''Nattamai'' () is a 1994 Indian Tamil-language

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super-g ...

directed by

K. S. Ravikumar K. S. Ravikumar (born 30 May 1958) is an Indian film director, screenwriter, producer, actor, primarily working in Tamil films. Career 1990–1997 Ravikumar worked as co-director on R. B. Choudary's production ''Pudhu Vasantham'' direct ...

. It starred Sarathkumar,

Meena Meena () is a sub-group of Bhils. They speak Meena language. They started adopting the Brahmin worship system. Its name is also transliterated as ''Meenanda'' or ''Mina''. Historians claim that they belong to the Matsya tribe. They got the sta ...

and

Khushbu Khushbu Sundar (born Nakhat Khan; 29 September 1970) is an Indian actress, politician, film producer and television presenter. She is known for her works predominantly in Tamil, besides Telugu, Hindi, Malayalam and Kannada films. She is a rec ...

. The film was released on 2 November 1994, during

Diwali Diwali (), Dewali, Divali, or Deepavali ( IAST: ''dīpāvalī''), also known as the Festival of Lights, related to Jain Diwali, Bandi Chhor Divas, Tihar, Swanti, Sohrai, and Bandna, is a religious celebration in Indian religions. It is ...

, and completed a 175-day run at the box office. It is considered to be one of the most popular Tamil films of the 1990s and in general. It became a trendsetter for many films in later years. The

Goundamani Subramaniyan Karuppaiya (born 25 May 1939), known by his stage name Goundamani, is an Indian actor and comedian who works in Tamil cinema. He is known for his comic duo partnership in Tamil films with fellow actor Senthil. The pair dominated t ...

Senthil Senthil (born 23 March 1951) is an Indian comedy actor who works in Tamil cinema. He is famous for his comedian roles along with fellow actor Goundamani. The pair dominated the Tamil industry as comedians in the 1980s and 90s.comic duo A double act (also known as a comedy duo) is a form of comedy originating in the British music hall tradition, and American vaudeville, in which two comedians perform together as a single act. Pairings are typically long-term, in some cases fo ...

was one of the most popular aspects of the film. Sarathkumar earned both the

Tamil Nadu State Film Award for Best Actor The Tamil State Film Awards for Best Actor is given by the state government as part of its annual Tamil Nadu State Film Awards for Tamil (Kollywood) films. List of winners {, class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders" , - ! colspan="5" , Lis ...

and

Filmfare Award for Best Actor – Tamil The Filmfare Best Actor Award is given by the ''Filmfare'' as part of its annual Filmfare Awards South for Tamil people, Tamil film lead actors. The Filmfare Awards South Awards were extended to "Best Actor" in 1972.#Film world, Film world, p 43 Th ...

for his performance in the film. The film was later remade in

Telugu Telugu may refer to: * Telugu language, a major Dravidian language of India *Telugu people, an ethno-linguistic group of India * Telugu script, used to write the Telugu language ** Telugu (Unicode block), a block of Telugu characters in Unicode S ...

as ''

Pedarayudu ''Pedarayudu'' is a 1995 Indian Telugu-language drama film directed by Ravi Raja Pinisetty and starring Mohan Babu in a dual role with Bhanupriya and Soundarya also starred in the film. Tamil Superstar Rajinikanth appears in a special appearance ...

'', in

Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been de ...

as '' Bulandi'' and in

Kannada Kannada (; ಕನ್ನಡ, ), originally romanised Canarese, is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by the people of Karnataka in southwestern India, with minorities in all neighbouring states. It has around 47 million native s ...

as ''

Simhadriya Simha ''Simhadriya Simha'' () is a 2002 Indian Kannada-language action drama film directed by S. Narayan. The film stars Vishnuvardhan, Meena and Bhanupriya. The music of the film was composed by Deva. The film was a remake of the 1994 Tamil film '' ...

'' (2000).

Plot

Shanmugam ( Sarathkumar) is the village head, fondly called ''Nattamai'' in his village in

Coimbatore Coimbatore, also spelt as Koyamputhur (), sometimes shortened as Kovai (), is one of the major metropolitan cities in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It is located on the banks of the Noyyal River and surrounded by the Western Ghats. Coimbato ...

. He sits on the ancestral throne in his village to do justice. He hears all the cases and gives solutions to the people and punishments to the wrongdoers. His wife Lakshmi (

) admires and respects him. His brothers Pasupathi ( Sarathkumar) and Selvaraj (

Raja Ravindra Raja Ravindra is an Indian actor predominantly appears in Telugu films and TV serials. Apart from Telugu films, he has acted in several Tamil films and a few Kannada and Malayalam movies. He started his career with TV serials and entered into fi ...

