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Ratchagan

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Ratchagan
Poster
Tamilரட்சகன்
Directed byPraveen Gandhi
Written byCrazy Mohan (Dialogues)
Screenplay byPraveen Gandhi
Story byK. T. Kunjumon
Produced byK. T. Kunjumon
Francis Joseph
StarringNagarjuna
Sushmita Sen
CinematographyAjayan Vincent
Edited byB. Lenin
V. T. Vijayan
Music byA. R. Rahman
Production
company
Kunjumon Studios
Distributed byGentleman Film International
J. R. S. Combines
Release date
  • 30 October 1997 (1997-10-30)
Running time
154 minutes
CountryIndia
LanguageTamil

Ratchagan (transl. Saviour) is a 1997 Indian Tamil-language romantic action film written, produced by K. T. Kunjumon, and directed by Praveen Gandhi.[1] It stars Nagarjuna and Sushmita Sen, alongside Raghuvaran, S. P. Balasubrahmanyam, Vadivelu and Girish Karnad in supporting roles. The film released on 30 October 1997.[2] It was the most expensive Indian film at the time of release. Notably, this marks the first and last Tamil debut of Sushmita Sen and remains the only Tamil film she has acted.

Plot

Ajay (Nagarjuna) is an unemployed youth who always gets into trouble because of his temper. He gets heated up when he encounters anyone committing a crime; he takes the law into his own hands, beats them up, and then gives them some free advice. Ajay's father Padmanabhan (S. P. Balasubrahmanyam), who works for an insurance firm, is very unhappy with his son's attitude, and tries his best to change his attitude through a meditation expert, but fails in this matter as the expert suggests that Ajay's anguish is reasonable. Ajay meets Sonia (Sushmita Sen) through his father, and she falls in love with him. What Sonia likes about Ajay is his temper and anger when he encounters anything, which is against the law. Sonia gets Padmanabhan's help to get Ajay to love her. Still, Ajay is not interested in her and seriously rejects her at first; but he later changes his mind after going through some unusual situations, and love blossoms between them.

Sonia's father, Sriram (Girish Karnad), is an industrialist who owns the Daewoo automotive manufacturing facility. He has no objection to his daughter's relationship with Ajay, but has one condition: Ajay must become employed in his factory, control his temper for three months, and not get into any fight whatsoever, even if he encounters a crime happening in front of his eyes. If Ajay cannot do this, he will not be allowed to marry Sonia. With a heavy heart, Ajay agrees to the condition; Sonia's love for Ajay deepens, and Sriram offers Ajay a job in his factory. Sriram has his problems with his factory in a loss; ten of his workers are working with his rival and younger stepbrother Gnaneswar (Raghuvaran), and they hamper the progress of his factory with frequent, pre-planned mishaps. This leads to the factory's property loss.

Gnaneswar is the son of Sriram's stepmother, who gets deceived by Sriram and loses his share of his father's common business empire. Further, in unusual circumstances, Gnaneswar spends some years in jail and returns with a planned conspiracy and vengeance on his stepbrother, Sriram. Gnaneswar is now trying to put Sriram out of business, so his ten men create havoc in the factory by killing old workers and raging against new workers. So, when Ajay comes to work in Sriram's factory, these ten men do the same to Ajay. Ajay keeps cool, trying to keep his promise to Sriram. But Sriram hopes otherwise; he wants Ajay to break the promise and beat up the ten men and throw them out of the factory. At the same time, Sriram hopes the imminent marriage between Ajay and Sonia will be canceled since he does not want his daughter to marry an angry street fighter like Ajay. So, Sriram keeps hoping Ajay will somehow burst out. Gnaneswar's men damage an important machine to make the international Korean experts attend to the problem. The plan is to kill those Korean experts so that it would become an international issue and Sriram's company would be locked out permanently, but Ajay saves those experts, and Sriram publicizes this to create a fight between Gnaneswar's men and Ajay, but it happens otherwise that Ajay still keeps cool despite them beating him black and blue, and Sriram's hopes are devastated. As the last trigger, Sriram uses his father's name in publicizing the issue in the factory to the media so that Gnaneswar's men may think that it was Ajay's father who brought this to the media. As expected by Sriram, those ten men brutally murder Ajay's father for this.

After this, Ajay becomes furious and breaks his promise and banishes the ten men from the factory. But Gnaneswar holds Ajay and blackmails Sonia that he would kill Ajay unless Sonia kills herself by destroying Sriram's factory by bombarding it with a truck armed with a powerful Russian explosive. In the climax, Gnaneswar kills Sriram by throwing him off the helicopter; Gnaneswar gets killed when his helicopter hits the mountains; Sonia gets saved and unites with Ajay.

