Mudhalvan (English: Chief Minister) is a 1999 Tamil language Indian political thriller film co-written, directed and co-produced by S. Shankar. The film features Arjun, Manisha Koirala and Raghuvaran in the lead roles with Manivannan, Vijayakumar and Hanifa portraying other significant roles. The film featured an award-winning soundtrack composed by A. R. Rahman, cinematography by K. V. Anand and dialogues by Sujatha.
The film revolves around an ambitious TV journalist, Pughazhendi, who interviews the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu. Pughazhendi asks the tough questions, the Minister starts trembling and asks him to put his money where his mike is, and become the CM for a day. After using up a few lifelines mentally, he agrees and does such a great job on his first day, that the voters eventually elect him to be their permanent leader. The subsequent unpopularity and jealousy that the Chief Minister goes through results in him taking revenge on Pugazhendi, and how he is stopped forms the crux of the story.
The film was released on 7 November 1999, as a Deepavali release. The film enjoyed positive critical acclaim while emerging as the highest-grossing Tamil film of 1999 as well as the highest-grossing of all-time until it was surpassed by Ghilli in 2004. The film ran for over 200 days in theaters and won awards on a regional scale. The film was then dubbed and released in Telugu as Oke Okkadu and later remade in Hindi as Nayak starring Anil Kapoor.Synopsis
The story focuses on Television Journalist Pughazhendhi (Arjun) working for "Q TV". During riots triggered by a fight between some college students and bus drivers, which threaten to touch upon the touchy issue of castes, the CM of the state Raghuvaran reveals his unwillingness to take strong action to quell the violence for fear of estranging any of his political bases. To set things right, he then appears on a live interview with Pughazhendi, who had coincidentally captured the CM's earlier unwillingness to take a stand, on camera.
Actors