Vada Manjuvirattu found its lead in the one man unafraid of the bull

Vada Manjuvirattu, a rural drama named for the bull-taming sport at its heart, has its trailer and songs out, and how the lead role ended up with a newcomer became the talking point of the launch. Director Sangili CPA said he first took the story to Vimal, then to Kalaiyarasan, Dharshan, Vikranth and others, and all of them cited dates. The honest reason, he said, was the bull. Sharing the frame with a live animal put them off, and Muruga Ashok was the one who agreed without hesitation. Yazhini Murugan came in the same way, signing on to act alongside the bull after others had backed off.

Produced by Pudhugai A. Palanichamy under Azhagar Pictures, the film has Ashok in the lead with Yazhini Murugan, Pakoda Pandi and Namo Narayanan in the cast, Eswaran Karthikeyan on camera and Mukesh Munisamy on music. The title points to the version of the sport it shows: vadam is the rope, the same word for the one that pulls a temple chariot, and a bull run on that tether is a safer form of the contest than the open kind. Stunt director Mirattal Selva, who has staged action for several established heroes, called building the fights around the bulls the hardest and most memorable work he has done.

Director Perarasu used his turn to make a broader case: an actor becomes a complete hero only after a village story. He ran through the lineage, MGR with Madurai Veeran, Sivaji Ganesan with Pattikada Pattanama, Rajinikanth with Murattu Kaalai, Kamal Haasan with Sakalakala Vallavan, Vijay with Ghilli, Ajith with Veeram, Suriya with Singam and Karthi with Paruthiveeran, films he said carried each of them to the top. He placed Ashok in that line and read Vada Manjuvirattu as made out of conviction rather than vanity, not a vehicle built to install someone’s son or brother.

Ashok called the evening a family gathering. A bull named Pattani features in the film, and people from the region who speak its dialect acted alongside the cast. One bull-tamer he met on location told him it was either victory or a hero’s death, and the line made it into the film. He praised Yazhini, who admitted the dialect and the physicality of the role were the hard parts until the crew eased her in, and he credited Mukesh Munisamy, a Chennai composer who balked at a village score before being driven deep into the countryside to write it, songs that run from folk and festival numbers to a lament for a dead cow.

R.V. Udayakumar, secretary of the Tamil Film Directors’ Association, turned the talk toward the trade, pressing producers to chase good stories and good directors instead of bad bets, and flagging high ticket prices as a reason audiences stay home. The launch closed on a vote of confidence for Sangili: even before Vada Manjuvirattu reaches screens, a separate set of producers handed him a ten lakh rupee advance on stage to direct their next film.