MGR’s Re-Mastered AAYIRATHIL ORUVAN Silver Jubilee, A Rare Distinction!

In today’s era when even a Rs 200 crore movie, is unable to run for 25 days in cinema houses, late Tamil superstar MGR’s digitally re-mastered movie AAYIRATHIL ORUVAN has created a record run of Silver Jubilee (175 days) in couple of theatres in Chennai! 

To celebrate the occasion, a grand music programme featuring popular orchestra Lakshman Sruthi playing MGR’s greatest hits was held at Kamarajar Arangam on Monday evening with stars like Sarath Kumar, P Vasu etc. attending the event. 

G Chokkalingam of Divya Films, the firm that restored this film, said, “Today’s generation is not even aware of the term Silver Jubilee, which in the past was the benchmark of a hit movie. Hence the Silver Jubilee run of AAYIRATHIL ORUVAN is of more importance.” 

Applauding the Silver Jubilee celebration event of the movie, he said, “The event was indeed a great tribute to legendary actor MGR.” 

He informed, “ I am happier particularly because when the movie was first released in 1965 and run for over a year, we were unable to have functions to celebrate the milestone because of the anti-Hindi agitations that broke out then forcing the film producers to curtail celebrations. So I am happy that we are able to celebrate our Puratchithalaivar’s (MGR’s sobriquet) success so many years later.” 

Originally the movie AAYIRATHIL ORUVAN was conceived in 1962 and was released in 1965 in Black and white. It was M. G. Ramachandran's first film with the 14 year old, Jayalalithaa. The astounding success of the movie later made the M.G.R. - Jayalalitha pair the best in the country and they acted together in 28 films. 

AAYIRATHIL ORUVAN, a swashbuckling action-adventure film about sea-pirates and independence achieved against a cruel tyrant was a super duper hit when released. It was digitally restored and re-release in January 2014. Apart from scope conversion from 35mm to digital scope, the film also had a completely re-recorded background music played out by an assistant of M. S. Viswananthan. The digital conversion was done by Prasad EFX, Chennai, who had previously restored KARNAN and PAASA MALAR.