Sandakozhi celebrated 18 years of release earlier this week. This film holds a special place in director N Lingusamy’s career as it helped him bounce back after Ji (2005) was met with box office disaster due to Tamil superstar Ajith Kumar being in the cast.
Vishal was instantly elevated by Lingusamy’s film Sandakozhi as one of Tamil cinema’s premier action heroes and continues to reap its benefits even today. Vishal posted earlier to commemorate its anniversary: “Can’t describe or even put into words how overwhelmed and emotional I feel today, marking 18 years since Sandakozhi started my career on silver screen 18 years ago on Dec 16th 2005 as an action hero in Tamil cinema through this beautiful #Sandakozhi on silver screen… no looking back for me since then… only love and affection from one and all! #Sandakozhi”.
Vishal found himself cast in Sandakozhi completely by chance when other top stars turned down the film. Lingusamy shared some interesting events leading up to its creation and revealed interesting details of its creation process in recent interviews.
Lingusamy originally cast Thalapathy Vijay in the role of Balu, son of powerful village leader Duraipandi Thevar; however, Vijay found Rajkiran’s character too challenging and stopped listening after its introduction – at which point Lingusamy asked Vijay to watch through to make up his mind about whether to continue or make another decision after Rajkiran entered the picture – according to Behindwoods reports.
Lingusamy then presented his story to Suriya. At first, director Bala intended for Suriya to bankroll the project with him leading it; unfortunately due to financial restrictions this didn’t materialise. When Lingusamy began considering only top stars as lead candidates for Lingusamy’s casting of Vishal as lead actor Lingusamy approached Vishal instead with an offer.
Lingusamy noted his uncertainty regarding casting Vishal in such an impactful role; even his assistant directors felt this character was above Vishal’s pay grade. But Lingusamy decided to take a gamble on him, trusting in his script; this gamble paid off when the film ran for nearly one year in Tamil Nadu and established Vishal as an action hero.
After seeing Vishal in action in his film, Lingusamy met Vijay at a party and offered his congratulations for its success. When Lingusamy expressed displeasure with Vijay not playing Vishal instead of him in this project, Vijay reassured him by telling him Vishal was perfect and that the industry needed such heroes in hero roles, according to Lingusamy’s account of their conversation.
Lingusamy understood Vijay’s point; he realized that Vijay’s stardom may have overshadowed his talent as a director. If Vijay had directed, this film might have become another Vijay vehicle; but, due to my success with Vishal and an unknown actress like the latter it demonstrated my talent among audiences,” Lingusamy explained.
Lingusamy noted that following Sandakozhi’s success, Telugu superstar Chiranjeevi attempted to acquire remake rights in order to launch Ram Charan’s acting career and Allu Aravind asked Lingusamy and Allu Arjun to remake it with them for release in Telugu as Pandem Kodi in 2006. Both attempts proved unsuccessful but Pandem Kodi went on to become an immense success among audiences worldwide.