) fear him but also have a lot of respect for him as he has brought them up as his children. Pasupathi marries Meena (

), the daughter of an industrialist (

Vinu Chakravarthy Vinu Chakravarthy (15 December 1945 – 27 April 2017) was an Indian actor, screenwriter and director who is known for acting in more than 1000 movies in Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Badaga and Malayalam mostly as a comedian, supporting actor or in ...

). She dislikes Shanmugam ''Nattamai'' because of his verdicts and attitude and her husband for being so timid with his brother but later transforms after learning of the former's greatness from her father. Selvaraj loves his paternal cousin, who is his paternal aunt ( Manorama) granddaughter Kanmani (

Sanghavi Sanghavi (born Kavya Ramesh) is an Indian actress and a model known for her work predominantly in Telugu and Tamil language films. She was one of the leading actresses in South Indian cinema for a decade from 1993 to 2004. In her career spannin ...

). In the flashback, Periya Nattamai ( Vijayakumar), Shanmugam Nattamai's, Pasupathi, and Selvaraj's father, orders Manorama's son (and Kanmani's father) ( Ponnambalam) to marry his servant's daughter whom he raped. Manorama (who is Periya Nattamai's brother) begs him to forgive her son, however, he asks her to not interfere with his judgments. His brother-in-law, ( Ponnambalam's father and Manorama husband (

Erode Soundar Erode () is a city in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Erode is the seventh largest urban agglomeration in the state, after Chennai, Coimbatore, Madurai, Tiruchirapalli, Tiruppur and Salem. It is also the administrative headquarters of the Er ...

), shoots him as he is disappointed by his verdict. Enraged, Periya Nattamai gives his final judgment before dying. He expellees Ponnambalam's family from the village and makes Shanmugam the new Nattamai, before dying. Years later, Ponnambalam's father dies. Ponnambalam builds envy on his uncle's family and waits for an opportunity to take revenge on them. He hires a woman as the village school teacher and asks her to make Pasupathi fall for her. She does so to save her father, who is in the hands of Ponnambalam. He kills her and makes the villagers believe that Pasupathi has committed the murder. ''Shanmugam Nattamai'' sentences ten years of exile for Pasupathi, and his wife Meena. Ponnambalam learns of his daughter's love for Selvaraj and tries to kill him, with the help of his goons. Pasupathi goes to his rescue of him, and a pregnant Meena goes to Shanmugam to convey this message. While Pasupathi starts to take revenge on Ponnambalam, Manorama rushes to Shanmugam, kills her son Ponnambalam, and reveals the truth and tells that he punished his brother without committing any mistake and also told that the crimes blamed on Pasupathi were really perpetrated by Ponnambalam. Shanmugam dies upon learning that he gave a wrong judgment, and Pasupathi is shown taking his place as the new ''Nattamai''.

Cast

* Sarathkumar as Nattamai (Shanmugam) and Pasupathy (dual role) *

as Meena *

as Lakshmi *

as Selvaraj * Manorama as Nattamai's paternal aunt *

as Kanmani *

as Nattamai's paternal cousin/ Mangalam *

Pandu In the Hindu epic ''Mahabharata'', Pandu ( sa, पाण्डु, Pāṇḍu, pale) was a king of the Kuru Kingdom. He was the foster-father of the five Pandava brothers, who were the boons bestowed upon his wife Kunti by a number of deities ...

as Nattamai's assistant *

as Meena's Father * Vaishnavi as Ponnambalam's wife * Rani as the teacher *

as Nattamai's paternal aunt's husband * S. P. Rajkumar as deaf man *

Kovai Senthil Kumarasamy, known by his stage name, Kovai Senthil, was a Tamil film character artist who appeared in Tamil films starting with Bhagyaraj's ''Oru Kai Osai''. He appeared in over 400 Tamil films. Career During his career, Kovai Senthil made ...

Master Mahendran Mahendran is an Indian actor who works in Tamil and Telugu language films. He started acting at the age of 3 and has appeared in over 100 films in six languages as a child actor, a record in India. He is a recipient of two Nandi Awards and two ...

Crane Manohar Crane Manohar (born 4 October 1965) is an Indian actor who appears in Tamil films, mostly in comedy roles. He appeared in many Vadivelu and Vivek comedy tracks. Career Manohar initially worked as a crane technician for films and when he start ...

