Peruchazhi | |
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Directed by | Arun Vaidyanathan |
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Produced by | |
Starring | |
Cinematography | Arvind Krishna |
Edited by | Vivek Harshan |
Music by | Arrora |
Production company | |
Distributed by |
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Release date |
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Running time | 154 minutes |
Country | India |
Language | Malayalam |
Peruchazhi (transl. Bandicoot) is a 2014 Indian Malayalam-language political satire film written and directed by Arun Vaidyanathan. The dialogues were co-written by Ajayan Venugopalan. Vijay Babu and Sandra Thomas produced the film for Friday Film House. It features Mohanlal in the lead role, and Sean James Sutton, Ragini Nandwani, Mukesh, Baburaj, Aju Varghese, and Vijay Babu appear in supporting roles. Arrora composed the background score and soundtrack, while Arvind Krishna and Vivek Harshan did the cinematography and editing. The film received mostly negative reviews from critics.
Jagannathan (Mohanlal), an Indian politician is good at solving problems using his wit and unorthodox ideas. To get rid of him, fellow politician Francis Kunjappan (Mukesh) offers him a task he has never done before in the United States which could give him enough money to fulfill his dream of owning a sports academy. Jagannathan ends up being the chief political adviser for a struggling candidate, John Kory (Sean James Sutton), in the California governor's election campaign and uses tactics standard in Indian politics to help win the election.
Vaidyanathan got the story idea when he watched a political debate on television in the United States. He originally wrote the screenplay in Tamil and English. Ajayan Venugopalan translated it into Malayalam in 2013. The same year the film was announced, he converted it into a Malayali context. Principal photography began in mid-April 2014 in Kollam, Kerala. Set almost entirely in the United States, the majority of the film was shot in Burbank, California. Some parts were shot in Trivandrum and Kochi, where filming wrapped in July 2014.
Peruchazhi was released worldwide on 29 August 2014 on 500 screens, the widest release for a Malayalam film at the time. It was distributed in Kerala by Friday Tickets, and by Fox Star Studios in the rest of India. The film had a good opening at the box office however couldn't keep up the collections at the box-office and ended up an average grosser. The film was released on DVD on 22 December 2014.