2021 marked the 25th year of Indian — Kamal Haasan and director Shankar’s first collaboration — about which V.T. Vijayan, one of the editors of the cult classic, once shared an interesting anecdote.

In the now iconic ‘Telephone Manipol’ song, Shankar wanted Manisha Koirala and Kamal’s faces to be transposed on the dancing penguins, but they could not pull it off due to time constraints. Shankar, who seemed to be aware of the challenges that came with VFX back in the late 90s — given that the film depended on a lot of visual effects to pull off the two characters played by Kamal — had also shot scenes of the lead characters playing with penguins which ended up in the film. Three years later, Shankar’s imagination took shape in Mudhalvan’s ‘Mudhalvanae’ song in which the film’s secondary characters appear as snakes.

Vadivelu and Manivannan’s images juxtaposed over snakes in a still from ‘Mudhalvan’| Photo Credit:@Ayngaraninternational/YouTube Pushing boundaries Past the brahmandam (grandeur) his films have become synonymous with, there’s more to Shankar’s films than lavish sets, exotic locations and idealist tropes. With a career spanning more than 30 years, after assisting filmmakers like Pavithran and SA Chandrasekhar (whose son Vijay would become his lead star in Nanban ), Shankar made his directorial debut with Gentleman in 1993. Though Gentleman is not a film one would often associate with the magnificence Shankar later became known for,.