Nayagan is loosely based on the real-life Bombay underworld don Varadarajan Mudaliar, it sympathetically depicts the struggle of South Indians living in Bombay, Nayagan was directed by Mr. Mani Rathnam and released in the year 1987. With Ulaganayagan Kamal Haasan playing the lead, the movie also stars Saranya Ponvannan, Karthika, Nassar, Janagaraj, Delhi Ganesh and Tinnu Anand. The soundtrack and the background score of the film, composed by Ilaiyaraaja were critically acclaimed and considered by critics as one of his best works to that point.
Ulaganayagan Kamal Haasan also won the National Film Award for Best Actor. The film also earned the National Awards for Best Cinematography (P. C. Sriram) and Best Art Direction (Thotta Tharani). The film was India’s official submission for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1988 at the 60th Academy Awards.
In 2005, the magazine TIME included Nayakan in its list of “All-Time 100 Best Films”. The film was also included in The Moving Arts Film Journal’s list of greatest films of all time. Nayagan was also included in NDTV’s list “India’s 20 greatest films”. CNN-IBN included the film in its list of “100 greatest Indian films of all time”.
The film was dubbed in Telugu under the title Nayakudu. It was also remade in Hindi as Dayavan in 1988. A Hindi dub of the film was released in 1999 as Velu Nayakan.
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