‘Kaantha’ trailer: Dulquer Salmaan’s period drama promises a gripping tale

Directed by Selvamani Selvaraj, who made the docu-series The Hunt for Veerappan, the film, set in the 1950s, in Madras, explores the strained relationship between a filmmaker (Samuthirakani) and his protégé, TK Mahadevan (Dulquer). While the trailer begins with Samuthirakani’s character telling Dulquer that he has been chosen to play the lead in Modern Picture’s next venture, things get heated up as their equation changes, by the time Mahadevan’s stardom hits the roof and he becomes known as the ‘King of acting’.

As revealed in the teaser of the film released a few months ago, the battle of egos between them is over the film, Shaantha, touted as Tamil industry’s first horror film. Mahadevan decides to have his way on the set, ignoring his director. He is upset when the director stresses that the film is all about the heroine, played by Bhagyashri, who in turn, is caught between the two. At a point, Mahadevan decides to change the film’s name to Kaantha from Shaantha. Rana arrives as a police officer, presumably due to some untoward incident on the shooting location.

Dulquer Salmaan in Kaantha
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The film is said to be loosely inspired by the life of MK Thyagaraja Bhagavathar, considered the first superstar in Tamil cinema. If so, this is Dulquer’s second attempt at playing a real-life actor, the other being Mahanati, in which he essayed Gemini Ganeshan. His last release was the Telugu film, Lucky Bhaskar and he had also appeared in a cameo in one of the biggest hits of this year, Lokah: Chapter 1 – Chandra, which he also produced.

The film marks the Tamil debut of Bhagyashri, who made her acting debut with the Hindi film, Yaariyan 2, did a special appearance in the Hindi film, Chandu Champion, and acted in the Telugu films, Mr Bachchan and Kingdom.

Kaantha is produced by Dulquer Salmaan, Rana Daggubati, Prashanth Potluri and Jom Varghese under the banners Wayfarer Films and Spirit Media. Jhanu Chanthar is the music director while Dani Sanchez Lopez is the cinematographer. Llewellyn Anthony Gonsalvez is the editor and Ramalingam is the art director.

The film has been dubbed in Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam and Hindi. Dharma Productions is releasing the film in North India.