Exclusive | GK Vishnu On Suriya's 'God Mode' in 'Karuppu: 'Of Course Karuppasamy Fights and Eats with His Hands...'

GK Vishnu recalls a particular moment during the look test that made him realise the magic of Karuppu. Suriya, who plays the local Tamil deity Karuppasamy in the fantasy action-comedy, was decked up in finery. Vishnu and filmmaker RJ Balaji, upon first glance, were immediately riveted. "We were simply awestruck," the cinematographer tells The Hollywood Reporter India in an exclusive interview.

The Tamil film, which has gone on to make ₹207 crore at the worldwide box-office since its release on May 15, has charmed audiences, caused extreme emotional reactions in theatres, and given Tamil star Suriya one of his biggest hits in recent times. GK Vishnu, who has filmed movies like Atlee's Mersal, Bigil, and Jawan previously, feels the success can be attributed to its beautifully simple core.

In this interview, the DOP discusses his love for reds, the power of Suriya's eyes and his effortless chemistry with RJ Balaji.

The camera work in Karuppu was a highlight of the film because it brought a sort of freshness to a super commercial film. Was that the intention with the camera work?

The intention was to make it different. Right from grading and lighting, we tried to make it visually engaging. The grading needed to be vibrant, but at the same time, remain within the story. If I had to pick between aesthetics and emotions, I'd pick the latter. 

The subject of the film is very uniquely Tamil and follows a local deity, Karuppasamy, whom we're all familiar with. How were you able to work with the film's aesthetics, keeping this in mind?

Something that gave us freedom in the film is the idea that god has come down to earth. It is more of a superhero concept, to which we brought our culture. Karuppasamy is a very grounded and native god known to the whole South region. Everyone here knows about Karuppasamy and would've heard about the god at some point in their lives. Our job was to bring all of these ideas together and show them to audiences. 

⁠⁠The use of the colour red in the film is special. It signifies Karuppasamy, the chillies offered to him, and also fury over injustice. Can you talk about differentiating filming and lighting the Karuppu portions?

The colour psychology of red makes you feel that something is imminent. Right from the first dream sequence, we started tuning the red tone so people would instinctively associate it with Karuppasamy — that feeling of ‘Saamy varaporaru..’

I initially had a cyanish-blue grade for the film, but watching it in DI one day, I felt something was missing. It looked massive, but incomplete. The red gave it that soul; I’ve always loved working with reds, but here I wanted it to carry a specific cultural weight and not just visual impact.

What was it like to create this world with RJ Balaji, Suriya, and Trisha together?

The film’s idea is beautifully simple. When we already accept that a mass hero walks into a scene and takes down ten bad guys, why wouldn’t we believe a God can do the same? If anything, God should be more convincing. Our job was to make that belief feel natural on screen, rooted in culture, not spectacle. RJ Balaji trusted me completely from day one. Within the first two or three meetings, we were already on the same page. We constantly pushed each other creatively.

Suriya sir carried the film to a different level. Balaji sir and I keep discussing this moment we shared with Suriya sir. I still remember this particular moment during a look test with him; his door was slightly ajar, and he was standing there with his long hair dressed like a god. We were all awestruck. Preetisheel Singh did a wonderful job with his looks.

He also played a role that nobody has done before; there were no references for him. I think Karuppu probably got into him to make him perform like this! Trisha played a bold and confident role in the film. Being such a star, she did a role that didn't involve any romance.

How differently did you approach Vettai Karuppu and Kaaval Karuppu in terms of camera work?

In commercial films, we have to keep the graph going high, especially in the climax. When Balaji sir came up with the idea for such a look, we were pleasantly surprised. It takes a lot of courage [for an actor] to perform with such makeup on screen. As an idea itself, it was elevated. It worked like fire in the film. We just let him perform the way he performs. 

We started setting the mood for the climax from the first shot of the film and built things up slowly to the ending. The climax was an extension of the opening shot. 

Can you talk to us about Suriya and how it was working with him? What were some ideas to bring all his characters to life?

It isn't easy to carry such a role at all. There are so many references to even crack how a normal person walks, talks and smiles. But this was something else. The pace of his walk, his gait and everything were perfect. I noticed all these things and held on to them to film. 

After shooting a lot of the mass scenes, we'd go for the inserts and keep filming shots. We'd keep experimenting for the first few days with shots, and he'd suddenly inspire us with an emotion and the atmosphere we were shooting in. We planned a lot, but the entire approach was very intuitive. 

Suriya sir has got the best eyes. I loved doing all the eye shots in the film. That conveyed so much. It also made it easy for us to communicate something as a technician or a filmmaker to audiences. The core emotion of the scene might be something that we have to keep searching for. But in this case, it was a jackpot because Suriya sir kept giving us something incredible to capture. 

As much as I could, I wanted to make him stand out from the real world. We used a lot of tele lenses to do extreme close-ups and bold close-ups in the courtroom. In a scene, he would've apologised to the Lord in the court, for which we would've gone with an extreme close-up. In one shot, you can also see his lips quiver when he apologises. That was the intensity he brought to the film. We also wanted to make this god look cool and stylish. 

What were your references for the film?

We didn't want to go down the Hollywood DC route of a superhero film; we wanted to retain the nativity. We had a portal, of course, through which Karuppasamy descends, but once he's on Earth, we didn't want to bring in a lot of effects. If it's a fight, he fights by hand.. he walks normally and eats by hand.

We worked a lot on Suriya sir's look and did a lookbook. But everything else was quite intuitive. We would discuss how to set up a scene and follow the script. We didn't really work too much on shot division. Working on this film was super effortless.

We planned a great deal, but the collaboration made every challenge feel natural to solve. The production never said no to anything — Phantom cameras, a skatecam operator from Bulgaria for the car sequence. They understood the vision and backed it fully.

Can you take us through how you shot the songs?

When [Sai] Abhyankkar composed 'God Mode' and gave it to us, I was actually a bit stuck because I was wondering how we were going to visualise such a massive song. But we immediately cracked it with Shobi master. We kept the song dynamic. The focal length of the song keeps changing. It starts with a wide range and goes into a close-up, and then goes wide again. We shot it on an anamorphic lens.  

Can you tell us anything about Raaka? 

Raaka will be super interesting. We’ll need another space to talk about it soon!