In an industry of superlatives, K Bhagyaraj managed to create a moniker for himself for a skillset that remains the most enigmatic of cinematic art forms. He was a director, an actor and a writer and yet no one since has created the kind of appreciation for the art of screenwriting as Bhagyaraj has.
The watertightness of his screenplays was such that they were said to have collapsed, even if a single scene were removed from them. This is among the reasons why Superstar Rajinikanth, in a speech delivered earlier this year, described Bhagyaraj as an “equal to Salim-Javed”, the legendary writer duo of Bollywood.
Here’s a list of five memorable Bhagyaraj films and his signature stamp that has kept them relevant and entertaining, decades after they were first released.
Andha 7 Naatkal
Andha 7 Naatkal (Those Seven Days) was the fourth film Bhagyaraj wrote and directed in 1981. He was also the lead actor in this film, playing a character that would become a major part of his onscreen identity. It begins with a woman from an impoverished family (Ambika) who is forced to marry a widower. The drama intensifies when she reveals to her new husband that she’s still in love with Madhavan (Bhagyaraj), a struggling musician who speaks in a mix of Malayalam and Tamil. Their love story begins as a pure comedy, and it flows elegantly to become a mature heartbreak drama about letting go and moving on.
In one scene, when Madhavan believes he’s being approached by a film producer to compose music for his future film, Madhavan replies by making a statement about film music. He says, “I need to know the story, the characters and their state of mind before I sit down to compose tunes for the film. If I don’t, the songs will have no connection to the film.” When he’s asked to compose a song for a situation he’s facing in reality, we get a beautifully meta sequence that’s brimming with intensity.
Munthanai Mudichu
Two years later, he would go on to make Munthanai Mudichu (Knot of the Saree) in which the relationship dynamics of Andha 7 Naatkal gets a rejig. Bhagyaraj plays the widower in this film as his character, a school teacher, is asked to take up duty at a remote village. He’s the posh, city dweller in this film and we see him struggle to look after his baby, just months after his wife’s passing.
Naturally, actress Urvashi, playing the “village belle”, falls for this teacher as she witnesses the man struggle to balance his new job with the responsibility of raising a newborn. The visual of this man trying to teach in his classroom, interrupted by his crying baby sleeping in a cradle right next to him, remains unforgettable to this day.
Oru Kaidhiyin Diary
If he directed the two earlier films in this list, Oru Kaidhiyin Diary is a screenplay Bhagyaraj wrote for his guru, director Bharathiraja. This Kamal Haasan film is more an action drama rather than a relationship comedy. It begins with Kamal’s character getting released from prison after serving twenty years inside. Everyone he knew and everything he believed in, appears to have changed once he exits. All that he has left is the son he left behind, who has grown up to become a respected and righteous police officer. The action film then moves into revenge mode with the father and son having to cross paths on either ends of the morality spectrum. Oru Kaidhiyin Diary remains a textbook for masala film writing and a climax that’s near-perfect.
Chinna Veedu
Arguably, Chinna Veedu remains the most talked-about and the most pop culturally relevant of all of Bhagyaraj’s films. In this adult comedy, he plays Madanagopal, a morally dubious character who falls in love with a woman outside of wedlock. It begins with all the politically incorrect quips that was the norm in the 80’s, siding with a protagonist who feels apathetic to the plight of his wife.
Yet, the film slowly grows on you when we witness a case of him getting honey-trapped, long before that was even a thing. As it shifts narratives and sides with Kalpana, who plays his wife, Chinna Veedu turns into an enjoyable relationship drama about a man, his wife and the other woman. He went on to rework the formula from this film to make another Tamil project called Thaikulame Thaikulame. David Dhawan would also go on to remake this film in Hindi and call it Gharwali Baharwali in 1998.
Enga Chinna Rasa
This 1987 blockbuster is still talked about for being the original film that Anil Kapoor’s Beta (1992) was based on. It’s another relationship comedy that fits right into Bhagyaraj signature writing style and it dealt with the theme of a son being manipulated by his step mother, who he loves dearly. It’s classic 90s potboiler filled with all the twists and moral u-turns you’d come to expect in his cinema — a reason why the film became a hit in almost all its remakes.