The star-studded first official teaser launch event of the magnum opus 'Ponniyin Selvan', a dream project of director Mani Ratnam, had taken the internet by a storm drawing the attention of film lovers across the country.
The film has been much talked about across India with the stellar cast itself. Cyberspaces also witnessed many discussions around the character played by actor Jayaram in Ponniyin Selvan, which had flashed for a second in the teaser. All excited about being part of the magnum opus, actor Jayaram posted a picture from the location and wrote on his official Instagram page:
Actors Vikram, Karthi, Jayam Ravi, Aishwarya Rai, Trisha and Aishwarya Lekshmi play major roles in the star-studded project. The teaser features a mind-blowing set created for the film and spectacular war visuals.
Actor Jayam Ravi plays the title role of Ponniyin Selvan – Rajaraja Cholan I. Arulmozhi Varman known as Rajaraja Cholan I is the youngest brother of Adhitya Karikalan. Vikram plays Adhithya Karikalan while Karthi plays Vanthiya Thevan.
The first look posters of queen Nandini played by Aishwarya Rai and Kundavai princess played by Trisha were released earlier. The film is a cinematic adaptation of the historical novel by the same name – Ponniyin Selvan – written by Kalki Krishnamurthy.
The eponymous hero of the novel running into a whopping 2400 pages, is the Chola King Arulmozhi Varman (Rajaraja Cholan I).
Maniratnam has lined up a stellar cast as the all-time popular historical novel of Tamil literature, serialised during the 1950s in the weekly editions of Kalki magazine, is brought to the silver screen.
Vikram, Jayam Ravi, Karthi, Aishwarya Rai, Trisha, Aishwarya Lekshmi, Shobhitha Dhulipala, Prabhu, Ashwin Kakumanu, Lal, Parthiban, Riyas Khan, Mohan Raman, Amala Paul, Keerthi Suresh, Rashi Khanna, Sathyaraj, Sarath Kumar, Jayaram, Rahman, Kishore, Prakash Raj, Vikram Prabhu and Jayachithra play the main roles in the multi-starrer movie.
A R Rahman composed the music for the film which was cinematographed by Ravi Varman. The script for the film has been penned by Elango Kumaravel. The movie has been produced by Maniratnam in association with Lyca Productions.
In 1958, MGR made an attempt to produce a film based on the novel Ponniyin Selvan. However, the project was abandoned later. Maniratnam started the works of Ponniyin Selvan I, also called PS - I, in 2012. However, it was delayed owing to financial circumstances. The much-awaited film is finally scheduled to be released on September 30.
Ponniyin Selvan novel is a huge work of galactic proportions in five volumes. Maniratnam’s aim was to adapt the same and make a film of two parts.
In 2015, a 32 min long animation movie was released based on the story of Ponniyin Selvan. Revinda Movie toons, a Chennai-based animation studio, worked on it for 8 years to produce the animation movie.
Director Radha Mohan made a movie by the name Ponniyin Selvan which was released in 2005. However, the movie which starred Revathi, Prakash Raj and Gopika among others, was not related to the Kalki Krishnamurthy novel Ponniyin Selvan.
