Tamil
Tamil may refer to:
People, culture and language
* Tamils, an ethno-linguistic group native to India, Sri Lanka, and some other parts of Asia
**Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka
** Myanmar or Burmese Tamils, Tamil people of Ind ...
-language
drama film
In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. The drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular ...
Vijayakanth
Vijayaraj Alagarswami (25 August 1952 – 28 December 2023), known by his stage name Vijayakanth, was an Indian actor, filmmaker, philanthropist and politician. He worked in Tamil cinema in a career spanning four decades. He ventured into politi ...
Salim Ghouse
Salim Ghouse (10 January 1952 – 28 April 2022) was an Indian film, television and theatre actor, theatre director, and martial artist. He has acted in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and English films.
Early life
Salim Ghouse was born in Ch ...
,
Sathyapriya
Sathyapriya (born Sathyavathi; 4 March 1953) is an Indian actress who predominately works in Tamil and Kannada films along with few Telugu and Malayalam films.
Career
Some of her films are ''Pudhea Paadhai'' (1989), ''Chinna Gounder'' (1992), ...
,
Goundamani
Subramaniyan Karuppaiya (born 25 May 1939), known by his stage name Goundamani, is an Indian actor and comedian who works in Tamil cinema. He is known for his comic duo partnership in Tamil language, Tamil films with fellow actor Senthil. The p ...
,
Senthil
Senthil (born 23 March 1951) is an Indian comedy actor who works in Tamil cinema. He is famous for his comedian roles along with fellow actor Goundamani. The pair dominated the Tamil industry as comedians in the 1980s and 90s.Vadivelu. It was released on 15 January 1992, during Pongal. The film was remade in Telugu as ''
Chinarayudu
''Chinarayudu'' is a 1992 Indian Telugu language, Telugu-language Drama Film, drama film directed by B. Gopal and produced by P. R. Prasad under Datta Sai Films. It stars Venkatesh (actor), Venkatesh and Vijayashanti playing the lead roles, with ...
'', and in
Kannada
Kannada () is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly in the state of Karnataka in southwestern India, and spoken by a minority of the population in all neighbouring states. It has 44 million native speakers, and is additionally a ...
Gounder
Gounder is a title used by various communities in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It may refer to various communities such as Kongu Vellalar, Vettuva Gounder, Vettuva, Vanniyar, Kurumba Gounder, Kurumba, Thuluva Vellalar, :ta:Urali_Gounder, Urali, ...
is a rich and respected landlord in
Coimbatore district
Coimbatore District is one of the 38 districts in the state of Tamil Nadu in India. Coimbatore is the administrative headquarters of the district. It is one of the most industrialized districts and a major textile, industrial, commercial, educa ...
. His family has been the hereditary Village Judge for a group of 18 villages and Thavasi takes over that work 10 years after his father's death. Thavasi's father, in an ill condition was asked to preside over a very tricky case and died before passing judgement. The case was that then a newly built village temple stood on a land belonging to Sundari (second wife of Sakkarai). Sakkarai's first wife is Thavasi's elder sister. Sakkara had cited law and sealed off the temple premises a day before its opening. Thavasi investigates the case and clearly proves that the document of land purchase is fake and arrives at a conclusion that the temple premises belongs to the Village. He is appreciated by a
district judge District Judge may refer to:
* A United States federal judge, appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate
* A judge in a state court (United States), where the state is divided into judicial districts
*
* A judge in the district courts ...
upon seeing his swift decision-making skills. Chinna Gounder lives with his mother Aatha and is the most respectable person in the village, known for his justice and loyalty. Rivalry exists between Chinna Gounder and his brother-in-law Sakkara Gounder, who is accused of Chinna Gounder's sister's death and following marriage with Sundari.
Sakkara Gounder plans to grab the local temple premises by forging false documents, but Chinna Gounder exposes the frauds committed, thereby preventing the temple premises from going into the hands of the roadies. Sakkara Gounder is angered and waits for an opportunity to knock out Chinna Gounder.
Deivanai, a poor, talkative village belle often gets into silly verbal conflicts with Chinna Gounder and his mother. Later Deivanai saves his mother from a snake bite. When Tavasi rewards her with money, Deivanai refuses the money, reasoning that she saved his mother only out of respect. Chinna Gounder falls in love with her good attitude, boldness and self respect.
