Mudhalvan

Mudhalvan (English: The Chief Minister) is a 1999 Tamil language Indian political thriller film written, produced and directed by S. Shankar. The film features Arjun Sarja, Manisha Koirala and Raghuvaran in the lead roles with Manivannan, Vijayakumar and Hanifa portraying other significant roles. The film featured an award-winning soundtrack composed by A. R. Rahman, cinematography by K. V. Anand and dialogues by Sujatha. The film revolves around an ambitious TV journalist, Pughazhendi, who interviews the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu. Pughazhendi asks the tough questions, the Minister starts trembling and asks him to put his money where his mike is, and become the state CM for a day. After using up a few lifelines mentally, he agrees and does such a great job on his first day, that the voters eventually elect him to be their permanent leader. The subsequent unpopularity and jealousy that the Chief Minister goes through results in him taking revenge on Pugazhendi, and how he is stopped forms the crux of the story. The film was released on 7 November 1999, as a Deepavali release. The film enjoyed positive critical acclaim and emerged one of the top grossing Tamil film of 1999. The film ran for over 100 days in theaters and won awards on a regional scale. The film was then dubbed and released in Telugu as Oke Okkadu and later remade in Hindi as Nayak starring Anil Kapoor and in Bengali as Minister Fatakeshto.