleman’ Kunjumon. Clad in white
designer shirt and pants, white shoes, twirling mustache, was a flamboyant man.
He had many hits produced at big budgets like Kaadhalan and Kadhal Desam.
However, his luck ran out with multilingual film Ratchagan ( Nagarjuna-
Sushmitha Sen) and two films with Vijay which literally shut his company down . He tried to
make his son Ebby, a hero but it backfired. He had started out as Tamil film distributor
in Kerala and was a regular at GV’s office. He also produced small budget
Malayalam films till he entered Tamil with two films directed by Pavithran .
Shankar and A Venkatesh were then assistants to Pavithran. The irony was that
Kunjumon’s manager Francis who was a cab driver turned Producer.
Coming back to Arjun , after a second spell at the box
office as action hero and his patriotic theme started losing the fizz. he was
back to the pavilion. He had no ego in doing roles that had big heroes and he
did a police officer in `Kuruthipunnal’ directed by cinematographer P C Sreeram with KamalHaasan in the lead. It was
again Shankar that gave him the third innings. He did `Muthalvan’ , a
blockbuster. He got lot of offers to play the lead as action hero. Though they
were not big hits, producers found him viable as the budget was low and he did not
charge much and coupled with this the dubbing rights made up the
investment. He had also tried his hand
in direction once again but the sequel to Jai Hind 2 bombed. He accepted to
play negative roles like in Mani Ratinam’s Kadal but unfortunately the film
bombed. However it was Irumbu Thirai with Vishal as hero (he had assisted Arjun
in direction) , that Arjun bounced back in the role as baddie .
Arjun has a very good musical sense. He sits through all the
composition of songs in his films especially in ones he directs. I have
attended many such sessions that usually took place in a hotel room in T Nagar.
In 1994-95, Arjun- Vidyasgar combo gave some splendid songs. Not many know that
Arjun is also a good singer and has even sung for A R Rahman (Parusuram, 2003).
Arjun was also fodder for the gossip writers ho linked him with many of his
co-heroines. Initially it did not bother him but as his daughters grew up and
were in school, this became an embarrassment. One reason was that he had a PRO who
considered him as the boss of Arjun and rubbed many journo the wrong away. This
PRO later worked for me as advertisement rep for Screen. Arjun still maintains
his physique and continues to be busy. He is also working on a film directed by
him and wants to prelaunch his daughter as heroine. The last I met him was at
the farm house. He had just bought it and was somewhere far away from Chennai. It
was full of shrubs and had snakes crawling. Now, I am told it is a hot spot and
he has a Hanuman temple. Not many know that the action King dd play a Hanuman
in Telugu film Sri Anjaneyam and did not accept any money for it. I also miss
his birthday party on August 15th. He is one of the few heroes who
never got into any Star Wars and was not targeted for being a Kannadiga.
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