The story of director Mani Ratnam’s Agni Natchathiram will soon be on screen again, 28 years after it’s original release. The film will be remade in Hindi by Bollywood director Bejoy Nambiar who’s last film was the Amitabh Bachchan-Farhan Akhtar starrer, Wazir.
Ratnam who grabbed the national award twice, is one of the finest directors of the Indian film industry and is widely credited with revolutionizing the Tamil film industry.
The 1988 Tamil action drama film Agni Natchathiram, tells the story of two stepbrothers Ashok and Gautam who come into conflict with each other in their claim for legitimacy.
The film is considered one of the classics in the industry, and the two lead actors, Prabhu and Karthik, are still remembered for their respective roles. All the songs, composed by Ilaiyaraaja, have were chartbusters at the time.
The film won two Filmfare Awards. Actor Karthik won Best Actor and G. Venkateswaran won the award for the Best Film.
In it’s Hindi remake, Masaan actor Vicky Kaushal will be playing one of the brothers. The other brother will be played by Harshvardhan Rane, who made his Bollywood debut in Sanam Teri Kasam. The lead actress for the film’s Hindi version is yet to be finalised.
Harshvardhan is more famous in the Telegu film industry while Kaushal won accolades for his performance in Masaan. Kaushal is presently off to Cannes Film Festival with Anurag Kashyap to promote his latest, Raman Raghav 2.0.
According to Nambiar, the Hindi version of Agni Nachathiram is likely to go on floors this year.
Bejoy had worked as an assistant director to Mani Ratnam before he went on to make films in Hindi. That might just make him the best to re-interpret Ratnam’s vision.
