Ratchagan (Tamil: ரட்சகன்) is a 1997 Tamil action film, directed by Praveengandhi^[1], starring Nagarjuna and Sushmita Sen in the lead role. It also starred Raghuvaran, S. P. Balasubrahmanyam, Vadivelu and Girish Karnad. The soundtrack was composed by A. R. Rahman. It held the record as the most expensive Tamil film until the release of Jeans (1998).

Plot[link]

Ajay (Nagarjuna) is an unemployed youth who always gets into trouble because of his temper. This loud and angry young man gets heated up when he encounters anyone committing a crime; he takes the law into his own hands, beats them up and then gives them some free advice. Ajay’s father (S. P. Balasubrahmanyam), who works for a insurance firm, is very unhappy with his son’s attitude, and tries his best to change Ajay's attitude through a meditation expert but he fails in this matter as the expert suggests that Ajay's anguish is reasonable. Ajay meets Soniya (Sushmita Sen) through his father, and Soniya falls in love with him. What Soniya likes about Ajay is his temper and anger when he encounters anything which is against law. Soniya gets Ajay’s father's help to get Ajay to love her. Still, Ajay is not interested in her and seriously rejects her at first; but he later changes his mind after going through some unusual situations, and love blossoms between them.

Soniya’s father Sriram (Girish Karnad) is an industrialist who owns a big automotive manufacturing facility. He has no objection to his daughter’s relationship with Ajay, but has one condition: Ajay must become employed in his factory, control his temper for three months, and not get into any fight whatsoever, even if he encounters a crime happening in front of his eyes. If Ajay cannot do this he will not be allowed to marry Soniya. With a heavy heart Ajay agrees to the condition; Soniya's love for Ajay deepens and Sriram offers Ajay a job in his factory. Sriram actually has his own problems with his factory in loss; ten of his workers are working with his rival and younger stepbrother Easwar (Raghuvaran), and they hamper the progress of his factory with frequent, pre-planned mishaps. This leads to the factory's property loss. Easwar is the son of Sriram's stepmother who gets deceived by Sriram and loses his share of his father's common business empire. Further, in unusual circumstances, Easwar spends some years in jail and returns with a planned conspiracy and vengeance on his stepbrother Sriram. Easwar is now trying to put Sriram out of business, so his ten men create havoc in the factory by killing old workers and ragging new workers. So when Ajay comes to work in Sriram’s factory, these ten men do the same to Ajay. Ajay keeps cool, trying to keep his promise to Sriram. But Sriram hopes otherwise; he wants Ajay to break the promise and beat up the ten men and throw them out of the factory. At the same time, Sriram hopes that the imminent marriage between Ajay and Soniya will be cancelled, since he does not want his daughter to get married to an angry street fighter like Ajay. So Sriram keeps on hoping that Ajay will somehow burst out.

When Ajay's father is murdered, he banishes the ten men from the factory. Meanwhile, Easwar kidnaps Soniya and blackmails Ajay and Sriram that Soniya is going to kill herself (to save Ajay from Easwar) and destroy Sriram's factory by bombarding it with a truck armed with a powerful Russian explosive. The rest of the film concerns the manner in which Easwar spends his time in jail and develops his own business empire to crush Sriram, how Sriram's criminal deeds and false motives are exposed to his daughter, what happens to Easwar and Sriram's business empire, and how Soniya is rescued by Ajay.

Cast[link]

• Nagarjuna as Ajay
• Sushmita Sen as Soniya
• Vadivelu
• Raghuvaran as Easwar
• S. P. Balasubrahmanyam as Ajay's father
• Girish Karnad as Sriram
• Subhalekha Sudhakar

Production[link]

The film was launched in January 1996 but filming only commenced the following year in January 1997. Despite signing on established cast and crew such as Nagarjuna, Miss Universe pageant winner Sushmita Sen, Girish Karnad and A. R. Rahman, Kunjumon signed debutant Praveenkanth to be director. The producer revealed that in the director he saw "a young man who is very talented and full of ideas who was willing to work hard."^[2] The period in between was spent with pre-production works with art director Thotta Tharani constructing a huge set in Mahabalipuram with an elaborate bungalow and swimming pool as a part of the heroine's home, as well as a huge five star hotel where the villains lived and a landing area for helicopters.^[3]

Furthermore, Tharani created 8 sets for the song "Love Attack" with Nagarjuna and Sushmita dancing alongside 50 other dancers. The song "Mercury Pookkal Model Nilakkal" was picturized in the midst of many small airplanes in Bangalore. The film was shot all over India including locations in Kulu Manali, Mumbai, Goa, Ooty, Rajasthan and Delhi, with Kunjumon making a claim during filming stages that the film would become India's most costly production.^[3]

The film was initially slated to be released on July 31, 1997 but the strikes in the Tamil film industry delayed such plans.

Release[link]

The film was also later dubbed into Telugu as Rakshakudu to capitulate on Nagarjuna's fan base in Andhra Pradesh, but became a heavy financial failure for the producer J. Ramachandra Rao. The losses, along with the failure of his dubbing film Iddaru suffered meant that he was unable to find a financier for his project, Gandhi Krishna's Engineer starring Arvind Swamy and Madhuri Dixit, and the venture was eventually shelved.^[4] Kunjumon had also planned to dub the film into Hindi as Pyar Ka Rakshak, but found no takers following the film's failure.^[5]

Soundtrack[link]

The soundtrack featured eight songs and a theme song composed by A. R. Rahman. The lyrics were written by Vairamuthu and Vaali. Hindi company, T-Series, bought the music rights of the film in 1997.^[6]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Ratchagan at the Internet Movie Database