Nayakan / Nayagan (The Hero) is included among the top five films of both its director’s Mani Ratnam and actor Kamal Hassan’s illustrious career of more than three decades. An intense crime based thrilling drama, it is reportedly based on the life of Bombay’s don Varada aka Varadarajan Mudaliar, but at the same time is also a kind of director’s tribute to the west’s cult movie series GODFATHER.
However despite being inspired from the world famous series and few realistic instances, the extremely well made film has the power and guts to grab you from your collars and impress you by its path breaking execution boldly. And that is the reason why it gets unanimously included in any kind of Best 100 or Top 50 or even the Best 25 Indian movies made till date.
Revolving around the underworld and life of a child, who is forced to become the biggest gangster of the city as he reaches his golden youth, NAYAKAN has Kamal Hassan playing the lead character with some exceptional display of mannerisms suiting his given character like a ‘T’. Depicting the struggle of South Indians living in Mumbai (then Bombay) its really a treat to watch him in this particular film, especially when along with the toughness of a big don, he also shows the sentiments of a human soul with an amusing ease, making an instant connect with the audience quite comfortably. His brilliant act and the dialect leaves an everlasting impact on the viewer and for that both the actor and his director truly deserve all the appreciation they have been showered upon for creating this highly recommended masterpiece, also featuring a worth noticing musical score from the maestro Illayaraja. In other words, such is the collective result of its outstanding art direction, visual quality and splendid shot taking that even the makers of the original GODFATHER series are sure going to like this worth praising adaptation a lot, unarguably.
Dubbed in Telugu as NAYAKUDU, its Hindi dubbed version was also released later titled VELU NAYAKAN. But before that, Feroz Khan made an official remake of the film as DAYAVAN with Vinod Khanna playing the lead role in the year 1988, which is unfortunately more famous for its bold kiss than the adapted content or performances. Winning three National Film Awards in 1988 for Best Actor - Kamal Haasan, Best Cinematography - P. C. Sriram and Best Art Direction - Thotta Tharani, NAYAKAN was also India's official entry for the OSCARS that year, but couldn’t reach the final stage due to various reasons. Later after almost two decades it was included in the reputed TIME Magazine’s “All-Time 100 Best Films List” in the year 2005.
So if you have still haven’t seen it, then you got to watch it essentially since one cannot call himself a die-hard Indian movie buff at all, without watching NAYAKAN (preferably in its original form and not any dubbed or remade version as such.)
Directed By Maniratnam
Starring : Kamal Hassan, Saranya Ponvannan, Janagaraj and more.
Music : Illayaraja
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Nayakan, Kamal Hassan, Maniratnam, Illayaraja, Top 100 All Time Great Movies, Top 100 Hits, Wolrd Best Movies, Godfather, Inspired Movies, Movies to See Before You Die, Must See Movies List By Bobby Sing, Thriller
