Puriyaadha Pudhir

Puriyaadha Puthir (transl. Mystifying Puzzle) is a 1990 Indian thriller film directed by K. S. Ravikumar in his directorial debut. It is a remake of the 1989 Kannada thriller Tarka which was based on Agatha Christie's 1958 play, The Unexpected Guest.

Not to be confused with Puriyatha Puthir.

Puriyaadha Puthir
Poster
Directed byK. S. Ravikumar
Produced byR. B. Choudary
Written byK. S. Ravikumar
Story bySunil Kumar Desai
StarringRahman
Raghuvaran
Sarath Kumar
Anand Babu
Rekha
Sithara
Music byS. A. Rajkumar
CinematographyA. Haribabu
Edited byK. Thanikachalam
Production
company
Release date
7 September 1990
Running time
127 minutes
CountryIndia
LanguageTamil

Plot

Raghu (Rahman) is a death sentenced prisoner who escapes from jail and hides in a bungalow. Luckily, the bungalow belongs to his college mate Geetha (Rekha). Raghu sees Geetha and requests her not to disclose about his whereabouts to police. When Raghu opens a wardrobe, he finds a dead body who happens to be Geetha's husband Chakravarthi (Raghuvaran). Raghu assumes that Geetha has murdered Chakravarthi. Geetha requests Raghu to help her dispose the dead body for which Raghu agrees. Raghu and Geetha take the dead body and dispose it in outskirts of the city. Now, they see a news that a flight in which Chakravarthi was about to travel from Chennai to Kolkata met with an accident leading to the death of all passengers. Geetha and Raghu take advantage of this situation and inform everyone that Chakravathi was dead in the plane crash.

Now, Geetha reveals her past to Raghu. She informs that Chakravarthi was a rich business man, however he was a sadist who had a hatred towards women which was due to the hardships he faced from his step mother during childhood days. Chakravarthi tortured Geetha in all the possible ways. Babu (Anand Babu) is a disco dancer and a very good friend of Geetha. Chakravarthi doubted whether Babu and Geetha had an illegitimate affair. One day, Babu visited Geetha's home when Chakravarthi was on a trip to Kolkata, however, Chakravarthi canceled his trip and returned home. He got angered seeing Babu and Geetha together. Chakravarthi thrashed Babu which made Babu to run away from Chakravarthi's home. But to Geetha's surprise, Chakravarthi was lying dead after sometime in their home. Based on Geetha's confession, Raghu understands that it is not Geetha who has murdered Chakravarthi.

One day, Geetha gets a phone call from a stranger mentioning about her and Raghu's involvement in murder of Chakravarthi. The stranger wants Geetha to pay him a few lakhs of rupees else, he would inform this to the police. Geetha and Raghu suspect that Babu could be the stranger as he is only one who is aware that Chakravarthi did not take the flight to Kolkata. Meanwhile, Chakravarti's close friend also gets killed in a hotel during Babu's dance program. Geetha agrees to pay the ransom to the stranger and takes money with her. Raghu also accompanies Geetha. However, police arrive at the situation and arrests the stranger – who happens to be the Assistant Commissioner of Police (Delhi Ganesh). It is revealed that crime branch inspector Sarath (Sarath Kumar) was investigating this case as he had developed some doubts over Geetha when he saw Raghu with her. Sarath tapped Geetha's telephone and understood about the stranger threatening her for money.

Upon investigation, the ACP reveals that he spotted Raghu and Geetha in the city outskirts when they were disposing Chakravarthi's dead body and decided to extract money by threatening Geetha using this opportunity. The ACP gets arrested. Sarath arrests Geetha and Raghu. Babu is also arrested as he is a suspect too. Now, Raghu reveals that he is the murderer which shocks everyone. Raghu tells his past, where he was in love with Sindhu (Sithara) who was employed in Chakravarthi's firm a few years back. Chakravarthi along with his two other friends tried to rape Sindhu. Raghu rushed to the situation to save Sindhu and a fight ensues between Raghu and Chakravarthi. During the fight, Sindhu is killed by Chakravarthi and the blame is put upon Raghu which lead to his arrest.

Raghu escaped from prison coming in search of Chakravarthi and his two other friends who were responsible for Sindhu's death. Raghu had hidden in Chakravarthi's bungalow and killed him. Only after that he came to know that Geetha was married to Chakravarthi. However, Raghu decided to keep this as a secret and pretended to help Geetha in covering up the murder. Also, it was Raghu who killed Chakravarthi's friend in a hotel during Babu's dance program. Upon hearing this, Sarath understands that Geetha and Babu are innocent. Raghu says that he is still in search of one more friend of Chakravarthi was responsible for Sindhu's death. Raghu promises that he will not surrender unless he finds the person and kills him. Suddenly, Raghu jumps from the room window and escapes. The movie ends there signifying that Raghu is on a hunt for the third person.

Cast

Production

Puriyaadha Pudhir was the directorial debut of K. S. Ravikumar who earlier assisted Vikraman.[1] It was a remake of the Kannada film Tarka (1989), itself based on the Agatha Christie play The Unexpected Guest.[2] The film was planned to be filmed in a 30-day schedule, at the rate of ₹1 lakh (equivalent to ₹7.9 lakh or US$11,000 in 2019) per day, which would bring the entire budget to ₹30 lakh (equivalent to ₹2.4 crore or US$330,000 in 2019). Ravikumar finished the entire film in 29 days, saving the producer a lakh.[1]

Soundtrack

The music composed by S. A. Rajkumar.

No.SongSingersLyrics
1Do Do Ri RiS. P. BalasubrahmanyamS. A. Rajkumar
2Kaatru VanthuS. P. Balasubrahmanyam, Uma RamananVaali
3Kannoram GangaiSwarnalatha
4Oor Iravil KaatruK. J. Yesudas, P. SusheelaS. A. Rajkumar
5Vishayam Poga PogaMano, Anitha Suresh

Reception

On 21 September 1990, N. Krishnaswamy of The Indian Express wrote, "Puriyaadha Pudhir is a murder thriller that is interesting, and well made from Kodambakkam standards."[3]

Due to the film's failure, Ravikumar opted against directing films under the suspense genre and went on to make action entertainers in his career.[4][5][6]

Shelved remake

This film was remade in Malayalam as Chodhyam, directed by G. S. Vijayan and produced by R. B. Chaudary himself. The film however was shelved after shoot. The film starred Rahman, Captain Raju with Mohanlal making a guest appearance.[7]

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References
  1. Rangarajan, Malathi (16 October 2009). "Life sparkles". The Hindu. Archived from the original on 5 September 2017. Retrieved 5 September 2017.
  2. Aldridge, Mark (2016). Agatha Christie on Screen. Springer. p. 301. ISBN 978-1-349-67695-8.
  3. Krishnaswamy, N. (21 September 1990). "Puriyaadha Pudhir". The Indian Express. Retrieved 5 September 2017.
  4. "KS Ravikumar Birthday Feature". Silverscreen.in. Retrieved 4 June 2015.
  5. "Above and Beyond: The KS Ravikumar Interview". Silverscreen.in. Archived from the original on 2 January 2018. Retrieved 4 June 2015.
  6. "Giving hits, his speciality". Thehindu.com. 30 October 2002. Retrieved 4 June 2015.
  7. "Mohanlal big budget films that never released — MalayalamEmagazine.com". MalayalamEmagazine.com. 19 October 2016. Retrieved 4 September 2017.
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