Samuthiram (meaning Ocean) has completed a glorious 20 years. The super hit 2001 Indian Tamil-language drama film was written by Erode Soundar and directed by K. S. Ravikumar.
Samuthiram was a huge hit with a stellar cast of Sarath Kumar, Murali, Manoj Bharathiraja, Kaveri, Abhirami, Sindhu Menon and Monal. The film’s score and soundtrack are composed by Sabesh–Murali.
The film was released on 31 August 2001. The film was remade in Telugu as Siva Rama Raju with Jagapathi Babu, in Bengali as Kartabya, and in Kannada as Paramashiva with V. Ravichandran. Even though it got mixed reviews, it became a “superhit” at the box office
Samuthiram – the super hit film completed 20 years
Here are five interesting facts about Samuthiram:
1) Samuthiram completes 20 years: The emotional drama written by Erode Soundar and directed by KS Ravikumar, Samuthiram had terrific star cast comprising Sarathkumar, Murali, Manoj Bharathiraja, Kaveri, Abhirami, Sindhu Menon and Monal.
The film’s rise to popularity when it got released was due to a superb narration of brothers-sister sentiment. The film was remade in Telugu as Siva Rama Raju, Kannada as Paramashiva, and Bengali as Kartabya.
2) Sabesh-Murali made their debut as composers with Samuthiram
Composer duo Sabesh-Murali, who had earlier scored the background music for their brother composer Deva, made their full-fledged debut as composers with the film. The album had five songs Kaa Vitta (sung by Mano and Anuradha Sriram), Kandupidi (Hariharan and Ganga), Azhagana Chinna Devathai (Shankar Mahadevan and Harini), Vidiya Vidiya (Udit Narayanan and Sadhana Sargam) and Pineapple Kannathodu (Shankar Mahadevan and Sujatha)
3) The brother-sister sentiment made this film a box office hit
The brother-sister sentiment might have have gone a bit montonous at times, but it led to remakes in Telugu, Kannada and Bengali. While the Telugu version Siva Rama Raju had Nandamuri Balakrishna, Jagapathi Babu, Venkat, Sivaji and Monica as part of the star cast, the Kannada version Paramashiva had Ravichandran in the lead. In Bengali, the film was titled Kartbya and had Prosenjit Chatterjee, Rachna Banerjee, Lokesh Ghosh and Tapas Paul.
4) KS Ravikumar took over from RB Choudhry and financed early parts of the film
It is said that the film’s producer RB Choudhry had faced some financial problems during the shoot, which led to the film’s director KS Ravikumar funding the first schedule of the film. The producer thanked the director for his gesture at the audio launch of the film. The film was released on August 31. Though it received mixed reviews by the critics, it was a declared a success at the box office.
5) For actor Murali’s Samuthiram became second brother sentiment drama
A few months before the release of the film, Murali had acted in another film laced with brother-sentiment drama titled Aanandham. In both the films, he plays the second brother. While the former had Mammootty as his elder sibling, Samudhiram had Sarath Kumar as the anna. Rambha had played Murali’s wife in Aanandham and Sindhu Menon portrayed the role of his wife in Samuthiram. The film also had its share of comedy, with Goundamani and Senthil handling the mantle.