Deivanai owes some money to Sakkara Gounder, which she had borrowed for her younger sister's education. As she could not repay the debt in a timely manner, she invites the villagers for Moi Virunthu ( one who eats food at her house has to contribute money to settle her dues ) as per village custom. Chinna Gounder visits without invitation, but proposes to her. She agrees to the same.
Chinna Gounder is married to Deivanai, and life progresses smoothly for sometime, until Sakkara Gounder interferes with a plan. Sakkara Gounder poisons the local pond and blames Chinna Gounder for that. He also sets up a false witness to trap Chinna Gounder. Deivanai overhears Sakkara Gounder's plans, and in the act of trying to stop the witness from reaching the panchayat, she attacks the witness with a sickle. Later, the police arrests Deivanai with a murder charge, as the man whom she attacked is dead. Deivanai is imprisoned.
Deivanai's sister now comes to Chinna Gounder's home as she is left alone. One day, it is revealed that Deivanai's sister is pregnant, and Chinna Gounder is blamed. As Chinna Gounder also remains silent over the issue, his mother sends him out of house. Deivanai is shocked upon hearing this and believes that her husband has betrayed her trust and love. She refuses to meet him when he comes to visit her in jail.
Now the advocate, who already knows about Chinna Gounder, finds out that he is in trouble and decides to offer help. He takes over the case in favour of Deivanai and begins his ground work. He gets the postmortem report and finds out that the cause of death of the man attacked by Deivanai was only due to lack of breath.
A few months pass by, and Deivanai comes from jail to visit her sister, who is about to deliver a baby. She scolds her sister for having an illicit relationship with Chinna Gounder. However, her sister reveals that he is in no way related to her pregnancy and the father of the child is the witness, who was attacked by Deivanai. As Chinna Gounder did not want to tarnish her image in front of the villagers, he accepted the blame. Deivanai's sister gives birth to a baby and dies.
Deivanai realises her mistake and apologises to her husband. Meanwhile, Deivanai is kidnapped by Sakkara Gounder. Chinna Gounder comes to her rescue and saves her. Chinna Gounder produces Sakkara Gounder in front of the village panchayat, where it is revealed that it was him who killed the witness and decided to blame Deivanai.
In the end, Chinna Gounder and Deivanai come out clean from the accusations made over them. Sakkara Gounder begs the villagers to forgive him, but no one listens to him. Chinna Gounder then forgives him for all his misdeeds by stating that he only wanted Sakkara Gounder to realise his mistakes.
Cast
Production
The production team initially approached actress Sridevi for the lead role, but she refused the given offer as her schedules were too packed in Hindi and Telugu films. Eventually, the role for Deivaanai went to actress Sukanya. ''Chinna Gounder'' was entirely shot at Sethumadai near Pollachi. The title character was largely inspired by Udayakumar's uncle Athiyan, who served as a village chairman in the Thuckanaickenpalayam municipality for many years. To portray her character, Manorama wore dentures.
Soundtrack
The music was composed by
Ilaiyaraaja
Ilaiyaraaja (born R. Gnanathesikan) is an Indian musician, composer, arranger, conductor, orchestrator, multi-instrumentalist, lyricist and playback singer popular for his works in Indian cinema, predominately in Tamil cinema, Tamil in addition ...
, while the lyrics were by R. V. Udayakumar.
Reception
Sundarji of ''
Kalki
Kalki (), also called Kalkin, is the prophesied tenth and final incarnation of the Hinduism, Hindu god Vishnu. According to Vaishnavism, Vaishnava cosmology, Kalki is destined to appear at the end of the Kali Yuga, the last of the four ages i ...
'' called the story ordinary, but praised the cast performances and music. ''Chinna Gounder'' won the
Tamil Nadu State Film Award for Best Film
The Tamil Nadu State Film Award for Best Film is given by the Government of Tamil Nadu as part of its annual Tamil Nadu State Film Awards for Tamil ( Kollywood) films. It includes prizes for three top places.
Key
List of winners
Referenc ...
– Third Prize, and Sukanya won the award for Best Actress at the same ceremony. At the
13th Cinema Express Awards
The 13th Cinema Express Awards were held on 14 June 1993, and honoured the best of Cinema of South India, South Indian films released in 1992. The awards were announced in March.
Tamil
Telugu
Malayalam
Solidaire excellency awards
...