Chandramukhi

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Chandramukhi

Movie poster for Chandramukhi
Directed by P. Vasu
Produced by Ramkumar Ganesan
M. Rathnam (Hindi dub)
Written by P. Vasu (screenplay)
Fazil (screenplay)
Madhu Muttam (story)
Starring Rajinikanth
Prabhu Ganesan
Jyothika Saravanan
Nayanthara
Vineeth
Malavika
Vadivelu
Nassar
Sonu Sood
Vijayakumar
Vinaya Prasad
Music by Vidyasagar
Cinematography Shekhar Joseph
Distributed by Sivaji Productions
Release date(s) April 14, 2005
February 29th, 2008 (Hindi dub)
Running time 166 minutes
Country Flag of India India
Language Tamil
Budget Rs 22 crores (estimated)
IMDb profile

Chandramukhi (Tamil: சந்திரமுகி) is a 2005 Indian musical, horror, comedy directed by P. Vasu and produced by Ramkumar Ganesan of Sivaji Productions. It is the remake of the Kannada language film, Apthamitra, which itself was based upon a Malayalam film, Manichitrathazhu, which starred Mohanlal. The music for the film, which later became successful enough to be released as a soundtrack album, was written by Vidyasagar. It is the remake of the Award winning malayalam movie "Manichitrathazhu".

This Rajinikanth film had a large cast. Jyothika Saravanan, Prabhu Ganesan, Nayanthara, Vineeth, and Malavika were also given lead roles while Vadivelu, Nassar, and Vijayakumar had important roles as well. The late Sivaji Ganesan also made a brief appearance in the film, in a portrait. It was released on the eve of the Tamil New Year, April 14, 2005 to become the largest opening in Tamil cinema at the time. It was subsequently dubbed into Telugu and released on December 29, 2005 with the same title. On February 29th, 2008, Producer M.Rathnam dubbed and released the film in Hindi, despite Bhool Bhulaiyaa being released in the previously on October 12, 2007.

Since release, Chandramukhi has become the highest grossing Tamil language film ever beating the previous record set by Rajinikanth's previous film, Padayappa. The film also became the longest ever running South Indian film, completing 800 days at Shanthi Theatres in Chennai on June 25, 2007 passing the record of the 1935-devotional film, Haridas. It was also the first Tamil movie to be dubbed into German and released in German-speaking nations.

Contents

[edit] Plot

The movie opens with Saravanan (Rajnikanth) returning from the U.S.A. after studying to become a psychiatrist. He meets up with his friend, Senthilnathan (Prabhu), and his wife, Ganga (Jyothika). He learns that they have bought the Vettayapuram Palace, despite a fear of the place and attempts by the elders to dissuade them. Saravanan move in with them. When they go to a temple, a priest reveals why everyone is frightened. When King Vettayan lived in the palace, he took a trip to Andhra Pradesh and met the dancer Chandramukhi, instantly falling in love with her beauty. However, she would not return his love because her heart was already set on the dancer Gunasekaran. Vettayan kidnapped her and brought her back to his palace. Chandramukhi, without letting the king know, had Gunasekaran stay in a nearby house. When the king found out, he killed Gunasekaran on 'Durgashtami' and burned Chandramukhi alive. Chandramukhi continued to remain in the palace as a spirit so she could take revenge on the king. Legend has it that her soul is locked up in the southern room along with a king cobra. When Ganga learns of this story, she wants to go to Chandramukhi's room because she thinks that this story was made up to scare thieves from stealing costly treasures which she believes is in Chandramukhi's room. She gets the key and opens the door. Subsequently, strange things begin happening in the household: a ghost is scaring the people in the house, things are inexplicably breaking, and Ganga's sari catches on fire. Suspicion turns towards Durga (Nayantara), the gardener's granddaughter. Senthil calls Saravanan for help with the mysterious events. As someone tries to kill Senthil, a mysterious voice sings in the middle of the night, and Saravanan tries to figure out what's happening. Saravanan then finds out that Ganga has split personality of Ganga and Chandramukhi. The only way to stop it is too make her believe Saravanan is dead. This is because Chandramukhi was killed by the king who looked just like him. Then Saravan says that he will act as the king and let Chandramukhi kill him and get out of Ganga's body, with the help of world-renown exorcist Ramachandra Acharya. The reason he will sacrifice his life is because he looks just like the king and he went up to Chandramukhi's room and she saw him. Of course, he is the hero of the movie so he can't die. What do they do? They let Chandramukhi pour oil on him so she can burn him alive and when she lights the match, Ramachandra Acharya blows the smoke and ash in her face. Then Senthil presses a button and Saravanan falls down and a cardboard figure of him gets burnt. Chandramukhi thinks that the king is dead and leaves Ganga's body. The ghost is gone and the castle isn't haunted anymore.

[edit] Cast

[edit] Crew

[edit] Soundtrack

The soundtrack is composed of 5 songs composed by Vidyasagar:

[edit] Character map of Manichithrathazhu and its remakes

Manichitrathazhu
(Malayalam)		 Aaptamitra
(Kannada)		 Chandramukhi
(Tamil)		 Bhool Bhulaiya
(Hindi)		 Rajmohol
(Bengali)
Dr. Sunny Joseph
(Mohanlal)		 Dr. Vijay
(Vishnuvardhan)		 Dr. Saravanan
(Rajnikanth)		 Dr. Aditya Shrivastav
(Akshay Kumar)		 Dr. Raghu
(Prasenjit Chatterjee)
Nakulan
(Suresh Gopi)		 Ramesh
(Ramesh Aravind)		 Senthilnathan
(Prabhu Ganesan)		 Siddharth Chaturvedi
(Shiney Ahuja)
Ganga
(Shobana)		 Ganga
(Soundarya)		 Ganga
(Jyothika)		 Avni
(Vidya Balan)
Sreedevi
(Vinaya Prasad)		 Soumya
(Prema)		 Durga
(Nayantara)		 Radha
(Amisha Patel)
Thampy
(Nedumudi Venu)
(Satyajit)		 Kandaswamy
(Nassar)		 Badrinarayan Chaturvedi
(Manoj Joshi)
Unnithan
(Innocent)		 Mukunda
(Dwarakesh)		 Murugesan
(Vadivelu)		 Batukshankar Upadhyay
(Paresh Rawal)

[edit] Release

[edit] Box-office performance

  • The film collected more than Rs.200 million from Tamil Nadu theatres.[3]Its dubbed version in Telugu has collected a share of nearly Rs.80 million.[4].
  • It ran for 50 days in all the 170 screens in Tamil Nadu where it released.[5]
  • The film ran for 890 days.

[edit] Similar Stories

Chandramukhi talks about Split Personality Disorder, also known as MPD or Multiple Personality Disorder. However, this was not the only work in Tamil to deal with MPD. Other stories that have MPD in their plots include:

Other films that portrayed characters with Psychiatric / Neurological problems include

  • Ghajini (Short Term Memory Loss) (2005)

[edit] External links

[edit] References

[edit] Footnotes and citations

  1. ^ ‘Chandramukhi` opens today! - Sify.com
  2. ^ 50 Days of `Chandramukhi` - Sify.com
  3. ^ The Hindu : Metro Plus Chennai : The mother of all biggies
  4. ^ Movies : Movie Trade : Bhadra, Atanokkade gain
  5. ^ 50 Days of `Chandramukhi` - Sify.com
v • d • e
Films inspired by Manichitrathazhu
Apthamitra (Kannada)  • Bhool Bhulaiyaa (Hindi) • Chandramukhi (Tamil) • Manichitrathazhu (Malayalam) •