''Kilukkam'' () is a 1991 Indian Malayalam-language

musical Musical is the adjective of music. Musical may also refer to: * Musical theatre, a performance art that combines songs, spoken dialogue, acting and dance * Musical film and television, a genre of film and television that incorporates into the narr ...

romantic comedy film directed by Priyadarshan and written by Venu Nagavalli. The story set in Ooty revolves around tourist guide Joji ( Mohanlal) and photographer Nishchal ( Jagathy Sreekumar). They happen to meet a lavish tourist Nandini ( Revathi), whom they bet their fortunes on. It also stars Thilakan, Innocent, K. B. Ganesh Kumar,

Sukumari Sukumari Amma (6 October 1940 – 26 March 2013) was an Indian actress best known for her works in Malayalam and Tamil films. In a career spanning more than five decades, She has appeared in more than 2500 films predominantly in Malayalam, Tam ...

, and Sharat Saxena, with Murali and Jagadish making cameo appearances. The music was composed by S. P. Venkatesh. ''Kilukkam'' was released on 15 August 1991. The film was the highest-grossing Malayalam film at that time and ran for more than 365-days at the theaters. ''Kilukkam'' won five Kerala State Film Awards, including

Best Actor Best Actor is the name of an award which is presented by various film, television and theatre organizations, festivals, and people's awards to leading actors in a film, television series, television film or play. The term most often refers to th ...

for Mohanlal, Second Best Actor for Jagathy Sreekumar, Best Editor for N. Gopalakrishnan, and Best Cinematographer for S. Kumar. The film is regarded as one of the best comedy films of Malayalam cinema. It was remade in

Telugu Telugu may refer to: * Telugu language, a major Dravidian language of India *Telugu people, an ethno-linguistic group of India * Telugu script, used to write the Telugu language ** Telugu (Unicode block), a block of Telugu characters in Unicode S ...

as ''

Allari Pilla ''Allari Pilla'' ( ''Naughty Girl'') is a 1992 Indian Telugu-language musical-comedy film directed by Kodi Ramakrishna and screenplay was written by Ganesh Patro. The film was remake of the 1991 Malayalam film ''Kilukkam'' which was reported to ha ...

'' and in Hindi as '' Muskurahat'' by Priyadarshan himself. Later, the film had a sequel '' Kilukkam Kilukilukkam'' (2006). The movie was reported to be inspired by the 1953 movie '' Roman Holiday''.

Synopsis

Joji ( Mohanlal) is a tourist guide in Ootacamund, down on his luck. Nandini ( Revathy), a tourist, who is mentally challenged, and a series of events make her presence intertwined with the lives of Joji and his friend Nischal ( Jagathy Sreekumar). In the early part of the movie, hilarity ensues in their misguided attempts in getting rid of Nandini. However, they find out that she is an escaped mental patient who has a bounty on her safe return. When they find that the bounty has been increasing for a while, they decide to hide her for a while and claim the bounty when it gets big enough. They change her appearance by cutting her long tresses short. In time, they realize that things are not as they seem, and more complications are unraveled.

Cast

* Mohanlal as Joji * Jagathy Sreekumar as Nischal, still Photographer * Revathi as Nandini * Thilakan as Justice Pillai * Innocent as Kittunni * Sharat Saxena as Samar Khan * Murali as Adv. Dasharathan, Nandini's Real Father and Pillai's Relative (his Mentor's son) (Cameo Appearance) * Jagadish as Photographer (Cameo Appearance) * Thikkurissy Sukumaran Nair as Tea Vendor Ambotty * K. B. Ganesh Kumar as Ravi, Pillai's Son *

as Doctor Aunty * Devan as Kannan, Pillai's Son In Law * Zeenath as Thankam, School Teacher, Dasharathan's wife * Shyama as Pillai's daughter and Rajendran's wife *

Santhosh Santosh (), also spelled as Santhosh, is a Hindu masculine given name. The name means "Satisfaction" or "Gratification". Notable people with the given name Santosh * Santosh Bagrodia, former MP, politician representing INC * Santosh Bhattachary ...

