Risky Project Titled ‘Valmiki’

The title and the logo of Harish Shankar’s next movie are out. The movie is titled ‘Valmiki’ starring Varun Tej in the lead. ‘Valmiki’ will be the official remake of Tamil gangster comedy-drama ‘Jigarthanda’ written and directed by ‘Petta’ director Karthik Subbaraju. The movie also came as a dubbed version in Telugu as ‘Chikkadu Dorakadu’.

Harish Shankar is attempting a remake of this movie that had a dubbed release in Telugu. But, the dubbed version didn’t do well in the Telugu States because the subject was rich in Tamil flavour. In Tamil, it was a critically acclaimed movie not only for the novel concept but for the terrific performances of Bobby Simha as the gangster and Siddharth as an aspiring director. One can clearly see that Harish Shankar is attempting something that doesn’t look promising.

Taking a movie like ‘Jigarthanda’ for a remake is a big risky choice on the part of the director. Can Harish deal with this kind of different subject that has too much violence in a way that can cater to the tastes of Telugu audiences? It’s not a routine masala action drama that Harish did before. ‘Jigardthanda’ actually brought fame to Karthik Subbaraju as one of the exciting filmmakers of our times.