On the surface, this is a light, frothy caper: the story of twin brothers, one of whom grew up stunted thanks to his mother imbibing poison during pregnancy, setting out to avenge the murder of their father.

Performance-wise, you could probably name a dozen films, off the top, where Kamal has been better.

What makes this film stand out, for me, is the effort he put into the conceptualisation, and creation, of that dwarf.

Though Singeetam was director of record, Kamal was effectively this film’s creative spearhead. I spent a lot of time on the sets of this one and it was as if he was everywhere -– tinkering with visual effects one minute; thinking up a new gimmick for the dwarf the next; fine tuning a scene to milk its humorous possibilities to the max.

What he did behind the scenes, even more than what he did in front of it, marked him out as a performer who was no longer content to act out the script, but felt the need to contribute more.