as S.I. Bhairavan * Ravi Menon as Santhosh, Pillai's nephew * Poojappura Ravi as Lakshmanan, Lottery Seller * Kollam Thulasi as 'Pichathi' Muthu * Krishnankutty Nair as Aravindan, School Peon * TP Madhavan as Mukundan, Pillai's P.A. *Nimmi Paul as Justice Pillai's wife * Nandhu as Haridas, Pillai's Relative * Suvarna Mathew as Pillai's niece *K. G. Devakiyamma as Aged Lady at Dhobi Ghat *Ajayan Adoor as Hotel Manager Narayanankutty * Antony Perumbavoor as Driver Antony

Production

Pre-production

The initial plan for the film was set when Priyadarshan met "Goodknight" Mohan in an airport. The story was developed by Priyadarshan from a thought which came to his mind, about a mentally-ill mischievous girl who is saved by a poor guy. Priyadarshan employed Venu Nagavally for screenwriting the film. The film's title was chosen as ''Kilukkam'', since the character of Nandini is introduced in the film with the clink of her

anglet Anglet (; , eu, Angelu )ANGELU

Fazil and discussed the idea. Fazil at the time was directing ''

Ente Sooryaputhrikku ''Ente Sooryaputhrikku'' is a 1991 Indian Malayalam-language film directed by Fazil and starring Amala, Srividya, and Suresh Gopi. It was simultaneously shot in Tamil as '' Karpoora Mullai'' with Raja replacing Suresh Gopi. Plot Maya ( Amala) ...

'' (1991). He told Priyadarshan to "reverse think" the story of ''Ente Sooryaputhrikku'', which was about a girl trying to find her mother. And in ''Kilukkam'' it became, a girl trying to find her father. Mohanlal, who is the usual choice of Priyadarshan was the protagonist in mind from the initial stage itself.

Amala Amala may refer to: People * Amala Akkineni, South Indian actress * Amala Chebolu, playback singer in the Telugu film industry, also known as Tollywood * Amala Paul (born 1991), South Indian actress * Amala Shankar (1919–2020), Indian dancer * ...

who was acting in Priyadarshan's Telugu film '' Nirnayam'' at the time, was signed for the role of Nandini. She gave dates from 3 March 1991 to 4 April. Priyadarshan's initial chose for Nischal was Sreenivasan, but he was unavailable during his scheduled date due to another commitment. Hence, Priyadarshan opted for Jagathy Sreekumar, to whom he asked 30 days continuous dates. Sreekumar, at the time, busy acting in multiple films at a time, gave his continuous dates for a long period for the first time. The film's pooja function was held at Kothandapani Studio in Madras (now Chennai). The recording of songs started at the same day in the studio by S. P. Venkatesh. By the time of commencement of filming, Amala got married and had to opt out from the film as her father-in-law Akkineni Nageswara Rao announced her retirement soon after that. She was replaced by Revathi. Jagadish played a pivotal character in the film as a still photographer, the professional rivalry of Nischal, but in the final cut of the film, his portions were cut short to a minor role for reducing the running time.

Filming

Principal photography began in March 1991 in Ooty, which was the main location where the film is set. In Ooty, The Fernhills Palace was the central location, which was shot as the bungalow of Justice Pillai, played by Thilakan. The mist is utilised in the film to the maximum. The major part of the filming took place early in the morning because the mist lasted for a couple of hours only and the makers wanted to capitalise the mist-covered location. One of the initial scenes in the film, where Mohanlal and Thilakan takes morning walks, are shot in a secluded location in Ooty that was accidentally discovered by the team. They wanted the place to look classy and so the lamp post, a couple of chairs and all those fallen leaves. They painted leaves were brought to the location in a lorry and were scattered to resemble natural foliage. While filming the song "Ootyppattanam", Mohanlal escaped from what would have been a fatal injury. A sequence in the song was shot over the top of a moving train, where Mohanlal was standing opposite Jagathi and Revathy. There was a leaning electric line over the train passage, which the production team did not notice. While performing, all of a sudden, Sreekumar instructed Mohanlal to lie low, which he immediately obeyed without questioning. The line just touched his hair. In a later interview, Priyadarshan said that, he never laughed while filming ''Kilukkam'', he believed that if they laugh in the sets, the audience will not get that laugh in theatres. Several unscripted dialogues were used by Mohanlal and Revathi in their combination scenes.

