''Veerapandiyan'' () is a 1987 Indian

Tamil Tamil may refer to: * Tamils, an ethnic group native to India and some other parts of Asia **Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka also called ilankai tamils **Tamil Malaysians, Tamil people native to Malaysia * Tamil language, nativ ...

-language

masala film Masala films of Indian cinema mix multiple genres into one work. Masala films emerged in the 1970s and are still created as of the 2020s. Typically these films freely mix action, comedy, romance, and drama or melodrama. They also tend to be ...

, directed by Karthik Raghunath and produced by Durai. The film stars

Sivaji Ganesan Villupuram Chinnaiya Manrayar Ganesamoorthy, better known by his stage name Sivaji Ganesan, (1 October 1928 – 21 July 2001) was an Indian actor and producer. He was active in Tamil cinema during the latter half of the 20th century. Sivaji Ga ...

Vijayakanth Narayanan Vijayaraj Alagarswami (born 25 August 1952), better known by his stage name Vijayakanth, is an Indian politician and former actor who has worked predominantly in Tamil cinema. He was the Leader of the Opposition in the Tamil Nadu Leg ...

Radhika Radha ( sa, राधा, ), also called Radhika, is a Hindu goddess and the chief consort of the god Krishna. She is worshiped as the goddess of love, tenderness, compassion, and devotion. She is the avatar of goddess Lakshmi and is also d ...

and

Jaishankar Jaishankar (12 July 1938 – 3 June 2000) was an Indian actor known for his work in Tamil cinema. He was a very popular lead actor in the 1960s and 70s. He was credited onscreen with title of ''Makkal Kalaingnar'' (people's artiste) or '' ...

. It was released on 14 April 1987.

Plot

Ranjith (

Ranjeet Ranjeet Bedi (born 13 September 1942 as Gopal Bedi) popularly known as Ranjeet, is an Indian actor and film director born in Jandiala Guru near Amritsar (Punjab), best known for his work in Bollywood.Singh, Nonika (1999)Ranjeet's triple love", ...

) plots to steal the temple jewels in the town of Manimangalam with the help of the temple's dharmagatha ( V. K. Ramasamy) and townsman Nanjappa (

Radha Ravi Madras Rajagopalan Radhakrishnan Ravi (born 29 July 1952) is an Indian actor and politician who played supporting roles throughout his career. He is the son of actor M. R. Radha and the uncle of Vasu Vikram and half-brother of Raadhika. He is a ...

). Their initial attempt is foiled by Manimaaran (

), the son of the periya pannaiyar, Dharmalingam (

V. S. Raghavan V S Raghavan (18 February 1925 – 24 January 2015) was an Indian actor, who has acted both in Tamil films as well as television. He started his career as a dramatist and stage actor and went on to act as a character actor in films, starting ...

) and Nanjappa's nephew. The trio are forced to wait until the next year when the temple festival takes place again to attempt to steal the jewels. Pandiyan (

) is the village president and lives in Manimangalam with his sister Meenatchi (

). He was engaged to marry Gowri ( Sumithra) but he called off the wedding when he learned his horoscope dictates his wife would die prematurely. Gowri has refused to marry anyone else and remains a major part of Pandian and Meena's lives. Pandian also has a long-standing feud with Dharmalingam that started when he won the post of village president. Manimaaran and Pandian both inadvertently continually foil the plans of the trio to further their plans to learn more about the temple. The police also become interested and send police officer Shankar (

) undercover to the town. He secretly works to protect Pandian and Manimaaran from falling victim to the trio. More problems arise when Meena and Manimaaran fall in love however. Pandian is willing to give his blessings if Dharmalingam will agree to the marriage but the latter refuses. Manimaaran and Meena marry regardless and Nanjappa uses the conflict to his advantage. As the temple festival nears, he kills Dharmalingam and frames Pandian to sow discord between the two in hopes of keeping both distracted. Pandian and Manimaaran must deal with the fallout from Nanjappa's plan and prevent the theft of the temple jewels.

Cast

Soundtrack

The soundtrack was composed by

Shankar–Ganesh Shankar–Ganesh is an Indian music director duo who has worked on Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada movies for around 50 years. Career They started as assistants to Tamil music composers M. S. Viswanathan and T. K. Ramamoorthy in 1964 an ...

Reception

On 5 May 1987, ''

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 be ...

'' wrote "''Veerapandiyan'' despite being a potpourri of elements sacred and mandatory to the masala genre is within its rather constructed ambit, a fair sample of all that is good, bad, and mediocre in commercial Tamil cinema."

References

External links

* 1980s Indian films 1980s masala films 1980s Tamil-language films 1987 action films 1987 films Films scored by Shankar–Ganesh Indian action films {{Improve categories, date=February 2024