August 04, 2012 Y. Sunitha Chowdhary
Director Rajesh's Oru Kal Oru Kannadi just finished the 100th day run in Tamil Nadu and it is being dubbed to be released here very shortly. The director who worked for an advertisement company in Mumbai joined Ameer who made Paruthiveeran, Raam, Yogi and learnt the intricacies of filmmaking, he worked with actor Vijay's father too before announcing his debut project Siva Manasula Sakthi (SMS) which was remade with the same abbreviation here.
It was followed by Boss Engira Baskaran that was dubbed as Nene Ambani and the third one was OKOK or Oru Kal Oru Kannadi. In an upbeat mood, the director says, "This is a romantic comedy and I expect it to run better in a multiplex. Oru Kal Oru Kannadi means one stone one mirror and it a verse from the famous song in my film SMS. It is written by Na. Muthukumar and the music is by Yuvan Shankar Raja. Even the people in Tamil Nadu started calling the complete title in an abbreviated form so I thought it was best to retain that in Telugu."
In the film, the hero Udhayanidhi Stalin, Santhanam are friends for 15 years and the problems in their relationship begins with an entry of girl Hansika into the former's life. There comes a point when Udhayanidhi has to decide if friendship is important or love. Doesn't Hansika look obese in the film? "She reduced a bit for my film and once the shooting started again she gained weight so in some scenes we had her reeling off some self-deprecatory dialogues about her weight gain.
The film is particularly challenging for me because I was keen on giving a hat-trick and I wanted to give a big hit with a newcomer. Santhanam is a good friend and he takes the film to a different level with his presence, he helps the film run for long period in the theatre. People do ask him when he will turn hero and hopefully something good should happen soon.
Stalin is a well-known producer and he never interfered or pressurised me to have any political dialogue in the movie. I got to know him well when he released Boss Engira Baskaran and that was the time he told me he would love to debut in a soft romantic comedy. We did a lot of rehearsals, kept tracking his work that we shot on the handycam and finally we did get a fabulous output. Currently I'm doing a film with Karthi and Kajal for Studio Green and this time it will be a bilingual not a dubbed film."
Rajesh takes pride in writing his own dialogues and screenplay and that gives him immense satisfaction. On his affinity to fun movies he adds, "I like all kinds of films but I have a fetish for fun movies in particular. When I go to the theatre I want to laugh, enjoy and I also want the others to do the same when they watch my movies. I couldn't experiment with my first two films due to commercial limitations but now that I have proved myself with three films I guess I am in a position to experiment and with Karthi's film I can say I'm trying out something new."