Cast

Production

The film was launched in January 1996, but filming only commenced the following year, in January 1997. Despite signing on established crew including A. R. Rahman along with Miss Universe pageant winner Sushmita Sen and Nagarjuna an Andhra star, producer Kunjumon signed debutant Praveen Gandhi to be the director. The producer revealed that in the direction, he saw "a young man who is very talented and full of ideas who was willing to work hard."[3] The period in between was spent with pre-production works with art director Thotta Tharani constructing a huge set in Mahabalipuram with an elaborate bungalow and swimming pool as a part of the heroine's home, as well as a huge five star hotel where the villains lived and a landing area for helicopters.[4] To shoot the helicopter scene, another helicopter with the cameraman flew above the helicopter with the villain in it.[5]

Furthermore, Tharani created 8 sets for the song "Love Attack", with Nagarjuna and Sushmita dancing alongside 50 other dancers. The song "Mercury Pookkal Model Nilakkal" was picturised in the midst of many small aeroplanes in Bangalore. The film was shot all over India, including locations in Manali, Mumbai, Goa, Ooty, Rajasthan and Delhi, with Kunjumon making a claim during filming stages that the film would become India's most costly production. However, this record was broken when Shankar's Jeans released the very next year.[4] Nagarjuna's voice was dubbed by actor Suresh.

Release

The film was initially slated to be released on 31 July 1997, but the strikes in the Tamil film industry delayed such plans. The film was released in Tamil Nadu, along with the Telugu dubbed version in Andhra Pradesh on 30 October 1997 to mixed reviews. [6] The film was dubbed into Telugu as Rakshakudu.[7]

Soundtrack

Ratchagan
Soundtrack album by
A. R. Rahman
Released1997
Recorded1997
StudioPanchathan Record Inn
GenreFeature film soundtrack
LabelT-Series
Gentleman Audios
Star Music
Hit Musics
ProducerA. R. Rahman
A. R. Rahman chronology
Daud
(1997) 		Ratchagan
(1997) 		Vishwavidhaata
(1997)

The soundtrack featured eight songs and a theme song composed by A. R. Rahman.[8] The lyrics were written by Vairamuthu and Vaali. Hindi company, Sony music T-Series, bought the music rights of the film in 1997.[9]

Tamil version

All lyrics are written by Vairamuthu, except where noted

Track listing
No.TitleSinger(s)Length
1."Soniya Soniya"Udit Narayan, P. Unnikrishnan, Harini5:35
2."Love Attack" (Lyrics: Vaali)Gopal Rao, Kavita Paudwal5:01
3."Chandiranai Thottathu Yaar"Hariharan, Sujatha Mohan6:46
4."Kanava Illai Kaatra"Srinivas4:34
5."Lucky Lucky"S. P. Balasubrahmanyam, Sukhwinder Singh, Swarnalatha6:06
6."Nenje Nenje"K. J. Yesudas, Sadhana Sargam6:56
7."Pogum Vazhiyellam"K. S. Chitra4:13
8."Mercury Pookkal" (Lyrics: Vaali)Anupama, Swarnalatha5:23
9."Theme Music"Instrumental3:42

Telugu version

All lyrics are written by Bhuvana Chandra

Track listing
No.TitleSinger(s)Length
1."Soniya Soniya"Udit Narayan, P. Unnikrishnan, Harini5:35
2."Love Attack"S. P. Balasubrahmanyam, Kavita Paudwal5:01
3."Chandruni Takinadi"Hariharan, Sujatha Mohan6:46
4."Kalava Kanne Kalava"Rangan4:34
5."Lucky Lucky"S. P. Balasubrahmanyam, Sukhwinder Singh, Swarnalatha6:06
6."Ninne Ninne"K. J. Yesudas, Sadhana Sargam6:56
7."Preme na Gamyamanna"Sangeethaa-Sangeetha Sajith4:13
8."Mercury Poollu"Anupama, Swarnalatha5:23
9."Theme Music"Instrumental3:42

References

  1. ^ "1997-98 Kodambakkam babies Page: Part 2". Indolink.com. Archived from the original on 24 July 2012. Retrieved 12 November 2012.
  2. ^ "Tamil Films". Gentleman Film KTK. Archived from the original on 2 May 2022. Retrieved 2 May 2022.
  3. ^ "Rediff On The Net, Movies: Will Rakshakan resurrect Sushmita's career?". Rediff. 2 August 1997. Retrieved 12 November 2012.
  4. ^ "Location Diaries: Candid shots and close shaves".
  5. ^ http://www.cscsarchive.org:8081/MediaArchive/art.nsf/(docid)/3FAC79AFA4381E8665256940004D0DEA [permanent dead link]
  6. ^ "Rakshakudu Latest Telugu Full ( HD ) Movie || Nagarjuna, Sushmita Sen || 2017 Telugu Movies". YouTube. Archived from the original on 5 December 2021.
  7. ^ "Rahman scores again with his best ever album". New Straits Times. 1 November 1997. p. Arts 4.
  8. ^ "India Today Business [Super Cassettes Industries: All in the Family]". India-today.com. 13 October 1997. Archived from the original on 24 November 2010. Retrieved 12 November 2012.
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