* Vijayakumar as Periya Nattamai (Shanmugam, Pasupathy and Selvaraj's father) (special appearance) *

Kanal Kannan Kanal Kannan (born as V. Kannan) is an Indian actor, action choreographer and screenwriter who works in Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada, and Hindi films. He has worked with actors Mammootty, Prithviraj , Unni Mukundan Unnikrishnan Mukund ...

as Silambam player (special appearance)

Production

Director

initially approached

Mammootty Muhammad Kutty Panaparambil Ismail (; born 7 September 1951), known mononymously by the hypocorism Mammootty (), is an Indian actor and film producer who works predominantly in Malayalam cinema, Malayalam films. He has also appeared in Tamil l ...

to play the supporting role played by vijayakumar. For reasons unknown, he declined the offer. Sarathkumar was then signed for as the lead. The film became the fourth collaboration between Ravikumar and Sarathkumar. When Ravikumar approached

for Nattamai's wife role, she hesitated as in most part of the film she had to look old, except in a brief flashback. She asked him whom he will cast if she denies, Ravikumar said he will approach veteran actress

Lakshmi Lakshmi (; , sometimes spelled Laxmi, ), also known as Shri (, ), is one of the principal goddesses in Hinduism. She is the goddess of wealth, fortune, power, beauty, fertility and prosperity, and associated with ''Maya'' ("Illusion"). Alo ...

; this made Kusbhoo to take up this role. Mahendran was introduced as child artist through this film. Vijayakumar was initially cast as the elder brother, but a few days before shooting began, Ravikumar decided to have Sarathkumar play both brothers and

Bharathiraja Bharathiraja (born 17 July 1941) is an Indian film director and actor who works mainly in the Tamil film industry. Making his debut in 1977 with ''16 Vayathinile'', he is known for realistic and sensitive portrayals of rural life in his films. ...

was Ravikumar's initial choice for the character of Vijayakumar.

Controversy

In his early days as an actor, Sarathkumar was considered to be close to

AIADMK The All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (; AIADMK) is an Indian Regionalism (politics), regional political party with great influence in the Federated state, state of Tamil Nadu and the union territory of Puducherry (union territory) ...

supremo Jayalalithaa. However, Sarath's proximity to Jayalalithaa landed him in deep trouble when ''Nattamai'', which was still running in Tamil Nadu theatres, was aired by Jayalalithaa's television channel JJ TV, using a U-matic tape, which Sarathkumar gave her for personal viewing at her residence. What the understanding between Jayalalithaa and Sarathkumar was not clear. However, this caused a furore in the film industry as the producer

R. B. Choudary Ratanlal Bhagatram Choudary is an Indian film producer who has worked in several film industries, predominantly in Tamil and Telugu along with a few films in Malayalam and Hindi. He is the founder of the production company Super Good Films. C ...

threatened action against Sarathkumar for misusing a tape given to him for personal viewing. An embarrassed Sarathkumar explained that he was taken by surprise and that he never expected Jayalalithaa to give it to the channel for telecast. He sought an explanation from both Jayalalitha and JJ TV, but without success. The ruling party reacted predictably, using every forum to attack Sarathkumar.

Soundtrack

Soundtrack was composed by Sirpy and lyrics were written by

Vairamuthu Vairamuthu Ramasamy (born 13 July 1953) is an Indian lyricist, poet, and novelist working in the Tamil film industry. He is a prominent figure in the Tamil literary world. A master's graduate from the Pachaiyappa's College in Chennai, he first ...

Release

''Nattamai'' was released on 2 November 1994, during

. ''

The Indian Express ''The Indian Express'' is an English-language Indian daily newspaper founded in 1932. It is published in Mumbai by the Indian Express Group. In 1999, eight years after the group's founder Ramnath Goenka's death in 1991, the group was split betw ...

'' wrote that there was "never a dull moment" in the film. It became a blockbuster and completed a 175-day run at the box office.

