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on 2007/1/21 22:30:03
Inviting controversies, sometimes leading to legal challenge by his 'opponents' seems to be coming as easily for ace actor Kamal Hassan as essaying a variety of characters on celluloid. Atleast, that's what one can make out from the latest legal row into which he has got into over his new film under "Dasaavatharam" in which he portrays as many as ten as the mythological sounding title suggests.
Kamal has been dragged to court by a litigant who after having filed a police complaint for plagiarism and fraud, also moved the Madras High Court seeking a stay on the film. His contention before the court is that Kamal had cheated him as it was he who had authored the story and submitted it to the actor, whose office accepted the story and promised to make him the assistant director of the film. But Kamal had gone on with the shooting of the film claiming that he himself had authored the story.
The High Court has issued an interim injunction and ordered notice to the actor, the produer Oscar Films and the director K.S. Ravikumar with whom Kamal had made some hits at the box office.
"Dasaavatharam" is expected to be relased on Tamil New Year day in April this year.
And as mentioned, this is not the first time the actor-producer-director Kamal has got into trouble. In fact for three years in a row, Kamal's films had run into trouble before ultimately being released.
First, it was his own directorial venture "Virumandi" supposedly portraying a particular community, which ran into trouble over its title, which a political party dubbed as potentially exciting communal passion. Even the then Tamil Nadu Government had had to intervene forcing Kamal to change the title to "Virumandi".
Then another of his own production directed by one of his favourites Singeetham Srinivasa Rao, "Mumbai Xpress", a harmless comedy, attracted 'political controversy', as it were. The leaders of two political parties PMK and Dalit Panters of India (DPI) who had launched a movement for protection of Tamil culture and use of Tamil only in the state, threatened to obstruct the screening of the film, if its English sounding title was not changed. But this time, the fiesty actor refused to yield, contending that the criticism was hollow.
The film, although a failure at the box office vis a vis many hits of Kamal, was released on schedule.
There was more to come as Kamal got ready to make amends for the failure of "Mumbai Xpress" agreeing to play the lead in the remake of the Hindi hit "Munnabhai MBBS".
As the Tamil version "Vasul Raja" was getting ready for release, the original financier of the film moved the court contending that the producer had failed to repay the money as promised on time and sought a stay for the release.
An association of medical professionals also objected to the title of the film. But the producers of the film struck to the title. The film had a successful run.
Will Kamal get over the embarrassing allegation against him of plagiarism now remains to be seen.
In fact, the controversies involving Kamal's films are only just a few cases as in recent times, Kollywood as the Tamil film industry is called, has been confronted with several litigation against a few filmakers and music directors.
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