Director Vinoth Interview: “Theeran Adhigaaram Ondru has a serious content with commercial treatment”

In a freewheeling chat with Only Kollywood, director Vinoth talks about his sophomore outing Theeran Adhigaaram Ondru, working with Karthi and more.

“Theeran Adhigaram Ondru has a serious content with commercial treatment. It has all the elements of a commercial film. Initially, when I wrote the script, it was a fiction with a real-life inspiration and much like a road movie,” Vinoth told Only Kollywood.

Out of curiosity, when Vinoth met a few police officials regarding the case, his script transformed to become a complete cop story. “When I met more and more officials from the police department, my perception towards our police changed, and I wanted to make the same change in public’s mind too. Though I was hesitant to make a cop story, Producer Prakash Babu sir from Dream Warrior Pictures liked the one-liner of this script and asked me to develop it. It was his idea to approach Karthi. The film deals with a list of connected crimes that happened in real life,” said Vinoth.

Vinoth showers praise on the technical team of the film, which is gearing up for release on November 17th in Tamil and Telugu simultaneously. “Our DOP Sathya traveled with me for almost a year to hunt locations, before the film went on floors. Art director Kathir who worked in my previous film Sathuranga Vettai has worked in this project too. Since the real story happened from 1995 to early 2000, it was a real challenge to find locations that have fewer effects due to the current globalization. It was Sathya and Kathir, who made that big part easy for me,” said Vinoth.

Vinoth said Karthi and other actors underwent extensive training from real-life police officers. “We had a regular running practice for Karthi, Bose Venkat, and their team for more than fifteen days. Since Karthi and Bose Venkat had trained themselves daily, it wasn’t much difficult for them. But the rest of their team suffered cramps and needed medical advice,” said Vinoth.

When most of the filmmakers pass their film as a bilingual despite releasing a dubbed version, Vinoth doesn’t bat an eyelid to agree the fact. “It is not a bilingual, but we have dubbed it in Telugu as Khakee. We haven’t even changed any locations; the film is dubbed with the message that it was based on a real incident that happened in Chennai. If given an opportunity I would like to make direct films in other languages too. And my next work will be a fiction,” he said, on a concluding note.