Legacy

The success of the film prompted Super Good Films, K. S. Ravikumar, Erode Soundar and Sarathkumar to announce a film titled ''Paamaran'' soon after. However, the project was later stalled owing to a fallout between the actor and the director. Despite discussions for director

Vikraman Vikraman is an Indian film director primarily working in Tamil cinema. Career 1990–1994 He worked as an assistant to actor and director R. Parthiban in ''Puthiya Pathai'' (1989), which was the latter's debut film as a director and an actor. ...

to take over the film, the project was stalled. Owing to its success, ''Nattamai'' was remade in Telugu as ''

'' (1995), It was remade in Kannada as ''

'' (2001). It was also remade in Hindi as '' Bulandi'' (2000). The tagline ''Nattamai, theerpa maathi sollu'' (Chieftain, change your judgement) became popular after release. It became a

trendsetter ''Trendsetter'' is the debut studio album by American rapper and singer Coi Leray. It was released through Uptown Records, Republic Records and 1801 on April 8, 2022. The album contains guest appearances from Nicki Minaj, Yung Bleu, Fivio Foreig ...

for many films in later years. The success of the film inspired similar themes about village chieftain. Vijayakumar's portrayal of village chieftain received critical acclaim and he went on to be typecasted with similar characters in later films. The film gave breakthrough in the career of Sarathkumar and the actor did similar films – '' Suryavamsam'' (1997), ''

Natpukkaga ''Natpukkaga'' () is a 1998 Indian Tamil-language drama film directed by K. S. Ravikumar, starring R. Sarathkumar, Simran, Vijayakumar and Sujatha. It became a blockbuster upon release. The film won two Filmfare Awards South and Tamil Nadu St ...

'' (1998), ''

Maayi ''Maayi'' is a 2000 Indian Tamil-language drama-film starring Sarath Kumar and Meena, wherein Vadivelu's comedy performance was critically acclaimed. The film was a super hit at box office. This film later remade into Telugu as '' Simharasi'' ...

'' (2000), '' Diwan'' (2003) and '' Ayyaa'' (2005) which featured him in double roles in the backdrop of village.

In popular culture

''Nattamai'' has been parodied and referenced many times. In a comedy scene from ''

Aahaa Enna Porutham ''Aahaa Enna Porutham'' () is a 1997 Tamil-language comedy film directed by C. Ranganathan. The film stars Ramki, Goundamani and Sanghavi. The film, produced by K. Balu, had musical score by Vidyasagar and was released on 19 September 1997 to ...

'' (1998),

mocks at the superstitions of village panchayat saying that chieftain should have assistant tagging along with him and should have a pot of water. Comedian

Vivek Vivek (or Bibek/Bivek in some regions) (विवेक in Devanagari script) is a masculine given name that is popular in South Asia, particularly in India and Nepal. It is of Sanskrit origin and means "wisdom" and/or "conscience". Vivek may refe ...

has parodied this aspect in many films. He did a similar spoof in ''

Sandai ''Sandai'' () is a 2008 Tamil-language action comedy film directed by Sakthi Chidambaram. The film stars Sundar C, Nadhiya, Namitha and Ramya Raj, while Vivek, Lalu Alex, and Mithun Tejasvi, among others, play supporting roles. The music was c ...

'' (2008) and ''

Thoondil ''Thoondil'' () is a 2008 Tamil language romantic drama film written and directed by K. S. Adhiyaman. The film stars Shaam, Sandhya, and Divya Spandana, while Vivek and Revathi play supporting roles. The music was composed by Abhishek Ray with ...

'' (2008) and made fun of village rituals in ''

Kadhal Sadugudu ''Kadhal Sadugudu'' is a 2003 Indian Tamil-language romantic drama film written and directed by Durai and produced by S. S. Chakravarthy. The film stars Vikram, Priyanka Trivedi, Prakash Raj, and Vivek. The music was composed by Deva with ...

'' (2003). Scenes from the film was parodied in

Shiva Shiva (; sa, शिव, lit=The Auspicious One, Śiva ), also known as Mahadeva (; ɐɦaːd̪eːʋɐ, or Hara, is one of the principal deities of Hinduism. He is the Supreme Being in Shaivism, one of the major traditions within Hindu ...

starrer ''

Thamizh Padam ''Thamizh Padam'' () is a 2010 Indian Tamil-language parody film written and directed by C. S. Amudhan in his directorial debut. The film stars Shiva and Disha Pandey. Thamizh Padam was the first full-length spoof in Tamil cinema. It parodies co ...

'' (2010), Ponnambalam who did the negative role in the original film had appeared as village chieftain in this film.

References

External links

* {{TamilNaduStateFilmAwardBestFilm 1990s Tamil-language films 1994 drama films 1994 films Films directed by K. S. Ravikumar Films scored by Sirpy Indian drama films Tamil films remade in other languages Twins in Indian films Films shot in Coimbatore Super Good Films films