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Kamal, Raveena, Tabu team up!

Aarkay

Kamal Haasan, it would seem, just cannot keep from experimentation.

Hey! Ram, a home production, saw him pull out all the stops, attempting live dubbing and various other aspects of film making. The film, costarring Shah Rukh Khan, Rani Mukherjee and Vasundhara Das, flopped big time.

He then signed for a relatively quick film, Thenali, being helmed by K S Ravi Kumar, the man behind the most recent Rajnikanth superhit, Padayappa. That one is racing towards completion in time for a Diwali release.

Now he's moving on to a mega-budget, no-stone-unturned project.

Aala Vandhaan will be produced by Kalaipuli Dhanu, whose last outing was the Aishwarya Rai-Tabu-Ajith-Mammootty-starrer, Kandukondain Kandukondain.

By way of trivia, Dhanu appears briefly in Kamal's earlier home production, Magalir Mattum.

Dhanu is known for his no-limits budget, and for the creative freedom he gives his cast and crew. Ajith, much struck by the non-interfering working style of the producer during the making of Kandukondain, was in fact to say, "Of all the producers I've worked with, Dhanu is a class apart -- once he signs the cast and crew and is satisfied with the story, he leaves you alone to do your work, and only comes on the sets when payments have to be made."

Suresh Krishna will direct -- making this the third time he teams up with Kamal. Suresh, in fact, got his break courtesy Kamal, who signed him on for his home production, Satya. The two then teamed up again in Indran Chandran (Indradu Chandradu in Telugu, Mayor Saab in Hindi).

The story, screenplay and dialogues are by Kamal himself -- and to help put it all together, the star has had, specially flown down from Hollywood, the famed scriptwriting software from Movie Magic.

Handling the camera is Kamal's blue-eyed boy Thiru, one of the rising stars of South cinematography, and the man who handled the lens for Hey! Ram. This time round, the production values call for cutting-edge camera techniques and equipment, all of which is being imported, at considerable cost, from Hollywood.

But all that is merely peripheral -- the real hook is Kamal Haasan himself, in a dual role. One avtaar is the IAS officer. The other, and more interesting avtaar, has Kamal playing a psychopath, very much on the lines of Hannibal Lecter (Antony Hopkins) of Silence Of The Lambs.

While it is not a straight takeoff on the Hopkins movie, Kamal has adapted the serial killer theme to an Indian context, with the story revolving around the face-off between cop and killer.

The star has already begun preparing for the psychopath role. For now, besides shaving off his head entirely, a bulk of the preparation involve wolfing done mountains of high-calorie, high-carbohydrate foods in a bid to bulk up to the 100-plus kg mark. The object is to create a mast body -- if not a Schwarzenegger, then at the least a Mr Madras.

Talking of mast, Kamal's leading lady is the original mast-mast girl, Raveena Tandon. Whose only previous Tamil outing was the little remembered Saadhu, opposite Arjun. Also in the cast is Tabu, with more big names due to be signed up soon.

The film got off the blocks recently with a promo shoot orchestrated by Krishnaswamy Associates, and even there, the indications of what to expect were clear. National award-winner Sabu Cyril (who will design the sets for Aaala Vandhaan) was roped in to create the special backdrop, a state of the art pistol was flown in from the States, and Raveena and Kamal faced the cameras for a one-minute promo video.

And this, the producers say, is nothing compared to what is planned for the film's launch.

The muhurat will be staged at the Nehru Stadium, for which a day's hire is Rs 3.75 lakh. And the industry's who's who is expected to attend -- Dhanu enjoys enormous goodwill within the industry, as does Kamal.

With fellow superstar Rajnikanth expected to be present, the September 27 launch is being billed as an extravaganza to rival the best-produced awards functions in the country.

Aala Vandhaan is a bilingual (Abhay, in Hindi), with Vairamuthu and Javed Akthar penning the lyrics for the respective versions. Interestingly, both lyricists are being paid very high per-song rates -- they have this saying in Tamil, that the poet's twin brother is poverty, but that does not seem to apply any more, at least not as far as the film industry is concerned.

Shankar Mahadevan, Ehsaan and Loy, the trio who scored for Nagesh Kukkunoor's Rockford -- will compose the five songs that lace this film.

Though Pappu Verma has already been hired to handle the action sequences, Kamal then went one step further and has roped in Australia's hot shot action-and-effects specialist, Grant Page, to further enhance this element of the film.

Even ahead of its formal muhurat, the industry seems to be bullish about this project, and predict a big hit. The all-star team, Kamal's drive for perfection, Suresh Krishna's direction and the backup crew of hugely competent experts is one reason for the positive vibes. Another -- the film industry being big on precedents, omens and the like -- lies in the fact that 95 per cent of all Kamal Hassan double-roles have been big hits.

In fact, his last double role was in Shankar's Indian, and that fetched him a National Award. Earlier dual outings include the likes of Iru Nilavugal, Sattam En Kaiyil, Kalyanaraman and its sequel Japanil Kalyanaraman, Oru Kaidhiyin Diary, Indran Chandran, and Apoorva Sagotharargal (Appu Raja in Hindi) -- and almost all of them were silver jubilee hits.

Though it is an elaborate project, the makers are planning this on a war-footing, with shooting planned at a frenetic pace. The film will go on the floors with the muhurat on September 27, and Pongal (mid-January 2001) has been set as release date (failing which, it will be pushed back, maximum, to Republic Day.