Arunachalam is a 1997 Indian Tamil-language masala film directed by Sundar C. and written by Crazy Mohan. The film stars Rajinikanth, Soundarya and Rambha, with Jaishankar, Ravichandran and Visu in supporting roles. It revolves around a village simpleton, who later discovers he is the heir of a deceased billionaire, but must go to great lengths to claim his father's inheritance.
A village head Arunachalam who has two brothers Saravanan, Shakthi, and a sister Arundhati and a happy family. Ammayappa and Janaki are his parents. Vedavalli is the daughter of Aathikesavan and Umayal. Nirmala is Ammayappa's sister and they all come to Ammayappa's home for Arunachalam's sister's wedding. That gives the opportunity for Vedavalli and Arunachalam to fight first, then fall in love with each other.
Arunachalam finds himself to be an orphan by interval. He goes out of the village. He goes to Madras where he meets Beeda Kathavarayan, who gives him a job. By some magical situation Arunachalam discovers himself to be the son of India's richest (dead) billionaire Vedhachalam through Rangachari. Rangachari is the guardian of Arunachalam's father's trust. If Arunachalam wants his inheritance, he has to follow certain rules. He can get an inheritance of 3000 Crore Rupees if he can spend 30 crores in 30 days. The conditions are: no contributions to charities, not to own any assets at the end of 30 days and above all, no one else should know about this and receipts should be provide for all the expenses. If Arunachalam fails to spend the money according to the rules, all the money will go to his father's trust which is managed by Vishwanath, Prathap, Kurian and Kaliyaperumal. These four form a team of "villains". They want to spoil Arunachalam's efforts and get all the money for the trust and kill Rangachari. Nandhini is Rangachari's daughter and she is appointed as the accountant for Arunachalam for 30 days.
Arunachalam tries hard to spend his money and many times, the money comes back. He spends on Horse races, lottery tickets, makes a movie with Arivazhagan as the hero and he even starts his own political party with Kathavarayan being the candidate. All these events are good opportunities for situation comedies. Does Arunachalam win this competition, does he get all the 3000 Crore rupees for himself and live happily ever after is the rest of the story.
After the success of Muthu in 1995, Rajinikanth took a year out dabbling in politics and taking a sabbatical before announcing that his next film would be Arunachalam written by Crazy Mohan. It was announced that the film would be produced to help eight of his struggling film industry colleagues and it was incorrectly earlier reported that the film would be produced under his newly floated Rajini Arts banner. It was indicated that some of the people who the film would go on to cause benefits for included Kalakendra Govindharajan who introduced Rajinikanth in his production Apoorva Raagangal (1975), Kalaignyanam who featured Rajinikanth in the lead role for the first time with his production Bairavi (1978) and brothers Ramji and Babji who produced some of the actor's early hits, Kaali (1980) and Garjanai (1980). Furthermore, collections would also be shared between the family of Sathya Studio Padmanabhan, actress Pandari Bai, actor V. K. Ramasamy and producer Madurai Nagaraja.[1][2] Initial reports had also titled the film as Kuberan and Meshtri, but Arunachalam was eventually retained.[3] The plot of the film was inspired by George Barr McCutcheon's 1902 novel Brewster's Millions.[4] The director Sundar C. has that he did not like the story of Arunachalam but he did it because he did not want to miss an opportunity to work with Rajinikanth. He also mentioned that Rajinikanth is the one who called and narrated him the story and asked him to direct.[5]
Casting
Initially the lead heroine of the film was expected to be Meena, who had featured in Rajinikanth's previous film, Muthu before Soundarya and Rambha were signed on as heroines.[1] The initial cast list released to the media also had Jayaram in the cast of the film as well as Vignesh, who was later replaced by Raja.[3]Manorama was also surprisingly added to the cast after causing controversy the previous year by lashing out at Rajinikanth's political motives.[6]
Filming
Rajinikanth lost his sentimental Rudraksh bead during the shooting of the film and was shocked and upset to note that his Rudraksh was missing. He ordered a search at the shooting spot at midnight and with the help of the giant lights used for shooting, he later found the divine bead after a while.[7] The filming was held in a star hotel at Hyderabad for 20 days.[8]
Soundtrack
The music was composed by Deva. The song "Nagumo" had two versions, Hariharan's version was included in soundtrack only, while another version with the vocals of Krishnaraj was included in the film only. Audio was released under the music label "Big B" of Amitabh Bachchan. The tune of Alli Alli Anarkali was lifted from the songs "Ladki Ladki" from Shreemaan Aashique (1993), which was composed by Nadeem–Shravan and "Tutak Tutak Tutiyan" from Ghar Ka Chiraag (1989), which was composed by Bappi Lahiri
Arunachalam was released theatrically on 10 April 1997.[9]The Hindu wrote on 18 April, "Arunachalam contains all the elements that provide escapist entertainment [...] humour, fairplay, love, feud occupy the frames".[10] K. N. Vijiyan of New Straits Times wrote, "Go with an open mind and you will enjoy this movie".[11] R. P. R. of Kalki gave a negative review panning weak screenplay, many of the montage shots after interval in bits and pieces, Crazy Mohan's dialogues lacking humour, Deva's music though he praised Rajinikanth's acting for rescuing the film but the technicians seems to have let him down and concluded Arunachalam did not do it despite the Lord saying that he should give great happiness to the fans in this Tamil New Year.[12] The film was declared a box office success, although not as big as Rajinikanth's previous films Baashha and Muthu (both 1995).[13][14] It had a theatrical run of over 175 days and collected around ₹32 crore (equivalent to ₹163 crore or US$20 million in 2023) worldwide.[15]
