Manichitrathazhu

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Manichitrathazhu
The DVD Cover
Directed by	Fazil
Produced by	Appachan
Written by	Madhu Muttam
Starring	Mohanlal, Suresh Gopi, Shobana
Release date(s)	1993
Running time	169 min.
Language	Malayalam, occasional Tamil
IMDb profile

Manichitrathazhu (translation: The Ornate Lock) is a 1993 Malayalam Film directed by Fazil. The storyline dealt with a psycho-thriller genre, which was an unusual theme in Malayalam cinema but proceeded to become a big hit. Several other prominent directors such as Siddique-Lal, Priyadarshan and Sibi Malayil directed the second-unit production of the movie. Shobhana was awarded the National Award for Best Actress for her portrayal of the central character, Ganga.

After its runaway success in Kerala, it was remade after nearly 10 years in languages Kannada (Apthamitra), Tamil (Chandramukhi), Telugu (Chandramukhi) and Hindi (Bhool Bhulaiyaa). The central character played by Shobhana was played by Soundarya in Apthamitra , by Jyothika in Chandramukhi and by Vidya Balan in Bhool Bhulaiyaa. None of the remakes had its original spark. Nevertheless all went on to become big commercial successes.

1 Plot
2 Cast
3 Crew
4 Awards
5 Character map of Manichithrathazhu and its remakes
6 Trivia
7 External links

[edit] Plot

The plot involves a young couple, Ganga (Shobhana) and Nakulan (Suresh Gopi) arriving at the ancestral "Tharavadu" mansion of the latter. Ignoring the protests of their superstitious uncle, they move in to mansion, when unusual and supernatural events begin to happen. Suspicion falls on Sreedevi (Vinaya Prasad), Nakulan's cousin, who is known to be suffering from depression after a failed marriage.

Dr. Sunny Joseph (Mohanlal), a frolicsome psychiatrist and Nakulan's close friend is called in to investigate. Soon it becomes evident that Ganga, affected by Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD), is behind the mystery, haunted by a troubled past.

The mansion that Nakulan and Ganga were living in was occupied in ancient times by a cruel Thampi chieftain, who had imprisoned a famous Bharatnatyam dancer, Nagavalli. There she pines away for her lover Ramanathan. Ganga who grew up listening to folklore and ghost stories from her grandmother identifies with the character Nagavalli. This empathy gradually leads to psychosis. When Ganga turns into Nagavalli the characters of the house-hold turn into the characters of a bygone era in her eyes.

Sunny correctly identifies the source of the violent happenings at the mansion, and convinces Nagavalli to renounce Ganga's body once she is allowed to execute the cruel chieftain. He dresses up Nakulan as the ancient king, and at the crucial moment, replaces Nakulan with a dummy. Nagavalli in Ganga is fooled into believing that she has taken her revenge, and Ganga recovers from multiple personality disorder with the help of Sunny.

[edit] Cast

Mohanlal as Dr.Sunny Joseph
Suresh Gopi as Nakulan
Shobhana as Ganga
Nedumudi Venu as Thampy
Vinaya Prasad as Sreedevi
Innocent
KPAC Lalitha
Thilakan
Kuthiravattam Pappu
Ganesh Kumar

[edit] Crew

Direction: Fazil
Second-unit directors: Sibi Malayil, Priyadarshan, Siddique-Lal
Story, screenplay, dialogues: Madhu Muttam
Music: M. G. Radhakrishnan
Background score: Johnson

[edit] Awards

Best Actress Award: Shobhana
Best Popular Film Providing Wholesome Entertainment
Best Singer: K J Yesudas

[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] Trivia

Manichitrathazu was one of the all time hits of Malayalam films running for more than 600 days.
This movie fetched maximum rating consistently for its television screening. Fourteen years after its release this film so far screened more than 12 times in kerala's leading TV channel Asianet. This film has got the maximum TRP rating on every screening. Interestingly TRP ratings were increasing by every year.This is a rare record for any movie ever produced in kerala.
Manichitrathazu had also spurred to other remakes in other languages later such as Aaptamitra in Kannada starring Vishnuvardhan, Chandramukhi in Tamil and Telugu starring Rajnikanth and the recently released Bhool Bhulaiyaa in Hindi.
The central character played by Shobhana is named Ganga in the all the remakes except Bhool Bhulaiya.
All 3 South-Indian versions (Malayalam, Kannada and Tamil) earned the actresses playing the central character (Shobhana, Soundarya, Jyothika Saravanan, respectively) the State Awards for Best Actress of the respective states (Kerala, Karnataka and Tamilnadu)
The character of the psychiatrist in all 4 versions have studied or worked in the USA.
Aaptamitra, the Kannada version is a deviated version of Manichitrathazhu, in which the character of psychiatrist is given more screen presence in order to please the fans of Vishnuvardhan, who plays the role in it. The Rajinikanth starrer Tamil version Chandramukhi followed the same pattern, both films being directed by P. Vasu. The Hindi version Bhool Bhulaiyaa directed by Priyadarshan however stuck to the original script.
The story was not credited to Madhu Muttam in Aaptamitra and Chandramukhi, in which the story was credited to the director P. Vasu himself. However, in Bhool Bhulaiyaa the story was credited to Madhu Muttam, following a Kerala Highcourt verdict in a case filed by him.