Agni Natchathiram

The two half brothers, sons of an upright and respected man, take opposite roads. One becomes a policeman, the other goes into crime. The film is about the two of them coming face to face, and builds it less as a chase than as a reckoning inside a family. How differently the children of a broken family take after the same father stands at the centre. Brotherhood here is not a bond but the name given to a wound. It stands apart in the Tamil cinema of 1988 for its visual language and its music. Karthik Muthuraman and Prabhu take the leads, with Amala Akkineni also in the cast. Mani Ratnam’s hundred and forty six minute Indian film was completed in 1988.