Saturday, April 4, 2020

Crossing the Kodambakkam Bridge - 3


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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