''Ellame En Rasathan'' () is a 1995 Indian

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 ...

produced and directed by

Rajkiran Mohideen Abdul Khadar, known by his stage name Rajkiran, is an Indian actor, producer and director, who has acted in more than 30 Tamil films. He won one Filmfare Award South and four Tamil Nadu State Film Awards in his career. Early life R ...

. The film stars him,

Sangita Sangita (Devanagari: , IAST: ), also spelled Samgita or Sangeeta, refers to "music and associated performance arts" in the Indian traditions. According to Guy Beck, the root "saṃ-" implies "combining, coming together, convergent wholesome ble ...

and Roopa Sree. It was released on 24 April 1995 and emerged a box-office hit. The film was remade in Telugu as ''Soggadi Pellam'' (1996) and in Kannada as ''Marthanda'' (1998).

Plot

Singarasu comes to a remote village with his daughter to look for his wife's murderer, Mookaiyan, a murder that only his daughter witnessed. Mookaiyan follows them to kill the witness. Meanwhile, the daughter of the village chief Chinna Raani falls in love with Singarasu. In the past, Singarasu was the gram panchayat president: he was a rough and irresponsible man who spent a lot of time playing

rummy Rummy is a group of games related by the feature of matching playing cards, cards of the same rank or sequence and same suit. The basic goal in any form of rummy is to build ''Meld (cards), melds'' which can be either Set (cards), sets (three ...

, but he was a kind-hearted man. The rowdy Mookaiyan killed a newborn girl in the other village and supported

female infanticide Female infanticide is the deliberate killing of newborn female children. Female infanticide is prevalent in several nations around the world. It has been argued that the low status in which women are viewed in patriarchal societies creates a bias ...

. Later, Singarasu clashed with the other village's chief Ayya for supporting this practice. To punish Ayya, Singarasu kidnapped his daughter Raani and sequestered her in his house. Ayya then called the police to arrest the murderer Mookaiyan and Mookaiyan was sent to jail. Thereafter, Raani fell in love with Singarasu and refused to go back home. Singarasu married Raani but he was still an irresponsible man. Later, Singarasu decided to work hard and he became a respected man in the village. Upon his release from the jail, Mookaiyan decided to take revenge on Singarasu so he murdered his innocent wife Raani. Back to the present, Singarasu clearly objects to wed Chinna Raani and he is determined to punish the heartless Mookaiyan. What transpires later forms the crux of the story.

Cast

Production

Rajkiran initially planned for the film to revolve around female infanticide; however after he came to know '' Karuthamma'' revolving around the same theme got released, he made changes to the script.

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 ...

. The song "Ettana Iruntha" is the playback singing debut of Vadivelu.

Reception

K. Vijiyan of ''

New Straits Times The ''New Straits Times'' is an English-language newspaper published in Malaysia. It is Malaysia's oldest newspaper still in print (though not the first), having been founded as a local offshoot of Singapore-based ''The Straits Ti ...

'' wrote, " 'Ellame En Rasathan''has a rather slow beginning and takes too much time coming to the point but .there is a following for this type of family-oriented movie". R. P. R. 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 ...

'' reviewed the film more positively, praising Ilaiyaraaja's music and the absence of obscene comedy, dances and disgusting events.

References

External links

* *{{Rotten Tomatoes 1990s Indian films 1990s Tamil-language films 1995 drama films 1995 films Films scored by Ilaiyaraaja Indian drama films Tamil films remade in other languages Tamil-language drama films Tamil-language Indian films