Kochadaiyaan

About the film

Kochadaiiyaan: The Legend (transl. King with mane) is a 2014 Indian Tamil-language animated period action film written by K. S. Ravikumar and directed by Soundarya Rajinikanth. It is India's first photorealistic motion capture film, featuring characters whose designs were based on the appearance and likeness of their respective actors. The film stars Rajinikanth and Deepika Padukone (in her Tamil debut), with R. Sarathkumar, Aadhi Pinisetty, Jackie Shroff, Nassar, Shobana and Rukmini Vijayakumar in supporting roles. The narrative follows the quest of an 8th-century warrior who seeks revenge after witnessing the unlawful punishment administered to his father, a good-hearted warrior in his kingdom, by the jealous ruler.

The film was the result of a complex development process, starting with the director's idea of directing and co-producing Sultan: The Warrior with Eros International in 2007, which was to feature Rajinikanth as an animated character. After cancelling the project due to lack of financial support, Soundarya and Eros turned their attention to producing Rana, which was to be a live-action historical fiction film directed by Ravikumar starring Rajinikanth and Padukone. However, the project was put on hold after Rajinikanth fell ill and uncertainty remained whether Rana would resume. In the meantime, producer Dr. J. Murali Manohar felt impressed by Soundarya's draft work on Sultan and persuaded her to materialise her directorial ambitions with Kochadaiiyaan, featuring a plot which leads itself up to the events of Rana, which was later deciphered as a sequel script to Kochadaiiyaan. The team agreed and completed filming in two years with Centroid Motion Capture at Pinewood Studios in the United Kingdom using motion capture technology, after which animation work and post-production ensued in the United States, Hong Kong, and China for a year. Music for the film was composed by A. R. Rahman and was performed by the London Session Orchestra. Rahman had been working with Kevin Lima for the later shelved film Bollywood Superstar Monkey and was inspired to bring motion capture technology to…

Plot

Rana, who hails from the kingdom of Kottaipattinam, leaves his family, despite his twin brother Sena pleading with him not to do so. The boy soon meets with an accident while rowing in the river and is eventually discovered by some fishermen from the neighbouring kingdom of Kalingapuri, a rival of Kottaipattinam. Rana grows up, he trains in weaponry, and becomes a fearless warrior. Due to his fighting skills and bravery, he soon wins the confidence of the king of Kalingapuri, Raja Mahendran, who promotes him as Commander-in-chief of the Kalingapuri army. The son of Raja Mahendran, Veera Mahendran shows Rana around the kingdom's mine where the captured soldiers of Kottaipattinam work as slaves. Veera says that this information is known only to a few people. After this, Rana promotes a war strategy to Veera that they release the slaves and have them trained in the army of Kalingapuri. Veera agrees and the slaves are freed. He then gets Raja Mahendran's approval to attack Kottaipattinam. However, during the war, Rana encounters his childhood friend, crown prince Sengodagan, the son of Rishikodagan, king of Kottaipattinam. Instead of fighting, it is revealed that the main motive of Rana's plan was to free the soldiers of Kottipattinam. Immediately signalling an end to the war, he, along with the soldiers disown Kalingapuri and return to Kottaipattinam, much to the disgust of Raja M…

At Kottaipattinam, Rana and Sengodagan renew their friendship. Sengodagan introduces Rana to Rishikodagan, who is alarmed about seeing him. Rana also reunites with his younger sister Yamuna Devi whom he last saw as a baby and their uncle, who raised her, but soon learns that his mother Yaaghavi is dead and Sena is missing. He soon learns that Yamuna and Sengodagan are in love with each other. He accepts their relationship and decides to get them married. He cleverly convinces Rishikodagan, who is unwilling to get his son married to Yamuna since she is a commoner. Meanwhile, Rana also rekindles his love with his childhood sweetheart, princess Vadhana Devi, the daughter of Rishikodagan. Soon, Sengodagan and Yamuna get married. But following the wedding, Rishikodagan disowns Sengodagan.

That night, a masked man barges into the palace and attempts to kill Rishikodagan. Vadhana immediately goes after him, fights him, and gets him captured. Rishikodagan unmasks the assassin who is revealed to be Rana, and immediately throws him into prison, sentencing him to death. An upset Vadhana rushes to the cell where Rana is imprisoned, where Rana tells her why he attempted to kill Rishikodagan. Rana tells Vadhana that he is the younger son of Kochadaiiyaan, the former Commander-in-Chief of Kottaipattinam's army. Kochadaiiyaan is extremely respected in Kottaipattinam for his bravery and is more popular than Rishikodagan himself.

Production

After the release of Enthiran (2010), actor Rajinikanth approached filmmaker K. S. Ravikumar to help complete an animated feature that the former's daughter Soundarya had begun in 2007. The project, titled Sultan: The Warrior, had run into problems with its production and Rajinikanth hoped that they could salvage the project by adding a historical back plot which would make the film partially animation and partially live action. Ravikumar then developed a story for fifteen days with his team of assistants and after being impressed by the script, Rajinikanth felt that Ravikumar's story should be an entirely separate film. Thus the team launched a venture titled Rana, to be jointly produced by Ocher Picture Productions and Eros International. The film would have featured cinematographer R. Rathnavelu and music would have been composed by A. R. Rahman. Principal photography for Rana began on 29 April 2011. However, during the first schedule of filming, Rajinikanth fell ill on sets and was admitted to hospital where he was treated for dehydration and exhaustion for over a month, resulting in an indefinite postponement of filming. Further attempts for the film to continue production throughout the year failed.

Key details