‘A cultural phenomenon’: How Hariharan saw a trendsetter in Mammootty’s Kottayam Kunjachan while others predicted a flop | Malayalam News
For Malayalam movie audiences who grew up watching and loving Mammootty’s films, director TS Suresh Babu’s Kottayam Kunjachan (1990) holds a special place in their hearts. Although comedy has never been his forte — as clearly evident in his early movies — Mammootty never stopped trying and kept refining his skills in the domain. While he began showing improvement over time and impressed audiences in films such as Manu Uncle and Carnivel, it was Kottayam Kunjachan where he truly knocked it out of the park with comedy. His portrayal of the titular character — a local illiterate thug who wishes to turn over a new leaf — was extraordinary. Thanks to the script’s innate humour and the impressive weaving of the Kottayam dialect into it, which was uncommon in Malayalam cinema until then, the action-comedy impressed everyone and became a blockbuster. However, Kottayam Kunjachan was one of those movies in which even its makers had little hope. While the producer who initially took it up abandoned it during the discussion stage itself, the movie’s eventual …
