Aalavandhan (2001)

A psychopath tries to protect his twin brother from a lady he visualizes as his evil stepmother, and eventually ends up fighting with him.

Director:

Suresh Krishna

Writers:

H. Banerjee (Subtitles), Kamal Haasan (novel)

Stars:

Kamal Haasan, Raveena Tandon, Manisha Koirala

2 wins & 1 nomination.

Cast

Credited cast:
Kamal Haasan	...	Nandhakumar / Major Vijayakumar
Raveena Tandon	...	Tejaswini
Manisha Koirala	...	Sharmilee
Kitu Gidwani	...	Abhay-Vijay's stepmother
Shri Vallabh Vyas	...	Dr. Srinivasa Rao
Milind Gunaji	...	Lt. Col. Santosh Kumar
Vikram Gokhale	...	Abhay-Vijay's uncle
Naveen Nischol	...	Tejaswini's father
Smita Jaykar	...	Tejaswini's mother
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Anuradha Hasan	...	Nandhu / Vijay's Mother
Riyaz Khan	...	Sultan
Mayilsamy	...	Theatre Patron
Major Ravi	...	Menon
Sarika	...	Cameo
Yashpal Sharma	...	Terrorist Gul

Storyline

The story follows Abhay (Haasan) who has a disturbed childhood and severe mental trauma misunderstands her to be Sister in Law Tejasvini (Raveena Tandon) who is supposed to marry his Army Commando twin brother Major Vijay (Haasan). When Abhay meets Tejasvini, who visualizes her as her evil step mother who was the cause of the fall of his family and the death of both his parents and separation from his twin brother whom he loves dearly. He escapes the mental asylum to fulfill his duty towards his brother by getting rid of the woman. There are a lot of action packed encounters that Abhay has with his own brother, the estranged wife and many other characters including a very fun loving and popular singer - actress Sharmilee (Manisha Koirala) (cameo) who all willingly or unwillingly come in midst of the fight of a right man at the wrong place within wrong circumstances.

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Plot Keywords:

commando | psychopath | stabbed in the stomach | violence | surrealism | 

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Taglines:

The Fearless

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Genres:

Action | Thriller

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Certificate:

Not Rated

Details

Official Sites:

Official Bollywood Hungama site Official Site

Country:

India

Language:

Tamil Hindi Telugu

Release Date:

16 November 2001 (India)

Also Known As:

Abhay

Filming Locations:

India

Box Office

Opening Weekend:

INR 6,659,284 (India), 22 November 2001

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

INR 33,105,600

Company Credits

Production Co:

An Ak Audio, V. Creations

Technical Specs

Runtime:

177 min 155 min (cut) 112 min (re-cut) 146 min (Telugu)

Sound Mix:

DTS

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Upon release in 2001, the film received a very polarizing response from critics and audiences everywhere, who found it difficult to connect with the complicated script and characters, and found the violence, sex and drugs featured to be very repugnant and extreme for mainstream audiences. The technicality, visual effects and Haasan's performance were very praised, however. Over the years, especially with the rise of social media during the late 2000s, the film gained a more positive reaction from the public, who praised the film for its filmmaking style and content. Hollywood director Quentin Tarantino's admission that he was inspired by this film to create the animated fight sequences for his "Kill Bill" films was what incited this reassessment.

15 years following its release, the film was screened at the 2016 Fantastic Fest in US, where it opened to unexpected critical acclaim by all the audiences, most of which were non-Indian Americans.

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Goofs

During the chase scene near the climax, there is a point where Nandhu/Abhay does a side-wheelie with his car while Vijay fires at it from his car. In some shots, either the back tire or the front tire of Nandhu's car is not moving at all, even though he is still driving.

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Quotes

Abhay: I don't write poems, I speak them.

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Crazy Credits

The title of the film is revealed only in Hindi and not in English.

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Alternate Versions

The theatrical Hindi version lasts around 178 minutes, while the dubbed Telugu theatrical version lasts around 146 minutes. There were two censor cuts in the Hindi original version, but there were no censor cuts in the Telugu version.

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Connections

Referenced in Tere Naam (2003)

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Soundtracks

Kal Tak Mujhko Gaurav Tha
Performed by Kamal Haasan & Chorus
Written by Javed Akthar

User Reviews

A Strange Movie

This was my first foray into Indian cinema. I was very pleased with their addition of musical numbers into all of their movies, but it makes them that much longer. (The song "Laugh" was very cool I thought). Clocking in at three hours, I was told that this is typical of an Indian movie.

The addition of animation was a very cool touch as well, as Abhay goes into drug induced schizophrenia.

A lot like Silence of the Lambs, but their is some grisly violence, but the lead actor does a great job as a psycho killer.

Overall, a long but at times interesting movie. I would give it a 6 of 10.