Filmmaker SU Arun Kumar is joining hands with actor Vijay Sethupathi for the third time for Sindhubaadh, an action adventure that will hit the screens on June 21.
Arun Kumar, who made his directorial debut with Pannaiyarum Padminiyum in 2014 with Vijay Sethupathi went on to direct Sethupathi in 2016, once again with the star. For his third Sindhubaadh, Arun Kumar tells us that their original plan was to cast someone else in the lead.
“Sethu (Vijay Sethupathi) always knows what my next story will be. This time he wanted me to work with a different actor and refered many for it as well. But the project, unfortunately, never took off,” he begins.
He goes on to explain, “The thing is, I’ve done two films but they aren’t blockbusters. Pannaiyarum was widely appreciated but it was not a commercial success. Sethupathi did well in theatres and that was it. For Sindhubaadh, the project pitching kept getting delayed.”
Later, when Vijay Sethupathi offered to do the role, Arun Kumar didn’t think twice. While the lead character, Thiru, may not have been written for VS, his younger partner in crime was written specifically for VS’s son Surya Vijay Sethupathi.
“Even if Sethu had not done the lead, his son Surya would have been in it. I wrote the character with him in mind. He plays a petty thief in the film along with Vijay Sethupathi’s character,” says Arun.
The young boy of 13, whom we saw in a cameo in Naanum Rowdy Thaan, will be playing a bigger role in this film. A task, the director says, he pulled off with élan.
“I should say he picked up on it quite quickly. It will not look like this is his first film. I could see that he improved so well from his very first shot, going on to okaying shots in just one take. He takes after his father,” he shares.
Did Vijay Sethupathi guide his son through the shoot? “No, he doesn’t interfere much. I’m sure he gave him a few inputs now and then but Surya is someone who grasps things very quickly. He’s a jolly kid and was very natural on sets,” Arun explains.
A few months ago, a video was shared by the director on his Twitter handle, of VS and Surya fighting. Was this a sequence from the film? Would fans get to watch the two in a minor tussle?
“Oh no, that isn’t in the film. They don’t fight. That was recorded during our free time on the sets and I felt it would be nice to share,” he chuckles.
Fun Moment @VijaySethuOffl with his Son #SuriyaVijaySethupathi @ #Sindhubaadh sethttps://t.co/f3Zs9Ig0mA
— CtcMediaboy (@CtcMediaboy) March 17, 2019
An #SuArunkumar Film @thisisysr Musical
Produced by @KProductionsInd & @VANSANMOVIES@yoursanjali @linga_offcl @vivekrprasanna @Rajarajan7215 @irfanmalik83 @CtcMediaboy pic.twitter.com/pyzHAPdViS
The film’s story is an interesting one-liner. “The film is all about how Thiru turns into Sindhubaadh,” says the director. But the premise itself was written around Anjali’s character Venba. “Her character was the penning point of my story. The film travels and revolves around Venba. She is a young woman who works in a rubber estate in Malaysia, comes home to Tenkasi once every year to renew her Visa. The character has more scope for performance and in the end will leave a mark in the minds of the audience,” he elaborates.
Venba also has a quirky trait, an ability that’s perfectly complemented by Thiru. “Thiru has a hearing problem and Venba can only speak above a particular decibel. This works perfectly for the two. He is the only one who never asks her to speak softly,” he laughs.
While this promises for a funny first half, the second half would have good action sequences, says the director. “Working with artistes who can perform so well is like a boon for the director and in Sindhubaadh I found that in my two lead stars - Sethu and Anjali. It is also the main reason why I was able to finish the film so quickly,” he says emphatically.
Sindhubaadh’s story is driven by an important question. “This question is where my film starts. A place like Tenkasi has everything a man needs to live his life. There’s also a dialogue in the film that goes, ‘Kari sotha saptutu, aathula kulichitu nimadhiya irukaren. Na yen veli ooruku poi vela thedanum?’ (I eat meat and rice, take bath in the river and live my life peacefully here. Why should I go outside and search for a job?) The answer to this question would be money. What happens when a common man ventures out from his comfort zone looking to make money? What difficulties would he face in the foreign land? These are the questions that Sindhubaadh will ask,” he tells us.
And in that process, the film travels to different places from Tenkasi to Thailand. Close to 1.15 hours of the film has been shot in these southeast Asian countries - Malaysia, Cambodia and Thailand.
The director says that these landscapes - Tenkasi, Malaysia, Cambodia and Thailand - in Sindhubaadh will be shown differently from what we are used to as an audience. “When we think of Thailand, we’re immediately shown massage spas. This film will be different. It explores the daily lives of people there. We’ve shot in a police station, ferry, airport, train station, bus stand etc. to capture everyday life in this country,” he says.
Produced by SN Rajarajan and Shan Sutharsan of Vansan Movies and K Productions, the film’s music has been composed by Yuvan Shankar Raja and the cinematography is by Vijay Karthik Kannan.
While the film was originally meant to release in May, the director says that the reason for the delay was due to some issue on the producer’s end. “There was some problem with my producer’s previous release, not sure what they are exactly going through but the release of Sindhubaadh was postponed due to that issue only. Things have now been sorted,” he adds.