Reception

''Kilukkam'' was released on 15 August 1991, in 32 centers in Kerala. Within 50 days, it grossed 0.23

crore A crore (; abbreviated cr) denotes ten million (10,000,000 or 107 in scientific notation) and is equal to 100 lakh in the Indian numbering system. It is written as 1,00,00,000 with the local 2,2,3 style of digit group separators (one lakh is e ...

from the releasing centers. The film grossed 1.59 crores from theatricals and became the first Malayalam film to gross more than 1 crore from theatricals alone. ''Kilukkam'' went on to become the highest-grossing Malayalam film of the year 1991 and was for a time the highest grossing Malayalam film of all time. In a later interview, Priyadarshan said that he exploited the Mohanlal Sreekumar chemistry to the maximum and incorporated certain elements of emotions in the film unlike in his earlier comedy films '' Aram + Aram = Kinnaram'' (1985) and '' Boeing Boeing'' (1985), which was one of the reasons the film was a huge success at the box office. The producer, Goodknight Mohan, in an interview with Safari TV in 2021 revealed that the budget of ''Kilukkam'' was around 0.60 crore at that time when Malayalam films were usually made with a cost of 0.02 to 0.03 crore. He expressed his concerns with Priyadarshan about whether the film would be a success or not. But the film went on to became the highest grossing Malayalam film at that time with a total gross of 2 crore. The film ran for over an year in 2 release theaters. ''Kilukkam'' has over the years attained a '' cult status''. The film is often regarded as a classic, it is considered one of the best comedy films ever made in Malayalam cinema. The film receives regular re-runs on television and is the most telecasted film Malayalam film history.

Music

Accolades

; Kerala State Film Awards ''Kilukkam won 5 Awards at 1991 Kerala State Film Awards.'' *

- Mohanlal (also for Ulladakkam &

Abhimanyu Abhimanyu is a legendary warrior from the ancient Hindu history ''Mahabharata''. He was born to the third Pandava prince Arjuna and the Yadu princess Subhadra, who was Krishna's younger sister. The ''Sambhava Parva'' of the Adi Parva sta ...

) * Second Best Actor - Jagathy Sreekumar * Best Playback Singer (Male) - M. G. Sreekumar * Best Cinematographer -

S. Kumar S. Kumar is an Indian cinematographer, who works in Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu, and Hindi film industry. His first independent work was with the film, ''Thiranottam'' in 1978. He is a founding member of the Indian Society of Cinematographers (ISC ...

* Best Editor - N. Gopalakrishnan ; Kerala Film Critics Award * Best Art Director - Krishnankutty * Special Award - Jagathy Sreekumar ; Cinema Express Awards * Best Actress - Revathi

3D conversion

In 2012, the executives of Ultra Rays 3D Technologies Private Ltd in Kochi approached Priyadarshan and Ram Mohan for talks for the 3D conversion of ''Kilukkam''. In that case, ''Kilukkam'' would become the first Malayalam film to be converted into 3D. Priyadarshan confirmed the news that the company approached him but the final call should be made by the producer Ram Mohan. In the '' Times of India'' report in late 2012, Mohan said that nothing has been finalised, discussions are going on.

References

External links

* {{Priyadarshan 1990s Malayalam-language films Malayalam films remade in other languages Indian romantic comedy films Kilukkam1 Films shot in Ooty 1991 romantic comedy films 1991 films Films directed by Priyadarshan